Vienna Part 2

These are all pictures of Schloss Schonbrunn, the summer house of the Hapsburgs, about 4 miles from the city center.

"If you start to take Vienna, take Vienna"- Napoleon

Here are a few pictures of Vienna. I'll try not to be too wordy this time, but seriously, this is me, so no promises! And blogger is being funny, so I hope I label these in the right order:

1. Vienna Parliament Building

2. The Manner Schnitten Store- full of all things Manner. I didn't buy anything, though. I still had a lot of walking to do that day and didn't want to load my backpack up with too much chocolate. I planned on going back later, but the I didn't. But I had no idea they made so much besides the original Manner Schnitten Bar.

3. Hundertwasser Haus- An apartment building designed to fight the ordinary. Even the road in front of the building was curvy and bumpy.

4. This street sign reminded me of a lot a family gatherings, campouts, etc.

5. The building where Beethoven lived and composed.

I'm Thankful For...

Since it's November, it's time for a thankful list (and these are not in any particular order):

I'm thankful...

for chocolate powder in the cereal bar at the hotel breakfast.

for a really great forest with good walking trails just a few minutes from my hotel.

for good friends.

that I have nothing bigger to worry about than choosing between a fat wad of cash and new car or keeping a good job.

for good tennis shoes.

for yogurt.

for family.

for warm weather.

for Relief Society.

for Skype.

that I wasn't in Michigan last weekend.

for good music.

for quiet Sunday afternoons.

for public transportation.

for Lake Michigan.

and much more...

Be warned- this is not an exciting post!

I wasn't going to post today, because I don't have a lot to say, but then I put in my Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young CD, and it just makes me feel all sentimental. So now I feel like writing something. A few weeks ago my RS president told me that one of the old dukes had seen Redwood trees in California (or maybe he just heard about them, because it was a couple hundred years ago, and I don't know if people travelled to California back then) and liked them so much that he had some imported to Stuttgart and planted in a little forest area near one of his palaces. This afternoon I decided to go find his redwoods. I didn't find them, but I did find a great place for trail walking. There was even more oxygen than cigarette smoke in the air, which is something of a rarity in Europe, so I might become a regular in this forest.
Now, for some random interesting things about Germany:
1. Unlike in America, where lunchtime consists of sneaking away from your desk just long enough to fill your water bottle, and then eating a peanut butter sandwich while working on spreadsheets, lunch is big deal in Germany. The whole office (there are about thirty of us) goes together. All the guys put on their suit coats (the only time of the day they wear them), and we sit together at a few tables in the cafeteria and talk about anything other than work.
2. People love to be outside. Even now, when it's fairly cold outside, everybody eats outside at all the cafes. The cafes keep lap blankets on all their seats so people can eat out. There's a little neighborhood park down the street from my hotel. On one end is a bocci ball court (lawn bowling). I've never seen it not in use. There are always four or five guys playing (sometimes old, sometimes young), and the wives sit on the side and talk. Across from this game, there's always somebody playing with their dog, and on the other end there are always several people with walkers and wheelchairs gathered for a chat.
3. (This one may be offensive to some of you, I don't know) Public defacation doesn't seem to be a problem. One day I was out walking on a dirt road. There were lots of people out walking (see interesting point 2). I came to a cross-ways and looked up the other trail, and somebody was doing a number 2. They weren't off the trail at all. They were just standing off to the side doing what they had to do. The next day I was walking home from the train station. It was dark, but there were lots of people about. One guy was standing off to the side of the sidewalk, just staring across a park. I tried to figure out what he was staring at, so I stared too as I walked past, and then I realized he was doing a number 1. Just out in the open for anybody to see. Weird!
4. I found out the drinking age here is 16! My coworkers were shocked when I told them it's 21 in America. One of them said, "What about for beer?" I answered, "21". Then another asked, still shocked, "what about for wine and champagne?" They just couldn't believe we have to wait so long to drink any alcohol. I couldn't believe they don't see a problem with letting kids start drinking at the same time they start driving.
5. Fashion here is gross. All the women (okay, maybe not all, but certainly more than half) wear jeans tight enough to be painted on, with knee-high boots over them. For work, the jeans become twill or tweed or whatever to dress it up, but it's the same idea. They all look like they're going out for a horse riding lesson or something. At least I'm not tempted to shop.
6. It doesn't seem right not to mention cabbage while I'm talking about Germany. They put cabbage in their kebabs here! I'm used to kebabs with hummus and peppers and maybe carrots and pickles. But I had one today with two different kinds of cabbage! It must be the national food or something. Some people in my ward told me a few weeks ago that they had gone to the travelling cabbage festival. It goes from town to town and celebrates the cabbage harvest. I can appreciate that.
So, if any of you managed to stay awake through all that, I'm done now. Maybe next time I'll have something real to blog about.

...and some more Rome..

1. A view of the Colosseum from Palatine Hill. I think Palatine Hill was my favorite place. It was so pretty, it had great views of Rome on all sides, and it wasn't nearly as crowded as a lot of the tourist sites.

2. A ceiling in one of the hallways at the Vatican Museum. All the buildings have painted ceilings like this. No wonder so many great renaissance artists were in Rome! Every little church needed paintings, and each painting takes years! It's great job security.

3. The Spanish steps. I don't really know what the significance of the Spanish Steps is, but they were pretty and provided a great view of the western side of Rome.

4. The Trevi Fountain. Basically a huge sculpture and fountain in its own little piazza. According to Rick Steves, the Romans built this just to celebrate their knowledge of aqueducts. It really is amazing to think they built this gigantic fountain in the middle of the city hundreds of years ago.

5. St. Peters Basilica, in the Vatican City. This church has Peter's tomb, and a huge shrine dedicated to him. It was dark inside the church, so those pictures didn't turn out well. But it looked a lot like any other huge, overly ornate shrine you'd find in other old churches. St. Peters Basilica is huge, though. It's like a stadium, only with all kinds of paintings and sculptures all over the walls and ceilings. And the floors (in all the buildings, including my hotel) are covered in mosiacs. They were really pretty.

Next stop: Vienna!

More Rome Pictures

1. "School of Athens" by Raphael. It's my favorite painting and the main reason I wanted to go to Rome. It covers a wall of what used to be a room in the private apartment of the old popes. That room is now part of the Vatican Museum. I also saw the Sistine Chapel, but we weren't allowed to take pictures. Anyway, you've seen pictures of it before.

2. Original bronze door on one of the political buildings in the Roman Forum- from the days of Julius Caesar.

3. The Roman Forum- the ancient political and religious center of Rome. Now it's a collection of ruins of political buildings and temples. Notice how amazing the weather is. The first day it rained all afternoon, but the second day it sprinkled a little and then was sunny and perfect the rest of the day. It was around 75 degrees, a welcome change from the snow in Germany the day before. Also notice how green the landscape is. Cyprus trees and another kind of tree (the kind in the background in this picture) are all over. It was so pretty! It turns out the Mediterranean Sea is just a little ways away. I had no idea I was going to the Mediterranean! I need to study my geography.

4. Piazza del Popolo- Around just about every corner is a piazza. Basically just a big carless square with a sculpture or monument in the middle and cool buildings all around. It was so neat to be walking down the street past shops and cafes and then look up and see some ancient or renaissance building. There's so much history scattered about the city.

5. The chains that held Peter when he was in prison. These are in a church dedicated to Peter. I also went to the prison, but the pictures aren't very good. Prisoners were let into the prison through a small hole in the roof, and lowered by ropes about 30 feet to a dark, damp, smelly cell in the basement. It was gross. The column that Peter was chained to is still there, enshrined in a glass case.

Viva la Roma!

I don't know if Viva la Roma means anything, but it sounded good. Rome is an interesting place. It actually reminded me a lot of New York, only a little older. There are no lanes in the roads. Cars and motorcycles and pedestrians just go where ever they fit, and nobody sees a problem with that. The gelato wasn't as good as I expected. I got nutella gelato on my first day and ate it in the rain on the sidewalk. It looked like it had swirls of nutella, but it just tasted like plain jane vanilla, and anybody who knows me well knows that I consider vanilla ice cream to be a waste of calories. I want flavor! The pizza, however was awesome! The first day, I only had a few hours to get in and out of the Vatican before it closed for the weekend, so I was in a mad dash to eat anything and get there. I got pizza from a street vendor, and it was a mistake. If you get pizza to go, they cut it in half, put the halves together like a sandwich, and heat it up. Good idea, right? But street vendor pizza is floppy and flavorless. So sad. But the next day I had cafe pizza, and it was a whole different story! From the 10 or so varieties, I chose potato pizza. It was crust, shredded potatoes, rosemary, lots of olive oil, and some kind of cheese. I've tried making that kind of pizza before, but this was way better than mine ever is. I'll have to try again. Surprisingly, that's all the Roman food I ate. You'd think walking for 5-10 hours straight in one day would make a person hungry, but with all the cigarette smoke floating around, I didn't have much of an appetite. Next interesting thing: on any given day, I think there are way more tourists in Rome than actual residents. And there's an easy way to tell American tourists from European- Americans wear color. Everybody else wears black. I can't imagine having a whole wardrobe of just black. How boring! Hmm...I'm sure there are more interesting things I could tell you, but let's get to the pictures. If I left anything out that you want to know, ask me. I was going to try to add my pictures in a slide show, but I don't know how. If anybody knows, will you tell me? That way I won't have to weed through all my pictures for the best few. Until then, the above pictures are: 1. the Pantheon- I got there right after it closed, so I didn't get to inside. It turns out Nov 1 is All Saints Day, so a lot of stuff was either closed or closed early that day. Bummer. 2. Palatine Hill, where all the old emperors and politicians built their palaces. It's an amazing collection of ruins. One palace had its own personal stadium in the back yard, and the foundation is still there. This particular picture shows the ruins of the house of Romulus, the founder of Rome. I don't know how old it is, but it's pretty old. 3. Constantine Arch, between the Colosseum and Palatine Hill. Constantine built this arch to commemorate his victory over some Pagan army, and thus the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of Rome (Holy Roman Empire). 4 and 5. The Colloseum. The walls coming up from the floor of the Colosseum were under ground. All sorts of wild animals were kept there and then raised to the ground level on elevators, where they would pop out and attack the gladiators. It seems pretty gruesome that all of Rome (75,000-90,000 could fit inside) would turn out to watch somebody die by animal attack, but then I remember what half the movies out there are about today. We haven't changed at all. I'll post some more pictures in another blog, because it's only letting me post 5 at a time.