Day 25, 26, 27, 28, & 29 - Austria (Vienna & Salzburg)

Hallo from Vienna, Austria!  We landed in this beautiful city on Thanksgiving week and are finding it to be a wonderful mix of German, Hungarian, and Austrian culture.  Music fills the air in this city, where Beethovan, Strauss, and Mozart (among many others), made their mark on this city in their day, playing operas for audiences past.  Today, their presence and music is well displayed, with performing arts taking the forefront on the list of things to do in this city.

We settled in on walking around the city the first day, visiting a Viennese museum, the Kunsthistorisches, housing the largest and most varied collection of art in Vienna.  We opted for the audio tour, listening to the histories of all the artifacts collected for the museum from ancient Egypt to modern graffiti art.  Before we knew it, two hours had passed and we’d barely reached the second floor of four floors of exhibits!  We then moved onto a cafe at the top of the a city mall, overlooking Vienna in all of its splendor, sipping on a Weiner Melange (like a cappuccino) and locally brewed beers while watching the sun set as the buildings of Vienna light up in the night sky.

Ballets, Operas, and Symphonies, Oh my!  Ines is in heaven looking for tickets to this and that, having to translate the German summaries into English to know what we might attend.  Korey had to remind her that we are only in Vienna for three days.  We settled on Mozart’s Opera, Don Giovanni, in German and Italian with German subtitles.  Korey states that we are not going to know what is going on, and Ines reminds him that he is going to have to “feel” the music and interpret for himself the story, and promises she will read him the summary afterward.  We both enjoyed the opera very much and were pleasantly surprised to have followed the story almost to its online interpretation!  Yay for us.  Ines thinks the cultures and artistic parts of our brains expanded by a few cells, Korey agrees.

We had a wonderful surprise while in Vienna, with friends serendipitously meeting us for an evening!  Martin and Gary just so happened to have their yearly trip to Europe accidentally coincide with our journey and for one night, in the city of Vienna!  We spent the evening strolling through the “Vienna Magic of Advent”, Austria’s version of the Christmas Market and having a traditional Viennese dinner of stewed meet and Weinerschnitzel.  We shut the place down over cappuccinos and chocolate and apricot cake.  What a wonderful surprise and much needed so close to Thanksgiving, making us even more privileged to be able to spend this time traveling and exploring the world.

The next day, Thanksgiving Day, we were off to visit the town of Salzburg, Austria.  We noticed more of a police presence traveling, with frequent passport checks, particularly as we move across country borders.  We were only able to spend one day in Salzburg and we both agree this is a city to come back to another time.  We filled our bellies with another Weinerschnitzel meal (and for those of you reading this from New Mexico, it is not the Weinerschnitzel you are thinking of, no chili cheese covered hot dogs here!  We are talking about the Viennese version of a breaded and baked veal cutlet, served with boiled parsley potatoes and sauerkraut).  And then, with full bellies, we decided to climb up the steep Salzburg hill to tour their salt-protecting fortress/castle, complete with a torture chamber and a prince’s quarter.  Ines barely made it up the hill and blamed the planner for the unwise decision to fill her belly then demand what equalled a strenuous workout.  Ines debated whether the Prince’s quarter was actually a man-cave and Korey debated whether Ines would talk to him for the rest of the day.

We ended our Salzburg adventure with a train ride to Germany, filled with thanks for all the good things in our lives, our families, and our friends.  We were lucky to be able to spend the night before Thanksgiving with friends from Baltimore and Thanksgiving with each other and thankful for this amazing adventure!

Things we learned, 1) Korey likes the Opera!  2) Exercise with caution after eating Winersnitszel, and wait at least an hour before strenuous exercise, and 3) We love meeting up with friends!  So anyone out there that might be thinking of a vacation, check out our itinerary and meet up with us for some fun!

Johann Strauss' memorial, one of many for the great composers from Vienna

Ines enjoying her melange!  

The beautiful St. Stephen's Cathedral at dusk

 Volksoper Opera House.  We got as dressed up as we could with all our travel gear

The Christmas Market in Rauthausplatz

Great times with Martin & Gary!

 Things Korey had to stop Ines from buying at the Advent

Our Thanksgiving Dinner!  Of course, yummy weinerschnitzel

Korey offering encouragement for Ines to reach the top of the Salzburg castle. Ines refused to be photographed...

Musical organ at the top of the castle that used to call people to work

On top of the salt fortress

All smiles before the walk up!

Safety update and trip bloopers!

In regard to recent international news and events, along with the Global Travel warning put in place yesterday, we wanted to send out a quick blog post to let everyone know we are safe in Austria and keeping abreast of the daily warnings and travel alerts.  We are planning to spend Thanksgiving weekend with our good friend Kevin in Germany and are meeting up with friends Martin and Gary here in Vienna, both traveling in from the US.  We are among many other global travelers and are lucky in that we are very flexible in our itinerary and can make changes if needed.  That being said we may be changing our plans for Turkey next week, but we'll let everyone know where we land!

Alright, that aside, we are almost a full month into the trip, and as you would probably guess, traveling through 9 countries in that span of time doesn't come without some bumps in the road.  We've each had our moments (I know what everyone is thinking, what did Korey do now?), so enjoy some of our finest moments that we conveniently left out of other blog posts...(in no particular order)

Ines' New FaceBook Friend.  Ines happily skipped down the roads of Copenhagen, enjoying her newly purchased shoes and finally feeling like she fit in with the fashion of Europe.  All was good until she needed to go to another store (pants this time...), and realized that she no longer had her credit card.  Panic of course ensued, and we had to venture back across town to the shoe store where the shoes were purchased.  We walked in expecting the worst, but not only did they have her card, but they said they had FaceBook friended her (using her name on the card) and had the card waiting for us.  A big phew!  And once we got back to an area with wifi Ines had a brand new FaceBook friend. 

 

Could have been the start of a beautiful friendship...

Off the Beaten Track of Budapest. Never did we expect to find ourselves kicked off of a train, minutes after having left the station.  Here we are, struggling to identify our seats (we believed the people that were in them had made a seat mistake).  Upon finding the ticket official, we were yelled at in what we think now was Romanian, and we really do mean yelled at, before she got on her CB radio and brought the entire train to a screeching halt.  Upon stopping, the train officials finger pointed us to get off the train and as Korey was asking how we get to the right train, she pointed to the direction we had come from and yelled at us again (Korey thinks she was saying that she didn't care how we got back).  We then found our way back on the next train to the depot and with a few more difficulties and a small fight later, found our right train with our empty seats waiting for us.  Had those folks not been in their correct seats (our mistake!), we would be writing this post from Bucharest, Romania instead of Vienna, Austria!

Korey seemed to like the neighborhood

How NOT to Dry Clothing.  What happened to my pants!  They shrunk!  Along with Ines' entire washing load of clothing!  Ines is on the record to say from this point out on the trip, she is not gaining weight but instead somebody, who Ines will not name, decided to shorten the wash dry time by taking the clothes out early from the washing machine (dripping wet) and put them into the dryer on super high heat overnight thinking that it would dry faster that way (and it was 2am).  Everything shrank.  To totally make things worse, only Ines' clothes were in the washing load.  Ines thinks this is Korey's way of getting out of doing laundry for the rest of the trip.  Korey thinks Ines will use this excuse for the rest of the trip to buy new clothes.  

Had to blur out Korey's unmentionables for our younger viewers

Pepperoni(chini).  Order confusion at restaurants is bound to happen with all the different languages we've encountered, but we mention this one because of the desperate need for food at the time and the terribleness of the mistake.  Ines, on her decision day (which is how we make decisions, we rotate every other day), ordered us what she thought was a white pizza with 4 cheeses and an addition of pepperoni.  We had just spent 4 hours at the Opera in Vienna that night (Korey stayed awake), but had neglected to eat beforehand and could not find anything nearby that was open.  It was now midnight and we were both starving.  All we wanted was a pepperoni pizza.  What we got was a blue cheese pizza with super hot peppers littered all over it.  Neither of us ate much, opted for sleep instead.

You'd be outraged too if you just wanted some pepperoni

A Dip in the Blue Lagoon for Samsung.  The Blue Lagoon was amazing.  Comfortable, relaxing, and a true once in a lifetime experience.  However, if you ask Korey's Samsung phone, it would probably wait, disconnect, try to charge, not charge, turn off, then randomly turn on, then tell you a different story.  We clearly needed pictures of us IN the lagoon, so Korey proudly brought out his waterproof Samsung 5s while Ines' iPhone and it's protective waterproof case we bought was back tucked away in a backpack somewhere.  After a few truly fantastic photos, Ines tried to move towards some rocks to strike an even sexier pose than before, only to trip on the sand beneath the water and fall into the water with Korey's phone, her champagne, and (gasp!) her hair too!  Actually, the champagne survived.  Korey forgot about the missing piece near the charger of his phone, and we had to wait 3 anxious days before it decided it could charge again.  It's still a little touch and go, but waiting until Asia to replace it.

Don't be fooled by the fun face, just seconds away there was lots of apologizing

Ines' Country Confusion.  Stockholm belongs to Sweden and Oslo belongs to Norway and Copenhagen belongs to Denmark.  How hard can it be?  Apparently very.  

Hello from Stockholm, Switzerland?!  I mean, Bergen, Sweden?!  I mean, Copenhagen, Norway?!  Korey had to carefully watch and edit Ines' postcards...

Despite the picture, direction confusion also plays a role in the country confusion

Korey Blames the Camera (multiple times).  Picture perfect is not a phrase in Korey's vocabulary or arsenal.  For every good picture, there are many rejected.  Here are a few gems to brighten your day!  For the record, Korey blames the camera for not working properly and working against him, even though it works just fine for Ines.

Korey thought it was a great way to show the train cabin we were in, apparently there is a hobbit foot in the shot

Not even sure if it's the camera cord or Korey's hand

All the talk is about Ines' shoes.  Why not include some of Korey's?  Action shot

After 20 tries to get Ines in the air on this one she yelled at Korey and gave up.  This was the best of the 20.  Gotta be the camera's fault

Ines Blames the Planner.  We have had an amazingly easy time navigating the multiple countries we have been privileged to visit, thanks entirely to Korey.  Ines has taken a back seat to planning, and with the exception of decision day, does not do much of the daily or weekly travel planning.  That said, those of you that know Korey know that his travel motto is GO! GO! GO! and JUST ONE MORE!.....and has led to Ines' general lack of sleep, Ines' pulled groin from walking so fast on cobblestone streets that her little feet fall between, and a sore throat with a cold causing her to need a half day to recover.  Korey is taking note of this, as of today, and only planning one less activity and only asking for one more, once every day.

What to do?  Korey says "all of it"!

Ines is falling asleep and we haven't even eaten dinner.  This order was clearly to go

When left alone, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!  Just a Wanna, just a Wanna.  The video speaks for itself.  We were left alone to our own devices in yet another museum-castle-royal-home.  Never mind the pure silver lions protecting the king and queen's thrones, or the detailed tapestries lining the walls.  Its Ines' personal ballroom.

Day 22, 23, & 24 - Budapest

We finished our Prague adventure with a relaxing spa experience at one of Prague’s Beer Spa’s, where we were both escorted to a private brick wine cellar looking room with two large wooden barrel-like tubs with jets, a fireplace, and two beer taps each alongside three glass mugs, varying in size from small to ENORMOUS.  Our attendant then very kindly and speaking very little English proceeded to mix a concoction of Czech yeast and hops, adding it to the tubs filled with hot steamy water.  We then proceeded to relax in the barrels filled with beer ingredients, jets on full blast, Ines with her small mug filled with a dark brew and Korey with his ENORMOUS mug filled with a light brew, as we brewed ourselves through a very relaxing evening!  For the record, this was Ines’ idea!   

Within a few short hours we said goodbye to Prague, Czech Republic and hello to Budapest, Hungary!  Korey says it was more like seven travel hours but Ines was only awake for two of them so it seemed shorter to her.  We shared a train cabin with two other traveling passengers so someone had to stay awake to watch our belongings and make sure we were ready to jump off the train when we reached our destination (the train waits for no one!).  

We arrived late into the evening into Budapest’s train station, and after a few minutes orienting, set off on our walk to the hotel, a little over a mile away.  Ines wants to particularly note this walk as she climbed through what she considered a pretty harrowing walk through the not-so-nice part of Budapest, covered with the homeless taking cover in alleyways, metro stations, and abandoned storefront windows.  Ines was beginning to question Korey’s choice in travel arrangements when our hotel opened up into the heart of Budapest’s downtown, filled with lights, restaurants, cafe’s, and nightlife.  And who could forget the fantastic Christmas Market being set up along the cobblestone streets, reminding us that the holidays are right around the corner!

Buda and Pest are lovely cities connected by Budapest’s famous Chain Bridge hovering over the Danube River.  We stayed in Pest and visited Buda during the day as we hiked up to the Buda Castle and up the windy and treacherous mountainside to view the Citadella and all of Budapest from its highest point.  Ines would like to stress the word treacherous and Korey would like to mention that Hungarian grandmothers were at the top of the mountain with us.   

Hungarian goulash soup is the specialty and is a delicious version of a hearty beef stew, and along with some hot red wine make up most Hungarian dinners.  We ventured into the Central Market Hall to peruse and admire the rows and rows of delicious and traditional Hungarian market ingredients, marveling over how Hungarian paprika was a part of every dish.  We shared some unknown Hungarian food made up of rice, peppers, onions, and Hungarian sausage followed by happily walking to the hotel to nap.  Well, Ines napped and Korey expended more energy by running a few miles at the hotel gym.

We then ended our Budapest adventure with what else?  An american steakhouse dinner!  Don’t judge.  You know you can only go about 4 weeks before you crave some american cuisine.  It was one of our favorite meals, however, because we had the pleasure of meeting the Hungarian-born owner and restaurant namesake and talking for hours about his favorite places in the United States, the menu, and sharing some apricot and plum distilled brandy, made especially for the restaurant.  What a treat!

Things we learned, 1) Beer ingredients are a great substitute for bubble bath (although be prepared to smell like a hoppy beer afterward), 2) Don’t judge a city on the looks of its train station or the walk to the city center (instead, Ines says to take a taxi and avoid the judgement altogether) and 3) Hungarian-made brandy is delicious!  

Our SpaBeerland experience!

Budapest at night.  You can see the Castle, Matthias Church, and the Chain Bridge over the Danube River

Backside of the Buda Castle

View from the Citadella.  A little cloudy, but still gorgeous!

Anyone notice Ines in the bottom right corner of the picture?

Central Hall Market

Bundles of Paprika

These scared Korey, but Ines seemed to like them

Day 19, 20, & 21 - Prague

Our beloved Praha!  This city is awesome.  We knew we were in a place filled with multiple histories, when we discovered that even the new parts of this city are hundreds of years old.   Exploring has been fun in this city and the people we have met along this way even more fun.  It started off with some rain and Ines a bit under the weather (she swears she picked up a transmittable virus on a bus ride to Prague).

We ventured out to a famous Czech restaurant for breakfast/lunch, complete with old world wood fixtures, beer mug chandeliers, and a partially toothless man playing old Czech songs on a beautifully ornate yellow accordion.  Half the restaurant's patrons were singing each song with him, moving huge glass mugs joyfully over their heads, sloshing beer here and there.  This is about the point Ines deemed the place not safe to eat, and proceeded not to touch her lunch of ham and cabbage, while Korey the invincible then decided to prove her wrong by eating everything served, and of course he proved to be right.  When Ines felt even more under the weather the next day, she decided it was karma for not eating her Czech food the day before, and has since eaten everything she orders.

One happy encounter during this lunch was a group of Czech men in the corner table opposite us, who while consuming their beer-only lunch,  observed Ines not eating hers, and one of them took it upon himself to come over and talk at us in Czech for about 5 minutes (him speaking no English, us speaking no Czech-lots of hand gestures were obviously involved), gesturing to eat the food and rubbing his belly with a satisfied smile on his face.  Ines then shared Korey's beef goulash dish.  After giving up on communicating with us, he returned to his table only to come back to us as we were preparing to leave, to plant a big kiss on Ines' cheek (she swears he was aiming for her mouth) and the entire table of Czech men then waved us goodbye!

In a successful attempt to watch MSU play Maryland, we ran into a bar owner from Iowa who spends half of his time in Prague running his bar and the other half traveling the world.  He walked us through Prague's love of small business and mom and pop proprietorship, and the four years he has spent within his home-base of Prague.  We shared Jameson shots and beers and had a great time.  Then Ines really got sick and spent a day in bed as Korey wandered the great city of Prague (Ines swears it was the food that made her worse, Korey disagrees).

Ines spent the day recovering and by nighttime was hungry and stir crazy, so we ventured out to find some Mexican food (Ines swears refried beans calm her stomach- total oxymoron and must be ingrained in her upbringing) and found a bar/restaurant near our hotel that specialized in Mexican/American food and was playing the Lions-Packers football game!  Win-Win (and win!  How did they beat the Packers?)!  We also met the owner, who turned out to be from Chicago, who then introduced us to some newlyweds traveling the world that happened to be from Maine!  Our travel doppelgangers.  Small world and what fun.

Ines ate her refried beans for dinner and to Korey's surprise, they worked.  We were up and out early the next day, traversing the entire city on foot.  Our wanderings included the gorgeous Charles Bridge, plenty of side alleys throughout Old Town Prague, and 20 flights of stairs up a tiny winding staircase to the top of the St. Vitus Cathedral that overlooks the entire city.  What a wonderful view!

We also had the very great pleasure of attending a midday concert classic at Lobkowicz Palace (a part of the Prague Castle) and listened to a concert full of Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi, and Beethoven, played artfully to perfection by a flautist, violinist, and pianist.  It was incredible!  Our admission to the concert included admission to the museum itself, which is the Lobkowicz family's private collection of art and collectibles.  It turns out that this family's ancestor was a benefactor to art in his time and provided an annual salary to both Mozart and Beethoven to create some of their most notable musical symphonies, which were dedicated to their benefactor, as were the original handwritten musical scores with notes!  It was incredible to see Beethoven's 5th Symphony, in his own writing, complete with ink smudges and self-corrections!

Things we learned. 1)  Ines swears Korey's stomach is invincible, and is betting on Asia disrupting his theory, 2)  Who knew refried beans can calm a stomach?  Do not try this at home unless you are from New Mexico, and 3) Ines' Kilimanjaro training continues, this time with a daunting stair climb.

We're thinking of booking him for the wedding!

Ines feeling better, roaming around in Wenceslas Square

Great view of Prague Castle and Lobkowicz Palace

Ines' panorama skills on display from Charles Bridge

It was sunny!  Haven't seen a ton of that in recent weeks, Ines wasn't complaining

The ending of the concert, closed with a little Bach

Beethoven's 5th Symphony!    (fellow music nerds will recognize the intro...)

Twilight Praha in all it's splendor

View from the top of St. Vitus Cathedral, surprised there isn't Ines' drops of sweat on the lens!

Old Town Square at dusk

 The Prague Astronomical clock

What a great day!

Day 15, 16, 17, & 18 - Copenhagen and travel, travel, travel

Sorry for the delay in posting!  We have had quite an adventure over the last couple of days.  Planes, trains, buses, and most frequently, our very own feet have taken us throughout Scandinavia.  We most recently found our way to the lovely city of Copenhagen, Denmark!

We were lucky enough to do quite a bit of sightseeing in Copenhagen, starting with the Carlsberg Brewery, which is the fourth largest brewer of beer in the world.  We learned about the Jacobsen family that started the business as a local brewer and how they turned their product into a 9.5 Billion dollar business (Ines is trying to insert that this was just as much educational as it was thirst quenching).  We also visited the famous Mermaid statue, donated by the Carlsberg family, who were dedicated to purchasing art and placing it in public spaces for all to enjoy.

We then made our way to the Rosenborg Castle, where the previous King Christian IV and V and their Queens of Denmark lived, with an impressive preserved interior, complete with wall tapestries depicting the Denmark-Sweden war and royal life.  Ines was also very taken by the collection of Royal jewels, including crowns, jewelry, swords dripping in gold an precious stones, still used by the current monarchy today.  This quickly led to jewelry shopping for Ines in the heart of Copenhagen, and oh yes, she bought a pair of shoes, too.  Korey may not be able to go two weeks without sports, but Ines can't go three without buying a pair of shoes.  We are now even.

That evening we shared a meal in Malmo, Sweden before traveling back to Oslo to catch our flight the next morning.  This meal was worth noting, as hands down we have scored it as the best meal we have ever had, ever.  Kockska Huset was the perfect blend of Scandinavian food with French cuisine influence, and was two stories underground in this massive wine cellar-looking space.  We both tasted Reindeer for the first time, which is undeniably unlike any meat either one of us had ever had, and Korey lamented afterward that he couldn't believe he ate Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (his favorite childhood character), and how good it tasted.

We had but a night back in Oslo, and visited the National Museum of Art, where we saw a wide collection of original Art from Renoir, Matisse, Monet, Picasso, and the famous Norwegian artist, Edvard Munch.  What a treat!  At dinner that night, we received notice that our flight had been cancelled due to a airline employee strike on Lufthansa airlines, and had to, for the first time in this adventure, go off our travel itinerary and form a new plan.

So a plane, a bus, two instances of stepping in dog poo, and a 16 hours of travel time later, we find ourselves in Prague, Czech Republic (with a brief stop in Munich for a german sausage and sauerkraut lunch).  We are currently flying by the seat of our pants, planning out our adventures day by day.  We would love your tips and itineraries as we work to plan out our travel to Hungary, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, and Turkey!  We are days away from each of these places and need your wisdom.

Things we learned:  1) The Eurail travel pass is amazing, truly amazing.  From long distances to just trips to the airport, completely worth the cost  2) It is totally possible to wake up in one country, have lunch in another, and go to sleep in a third, all within 24 hours!, 3) We have about 20 more countries to travel to from here, which means Ines will likely come home with another 5 pairs of shoes....great.

Korey's favorite childhood toy, based in Denmark!

 

The elephant is a significant icon throughout Denmark

The largest unopened beer collection in the world (over 16,000), at the old Jacobsen brewery within Carlsberg.  Korey was impressed

Ariel!  Where is Sebastian?  Maybe because this is the one still owned by Carlsberg

The Jacobsen Christmas Ale was fantastic!  Both educational and thirst quenching

Ines' dramatic photo of the Rosenborg Castle.  No pictures allowed of the jewels!

Downtown Copenhagen

Ines getting all Euro with her shoes.  Sigh...

Edvard Munch's "The Scream."  One of 4 he made, pretty great to see in person

Ines reading up on our next destination on the train.  Flying by the seat of our pants!