The Great European Adventure - Part 1

Here are a few pictures from my meanderings, starting with my first stop in Europe: Vienna.

Vienna is gorgeous. I couldn't get over the beautiful old buildings and cobbled streets everywhere; it felt like walking into another century - except for the few reminder of the present age, such as the Starbucks behind the horse-drawn carriage:









I think one of the biggest attractions of this city for me was the enormous amount of art and music and high culture that thrived in this city over the last few centuries. For example, we got to see an art gallery with Gustav Klimt's The Kiss, to visit the house where Mozart lived for the last few years of his house, and we even met several Mozarts and Beethovens walking around in the streets, and got to pose next to a statue of Goethe in his old age, post-sufferings of Werther - he doesnt look too suffering here:













It was great to get to meet up with Mariane the Quebecois opera-singer, as well as Simeon (UN diplomat) and Heidi (professional jazz vocalist), both natives of Vienna, who were full of stories and interesting cultural tidbits and historical anecdotes and insider scoops!









Another cool thing we did was a tour of the palace where the Austrian royal family (the Hapsburgs) resided - they sure lived in style...the palace was modelled after the one at Versailles:
















We also did a tour of the Vienna Staatsoper, one of the world's biggest operahouses, which obviously excited Mariane the opera-singer greatly, as she saw
visions of herself in costume on the Staatsopr stages. I also had my own share of visions of my life as an opera-singer in Vienna:


One of my favourite parts of Vienna was the huge coffeehouse culture - there were kavehauses everywhere, a lot of them places where itellectual artsy-types gathered to exchange or develop ideas, or eat yummy Scharer-tort - Vienna's best chocolate cake. Hmm...stimulating conversations, coffee, and chocolate cake....what more do you need to live on??
















We even got to take a dip in the Danube!