Vienna, Austria

I'm back! Vacation is officially over :(  But at least there are the pictures.

I said this about Prague, and now I'll say it about Vienna: it wasn't on my "must see" list (we only went for a friend's wedding) but it was amazing. Could have done without the heatwave and definitely without the George Bush visit that shut down half the city. Everything else was fantastic.

RE: Bush, check out this dude and his balloon...

I should state that we kicked it all off in a great way by watching the US/Italy game at the airport bar - which of course we tied. It was the fullest, rowdiest airport bar I've ever been a part of! Here we are..

We spent the first half of the trip in the heart of the old city at a boutique hotel called the Hollmann-Beletage. What a joy that place is. And it's ideal if other people you know are staying there too because they only have one floor and all the rooms are around the central living space and dining room. The chalkboards on the outside of the rooms make for easy notes to each other too. The staff is incredibly friendly and helpful. Just don't lose a key like we did - 50 euros to replace! ouch.

We spent Monday tooling around the city - our hopes of expanding our cultural horizons were quickly dampened as we discovered all museums are closed on Mondays. So we enjoyed the very old, very important buildings from the outside and read descriptions about the insides. Lunch at the nachtmart was delicious. We cooled off within the Albertina, the only open gallery we could find.

Enjoy some pics of very old, very important things.

 

 

 

More to come soon -

Deep Creek, MD

The trend of destination weddings continues. Last weekend wasn't too far - Deep Creek, MD...I suppose 3 hours doesn't constitute "destination" but since neither the bride nor groom are from there, it kind of was.  Nice little area - check out the "Lake Cam".

We stayed at WISP and had a pleasant view of the mountain side (but should they really call it a mountain???). Here are more webcams so you can track the conditions all year long. It was fine, functional. Can't think of any reason to ever return to that particular hotel.

 Unfortunately the weekend brought much colder weather than any of us had anticipated. Here's how it went:

--Pre-wedding: hmmm, seems breezy and overcast. Nah, it'll warm up.
--Wedding: man, that wind is really whipping across the lake. The bridesmaids are getting windburn... maybe my strappy sundress was a bad idea.
--Reception: that rain is really coming down. Think we can make it across the lawn (mud) in my heals without wiping out? More wine please!

Fortunately the rain subsided fairly quickly and we enjoyed smores around the fire and dancing on the floating dock.



And now the bride and groom are enjoying themselves in St. Lucia, so really, all's good. And look how lovely.
  
                  
 
Only ONE MORE WEEK until Vienna, Austria. The occasion you ask?  One guess...