I encourage everyone who reads this to participate in the US government by voting in the general election a month from tomorrow!
For those of you who aren't in your hometowns for election day, votefromabroad.org is an excellent resource for absentee voting, and it's not too late!
Propaganda aside, I'm finally finally finally posting more photos! These photos are still from the infamous first two weeks of travel, because the internet in my apartment is too slow for me to upload Torino and Roma pictures to Flickr, but I will try to have
28 August, 2008
We spent the day wandering about Munich with no clear purpose.
We had sausage and fried potatoes for breakfast that morning, at a stall next to this flower stand.
Walking around Munich – look, it’s the Frauenkirche!
Lyndon and Brandon stopped to buy raspberries and antics ensued.
We wandered into this garden place that was surrounded by arcades. Arcades of the column variety, not the videogame variety.
More of the garden.
This dome was in the middle of the garden.
Inside the domed building were some fishy-looking fountains.
I kept seeing this building from afar, and taking pictures of it in all its crazy, curli-cue glory. I still don’t know what it is, but it makes me happy.
We went to the Pinakothek der Moderne, a museum of modern art and architecture. This is the ceiling in the museum’s main atrium. They had some interesting exhibits with original drawings from some cool architects, and a really fascinating antique furniture exhibit, but other than that I thought the place left something to be desired.
That night we went to the largest biergarten in Munich – Hirschgarten. It seats 18,000 people, although there were probably only a few thousand there the night we went. I got ½ hendl (half a hen) and German potato salad. So delicious. The boys all had fries and wurst.
I tried to capture a bit of the biergarten. We were near the edge, so imagine rows and rows of these tables behind me (the person taking the picture). This is Brandon, Heath, and Lyndon still, by the way. This biergarten is amazing, by the way, and you should go there if you ever go to Munich.
We stayed at the biergarten for a long time that night. Not drinking heavily, just people-watching and being part of the fantastic ambience that places like that have. Afterwards, we went back to the hostel, where we used the internet and hung out for awhile, at which point I convinced Lyndon to accompany me to the hostel bar. We met a few Aussies and an Irish guy who, like us, were traveling around Europe. All of the people in our hostel seemed to be young and chipper and eager to be out in the world. Meeting and chatting with people in the hostel bar turned out to be a great way to spend an evening.
29 August, 2008
On the morning of the 29th, the boys and I woke up just in time to catch our late-morning train to Vienna. The ride there, through the Alps, was beautiful, and I wish I had pictures, but my camera doesn’t do through-a-moving-train-window shots very well. We got there in the afternoon, and after settling in and having a kebab dinner, it was dark out. So, all of my pictures from the sightseeing walk we took look terrible, because my camera hates darkness. All I’ve got from that day are the following:
We had to split up into groups of two because Lyndon and Heath made reservations before Brandon and I, and by the time we tried to do it, it was too late. So we were in different hostels, but it was fine. They were fairly close to one another. These are Brandon and me in our hostel room. We’ve got on our “oh god, it was quite a hike to get to this hostel and we have too much luggage” faces. We’re geeks.
And the only other picture is through the window of a bread shop we passed. It’s a turtle-shaped bread! A bit like the one Mom and I made a few days before I left for Europe. Homesickness strikes at odd times. <3
30 August, 2008
Our first full day in Vienna! We spent the day wandering, just like we did our last day in Munich. I’m sorry there are so many pictures of buildings, I promise there are more people in my Italian pictures! Just wait for it.
A shot down a Viennese street.
There was some sort of film festival going on at this building, Rathaus, and there was a gigantic food court with “international” foods – a stall for each of several dozen countries. Of course there was plenty of beer and wine as well.
We had lunch there. I had some sort of Caesar salad in an edible bowl. It was yummy. Lyndon makes ridiculous faces.
Here’s a shot of the food court.
After lunch, we happened upon the Austrian parliament building, in all its Greco-Roman splendor.
It was very bright out, and Brandon just so happens to be a rock star.
Boys on the steps of Parliament. Classic Lyndon photo stance included. Heath and Brandon are the epitome of casual.
Me and Athena hanging out in front of the Parliament building.
We discovered a rose garden near the Parliament building and had a rest.
Random statue and cupola.
This is Loos Haus, designed by Adolf Loos, a crazy crazy man. We spent days talking about this building in our architectural history class. It was completely astonishing to stumble upon it in the middle of Vienna, although I guess if I’d paid closer attention I might’ve known it was there. This sort of thing happens a lot in Europe, I later realized.
St. Stephan’s as seen from a side alley.
Shot of a walking street with shops. Look at the superimposition of modern and old architecture. Cool.
I was standing in a crowd watching street performers, and I saw a little girl let go of her balloon. Photo op! The sky obliged by being beautiful.
St. Stephan’s Cathedral. We went into the cathedral, but none of my interior photos turned out. =(
‘Nother street shot.
I like flower stalls. =)
So there you have it! Three days in one post! The next photo post I make will be Venice photos, complete with people, so you’ll get to see all the jolly people with whom I’ve been living and working for the past month (Lyndon, Heath, and Brandon are three of those people, by the way).
Hope to be posting again soon,
Love,
Rachel
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