A Little of This A Little of That

It's been a little while since I've written anything about my Austrian adventures...for good reason...I've been super busy!! My days are pretty much spent playing with the kids and trying to be a good conversational English model. Keeping up with 3 energetic children is a challenge sometimes, but I'm getting the hang of it (I hope!)...and they seem to really like me, so that's a plus!

The weather has finally cooled down some so it has been nice to spend so much time outside...especially in a place that is THIS beautiful!!

Last Sunday I took a hike with the family I'm staying with and a former tutor of theirs who was visiting for the weekend (shout-out to Becca!!) from near where I'm staying to somewhere in the Czech Republic. Sadly, I don't know too much about the significance of the hike (and it does have special significance for the people who were on the hike) but it was a nice way to spend a Sunday morning. The weather was nice, the scenery was beautiful, there were breaks for eating and for singing (seriously amazing singing!!) and the hike ended up at a church where we attended the service. It was mostly in German with some Czech from time to time so it was hard for me to really understand what was going on sometimes, but it was a beautiful service nonetheless. After church we had an amazing home-cooked meal (every meal I've had here is pretty amazing!! Austrians have amazing cuisine!) and played with the kids outside. The day ended with folk dancing, of course! I'm going to enjoy getting to go to the folk dancing practices every Sunday. It is really awesome to watch the dancers and the music is pretty great too!

On Tuesday, with some much-appreciated help from Becca, I ventured to Vienna!! It was my first time solo sightseeing without any plan and without knowing where I was going...which was a little scary, but soooo worth it! Vienna is one of those places that I've always known I would visit so why not make my first visit a solo visit?? Since I'm terrible at reading maps, I knew that having a map of the city wouldn't do me much good (I had one anyway, but didn't use it) so my plan was to start from a central point and just start walking. It ended up being a great plan! I randomly stumbled upon many of the major Vienna sights as well as some interesting back alleyways and amazing parks. I found a grocery store, bought a few picnic items and decided to have a picnic...I actually had 2 picnics, one in the Volksgarten among the roses and the other somewhere near the Hofburg Palace. It was an amazing whirlwind tour of an amazing city and I can't wait to go back!!

That is about all my brain has the capacity to write at this time...it has become a garbled mess of German and English and I sometimes have trouble coming up with coherent sentences...so I will close for now.
Tschüss!!
(: