More adventures!!

Thursday, July 16
Schloss Belvedere
So on Thursday in our art history class, we went to the belvedere museum, which has famous paintings by Gustav Klimt. He is a modernist, and several of his works are really famous. His most famous, The Kiss, was in this museum, and it was amazing to see the original! I remember my high school freshman English teacher had a poster of it in her room, and I remember her talking about it one day in class. It blew my mind that I was actually there with original pieces of art! I have now been in several art museums, and I really enjoy looking at the different styles, and the talent of these artists just amazes me. I often wonder what is going on inside an artists head as he is painting a work. I now feel very cultured in the art world. ☺

Friday July, 17
Medieval Day in Vienna!
It was not an official holiday, but it was Kari’s birthday and she wanted to walk around Vienna traditional renaissance style, so she and Heather wore their Dirndls that they bought here in Vienna, and I wore puffy sleeves with a dress that I have, and we walked around the city! We ate yummy traditional Austrian food, and we even got asked twice if people could take a picture with Heather and Kari. I hope this doesn’t ruin your fantasy, but Austrians don’t usually wear Dirndls every day. It was a blast, and Kari really enjoyed her fairy tale birthday! We ended it off watching Kate and Leopold, I personally thought it was cheesy, but it was the perfect film to go with the events of the day! (Hugh Jackman is Leopold, a duke in the 19th century that comes through a time machine and turns up in New York in the 21st century… kind how we felt all day) I had a blast watching people pull out their cameras and quickly take pictures of us trying to not let us notice them. We had lots of laughs!!

Saturday, July 18
Graz, Austria
Friday night at about 23:30 pm, Heather and I decided that we wanted to use a day on our Eurail passes and take a 2 ½ hour train ride south to the city of Graz. I had no idea what was there, but Heather said that it had a lot of cool medieval buildings, and things to see, so we jumped on a train at Wien Südbahnhof this morning at 9am and arrived in Gray about 12pm. The only problem was that it was pouring, and that is an understatement!!!! It was like we were at a water park and the huge bucket above the kid slide was pouring over the city of Graz. So, unprepared as we were, we each bought an umbrella, and ran to a Strassenbahn. We had no agenda whatsoever, so we would jump out and walk for a little bit, getting soaked in the process, then we would jump back on the bahn and ride some more. We found a cool-looking walkway that led to an elevator that takes you up to the top of the palace that has been in existence since the 12th century (I think). It had a great view of the city, but I am sure it would have been really great if it weren’t for all the rain. We were soaked, and ready to go home, so we jumped back on the train at 2:30pm and came back to Vienna! We found out that it had been raining here all day too. Too bad we didn’t check the weather before we left. Oh well, it was still a fun adventure!!