To Austria, the Czech Republic and... Austria again?

Well, the trajectory of Graz, Austria, Prague and then back to Austria to see Vienna made sense originally. See, we flew into Bratislava to get over to that region of Europe and decided to start our travels by visiting Susanna, then my friend Jen, from Boston, was SUPPOSED to come meet us in Prague, then we'd go to Vienna and then fly out of Bratislava to Paris. Okay. This was all fine and dandy until a volcano decided to erupt in Iceland. After that, our travels seemed extremely illogical.

So, thank you volcano, let's start off with that. Fortunately, my travels weren't destroyed because I was traveling by bus and trains until Friday after the volcano. However, Jen was stranded in Boston and didn't get to make it over to Europe at all. Extremely upsetting. Also, Lisa was supposed to meet us in Graz from London and travel with us as well, again, volcano. So it ended up being me and Katie busting around Central Europe for a week and a half and having a blast (ha. ha.) Graz was beautiful and it was so good to see Susanna!!!! We went wine tasting in Styria and even dipped into Slovenia for a few minute... adding that to my list of countries I've been to! We walked all around the city of Graz and Susanna made sure we tasted and saw everything we could to make our visit authentic.

On Sunday, Katie and I had a bus to Prague from Vienna and we ran through various metro stops to get to it on time. We made it, thank god, and five hours later we were in Prague, and what an amazing city. I don't know exactly what I expected Prague to be like, but I was pleasantly shocked. It was a bright, beautiful city with colorful building and tons of sites to see. I guess I didn't really do my research. We saw pretty much everything there was to see in Prague. The Jewish Quarter was mind blowing, Prague castle was spectacular and the Old Town square was... I've run out of positive descriptive words. If you can't tell, I loved Prague. One night, Katie and I sat in a beautiful square drinking local beer (actually made out of the river water...) and eating dinner while listening to live jazz coming from a nearby club. I ate gulash and attempted to make sense of Czech, but to no avail. It is extremely disorienting to be surrounded by a language that is so different than your own... I can't imagine what it's like in Japan or China!!

Tuesday night, we had an overnight bus to Vienna. This I do not recommend. Though we may have saved money on a night in a hostel, I was sooooo dead the next day from not sleeping, that I didn't get out to explore Vienna until 3pm. No good. But, Vienna, yes. Vienna was huge and beautiful and extremely regal. We walked around the enormous Hapsburg palace, a sort of Versaille looking castle, though nothing really compares with Versaille. From there we went to the Opera, which was a real once in a lifetime opportunity! We got standing room tickets for 3 euros and were able to see a great show in the beautiful Opera house. From what I saw of Vienna, I know I have to go back. It was a lot bigger city than I thought and two and a half days wasn't nearly enough time to fully appreciate it.

I'm going to keep this post short because I've been very busy the last two weeks preparing for my trip home. Yes, that's right, I'm coming home in TWO DAYS!!! I'm all packed and vaguely ready, but it's too weird to realize yet that I'm leaving France and I no longer live here. This year has flown by and I can't decide if I'm ready for it to be over yet. Anyway, this will not be my last post, but soon I will have no travels to update people on!! Next post, I'll describe my trip home from Vienna to Marvejols. Not an easy task.