Tag: fun fact

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Melk & Dürnstein

We made a quick stop in Melk and walked through the abbey, then cruised through the Wachau Valley (a UNESCO world heritage site) to get to Dürnstein where we went to a wine tasting. My young tastebuds do not really enjoy the taste of alcohol so I didn’t really like any of the wines, but it was a fun experience. I do quite enjoy that we are able to make stops in these little towns instead of just being in the big cities with tons of tourists, they are quite quaint and beautiful. Also, apricots are really big around here, so I got an Austrian cake sort of thing filled with an apricot spread and at the wine tasting they had an apricot dessert paired with an apricot rum.

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Sailing to Linz

Most of the day was sailing, and we learned about what a lock was and got to experience what it was like to go through one. Since we were onboard for a while, they had a foosball tournament and I competed with newfound friend and fellow youngster (most of the people on the cruise were couples ranging from honeymooners to 60s) Alexis from Montreal, and we made it to the semi-finals but lost by one point after making an amazing comeback. When we stopped in Linz we took a tour around the city – inside the town hall the floor is covered with a map of Linz as seen from above in a helicopter –  and we went into some air raid shelters built during WWII. Apparently even most of the locals don’t know they are there, and a woman on one of the previous tours told the tour guide that she was actually born in there. We went in the “luxurious” part of the tunnels layered with bricks because that was where the officers went during the air raids, but most of them are just the plain sand carved out of the hill. They have some original stuff in there still too, like old tracks for the wagons, the original electricity lines, and original pipes they used to bring fresh air in.

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Passau

We docked in Passau this afternoon. We walked around the city, as we were walking some of the stones were painted and apparently they show where art galleries can be found, and we went to where the three rivers converge as Passau is also called the “City of Three Rivers.” For lunch we went to a little cafe looking out on the Danube where I had some typical Bavarian food: juice with sparkling water and a sort of strudel with spinach, egg, goat cheese, and yogurt. We visited St. Peter’s Cathedral which has the biggest organ in a cathedral, and then I hiked up to the fortress Veste Oberhaus. On our way back to the ship we stopped by a local beer festival.

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Hopping Around Amsterdam

We had a couple of delays with our flight getting to Dallas yesterday, but our flight to Amsterdam also got slightly delayed so we were able to still make it to Amsterdam mostly on time. We were successful with our first Amsterdam adventure: navigating the train station and getting to our hotel, which has an amazing view of the city. After a quick nap to recharge, we explored Amsterdam with a Hop-On-Hop-Off boat tour on the canals. Amsterdam has about the same amount of water as Venice, but far less bridges.

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Exploring Athens

We had a great breakfast this morning, there was actually normal Greek food instead of just soggy hotel eggs and such. We went up to the Acropolis which was really cool, and we had a great tour guide, Thanos. He was very informative and interesting, and talked a lot about things that weren’t necessarily related to exactly where we were or what we were doing, but more about Greek life and traditions and such. From the Acropolis we could see an ancient theatre which was really huge and cool. We also got to see Mars Hill where Paul gave a speech that’s in the Bible. Thanos took us on a walking and bus tour where we also saw the first modern Olympic stadium, a statue of Harry Truman (thanks to Mrs. King I actually remember the Truman Doctrine), and the grave of the unknown soldier. Our guide was talking about how Lord Byron loved it here and was buried here; this stuck out to me because we visited his castle in Switzerland, and I really enjoy being able to learn about and see these connections across different places. We went out to dinner and got a really delicious cheese ball (reminds me of the hunk a chunka cheese I got in Mexico) and there was a band playing traditional Greek music the whole night. Halfway through dinner a few dancers came out and started folk dancing, and then later they brought up some people (including me) to dance with them. It was a really fun night, and now I can brag to the theatre company about being a part of a real oppa.

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Venice

Drove like 5 hours to get to Venice, Italy, and we only got to spend a few hours there in the very hot weather, but it was still fun. There are no cars there and has around 340 bridges connecting the 180 islands that it’s made out of, so it has a lot of small alleys to walk through, and they’ve had to put tiny bridges in between some of the buildings so that they wouldn’t squish together. Saw and sung (shoutout to Little Women) in front of the Bridge of Sighs, got some gelato and pizza, and saw the choir perform in the St. Marks cathedral. We also saw a glass making demonstration that was really cool. We had another 5 hour drive back, and got our first bad  weather driving through the rain.

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Innsbruck

We went to the Wilten Basilica and the choir got to sing in there. Then we went to the Olympic ski jump place (the Olympics have been held here twice) and actually got to see someone jump which was really cool. In town, we saw the golden roof and looked around Swarvsky in which there is a exhibit of everyday items like cereal and laundry detergent covered in jewels. We also got an Austrian apple strudel. We came back to the hotel pretty early, so we played cards before going to our concert.

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Lichtenstein & Austria

Drove about 3 hours to get to Lichtenstein from Crans-Montana, which is only about 14 miles long and 4 miles across. We had a couple more hours to drive to Austria, but the trip was quite entertaining because, little did we know, the German word for exit is Ausfahrt. The town of Seefeld is very quaint and cute and so we explored it a little before dinner, and after dinner we went to the Olympic sized pool and hung out.

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Paris

Had first French croissant today and it was very good. We went up to Montre-Marte and saw the Sacre-Couer catedral and explored the little village there with cute art; the catedral was cool because on the outside of the windows are gray, but on the inside they were colorful stain glass. Then I had a crepe with strawberry jam on it and we had a sandwich on a baguette. I learned some French phrases like “Can I please have some water” and “Where are the toilets” and I think I’ve gotten my French accent down pretty good; but also last night I asked our waiter where the toilets were in French and he just laughed and pointed while saying (in English) “Downstairs.”

Next we went to Notre Dam which was also gorgeous. I tried my first macaroon and it was so good. At the waiting spot, there was a whole flock of pigeons and Nick and Kat actually got some to land on them! Then we went on a river boat cruise on the Seine and saw the Eiffel Tower.

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London

First English breakfast complete some beans! A tour guide came along with us on our bus and we drove around looking at the city and then got out and walked around.

It’s pretty cool – they are doing a bunch of construction, but they keep the fronts of the old buildings up. Also fun fact, when London hosted the olympics, for every gold medal they won they painted a public post box gold. Another fun fact, the streets are filled with the red double decker buses that we consider a staple of London, but the locals think they’re terrible because there’s too many and very few people are on them at any given time so they just cause traffic.

We walked by Westminster Abbey and a bunch of small castles like for people like the prime minister and the Duke of Wellington, but Big Ben is undergoing construction so all we could see of that was scaffolding. It’s really cool to see and hear all the stories from WWII, especially the smaller stories that you don’t learn a lot about in school but the locals all know about.

Then, we went and saw the changing of the guard in front of Buckingham Palace. Next, we went to the Tower of London (where we had lunch and experienced our first “crisps”); our tour guide showed us around a little bit and it seems that a lot of murders occurred in there. We saw the Crown Jewels which were very fancy, and in there there is a table salt holder that is literally a tiny castle (that actually isn’t that tiny) and that is so extra I love it. Also in the square was the White Tower which held a bunch of different armor and was really cool to look at; in there was also a giant dragon made out of different armory things which was pretty cool. Then we went out to Dinner at an Indian place before going to see Les Mis which was so amazing. It had a spinning floor and the barracks were superb. And all the marching and deaths looked fantastic. Enjolras (the lead rebel guy) had an amazing death; he flipped over the back of the set around a bar, and then when it rotated around he was just hanging off the barracks with one leg! Finally, to get home we took a cab, which I didn’t realize they had seats facing both ways in the back.