Last week we went on a hike in the Vienna Woods. Gorgeous! We walked through a TINY town, pastures with cows and horses, thick woods, up old creaky ladders, and to an amazing view.

We have been spending a lot of time at the FAN ZONES! Go Portugal! Go Turkey!
Church retro dance night!!!
My "artistic" Turkey flag painted by Perry...
Rich and I sharing a gellatto after the game.. (His team lost:) ) Go Turkey!!!

Venice, Budapest, Vienna

I know I have been horrible with updating this blog, but here is what I have been up to!
Venice continued:



Huge picture of Christian Robert :) right in the middle of St. Marks square!!

Richy and I on Venice beach just after swimming with the nudes..

Traveling by "bus"

Dinner along the canal

A girl in group and I woke up very early and got to see St. Marks square without the mass tourists


The Euro cup is in Austria this year! I watched Switzerland play while in the Fan Zone surrounded by fans from countries all around Europe, my ears were filled with languages I didnt even know existed!

Then we watched Austria play at one of the local's house, the fan zones are too dangerous when austria is playing!

I have decided that i am bad luck. every team that i have rooted for (austria, switzerland, italy, and portugal) has lost!!!


Switzerland lost..



We went to an outdoor Austrian philharmonic orchestra concert at Shonbrunn

Budapest, Hungary:
I'm rich!!!??

The first day in Hungary, we got crepes! I got a hungarian (shredded beef and sauce) and a nutella and banana one.. Then we went to a cave called the Labyrinth. We had to find our way through with an old oil lamp being our only source of light!


Thursday was packed with all of the touristy sightseeing stuff.

We saw beautiful churches, castles, palaces, monuments, parks, and toured the parliament building.


Then that night we went to a folk dance performance. There was a string band on stage that was incredible, i have never seen anyone's hands move that fast! (Andie, I'm sorry but these guys would kill you in a contest...)

Every other song the dancer would come out hollering, it looked like they were having so much fun!

Friday we started the day (and actually spent most of the day) at a traditional Hungarian bath. They have over 100 natural baths that have been used for hundreds of years!

We ate dinner at the a communist chic restaurant called Mensa. It was so cute!!!!!

Our final half-day was spent in the Ludwig museum of contemporary art. I have never seen such amazing and creative art as this! I was thoroughly impressed.

On our was home we stopped in a pub that was in a old rundown building with the rock falling off the walls, but then the decorations were very creative and colorful. I loved it!
Man walking his racoon???
The cute Metro signs..

The past few weeks have been filled to the brim! Two weeks ago we went to a city called Melk, about an hour away from Vienna.

We toured a beautiful monastery, monks walking around and all!
After the tour, we went on a 25 mile bike ride. One of the neatest things I have ever done. It was rainy and cold, but the beauty was unsurpassed. Peddling through the canyon next to the Danube, we passed through sporadic tiny towns with flower boxes under the windows, and vineyards in that were patterned in all different directions, climbing up the hills. Here is a video that my roommate Karly made from the bike ride!
That night a few of us left for Freiberg, Germany with some Austrian locals.
We spent Thursday and Friday morning in the temple. It was a very neat experience doing ordinances in another language!

We went to Dresden, a city that was destroyed by bombs in WWII.
The buildings remind me of Dalmatians. There are old brick skeletons that survived the bombings which are covered with black, and then the rest is filled in with new white brick.

The last night we had a dance!

I became buddies with one of the kids from the group that is a little slow, then on Sunday he brought me these flowers!

I loved the houses there!!!

Last week we went to Venice! We spent our time wandering through museums, islands, hanging out at the beach, eating tons of pizza (the only affordable thing to eat there) and gelato, shopping, and wandering through the city. My birthday was incredibly fun, except for the part that a kid in my group dropped and broke my camera!!!!!!!!!!!! I was so very sad, especially because now i will just have to steal pictures from the others :( :( :( :( The rest of Venice pictures coming soon, I need to begin the steeling of pictures for the second half of the trip...
Burano island. Cutest town ever.


Me and Karly in San Marco Square eating gelato!

Random picture of dancing in Vienna..