Austria, Days 0-1.

There was a lot to see and do in Austria, and I’m sure I’m only going to be able to cover a part of it. We stayed quite busy, and it was over before I knew it – just like July is going to be!

On my last morning in New York, my friend and I headed out to the site of the World Trade Center. It was a little surreal; it was a construction site, and although it was quite a large area to be flat in the middle of skyscrapers, it wasn’t unlike any other major construction site. I’m not sure what I expected, but a seemingly ordinary construction site wasn’t it. Afterwards, I grabbed my luggage and hopped on the subway to catch my plane. A mariachi band got on just before the Queens tunnel and played for us. I was amused, but not all of the captive audience was.

It was a long, relatively uneventful series of flights to Vienna, and though I got snippets of sleep, there was little substantive rest, and I arrived in Vienna mid-morning already quite sleepy. I had to try and last through the afternoon though, in hopes of getting over the jet lag quickly. Once we made it to the hotel, I ran into a couple of other Glee girls who had come the day before, and we headed out to explore the city a little bit. We wandered through the Rathaus (the old town hall), where they were set up for a film festival of sorts.

After a light lunch, we found our way to the Albertina, one of Vienna’s many museums. I probably wasn’t in quite the right state of mind for a museum after so little sleep, but I did see some things I recognized – some Monet, Picasso, Lichtenstein, and some creepy mouse paintings by Helnwein. After exhausting the museum and the staterooms, we wandered around the city and made it back to the hotel, where they eventually sorted out the rooming situation and we could get settled. And, by that time, many more glee club girls had arrived, so it was exciting. While we were quite tired, we did go out one more time to find our first Viennese dinner. I ordered what the English menu called gnocchi, complete with cheese and fried onion bits on top. It wasn’t gnocchi as I expected it, but it was a glorified comfort-food mac and cheese, and therefore quite tasty after a long day (or two!)

I meant to include more, but it’ll just have to be a series of posts – otherwise they’ll never get done. So. Sorry for the delay, and my relative quiet recently, but it’s been busy, and there will be more later.