Prague

Im going to prague this weekend!!!!!

Ice skating + vienna: the perfect combination

The other day we went to the out door ice skating in vienna. It was sooo fun! They had two big open section and they were conected by long curvy trials. The whole thing is right out side the rathouse(see below) which is the vienna city hall. It was built between 1872 and 1883. The designer was frieric schmidt and it is a gothic building. I have never ice skated before so this was a great expirience. Every thing was great exept for the blisters I got after the skating . At night the whole place is lit up with colored lights and the rathouse is beautiful. I really want to go again but not until my blisters heal. Hopefully that will be soon!!!!!!!!

Back to the Fithteenth Century

Today we went to the arms and armor museum. There they have a huge collection of weapons from the late middle ages through to the Renaissance. My German name is Maximilian and there we saw many weapons and armor (for both humans and horses) that were owned and used by the various Maximilians of the Hapsburgs. It was very interesting to see how the weapons changed. First, there were classic longswords. Then rapiers, and eventually guns. My favorite piece of armor was made for Emperor Maximilian the Second. It has a blueish tint to it that was created by a proses called blueing in which you heat the armor to extreme temperatures. This gives it that blue tint. This will also prevent rusting from happening. Below are some pictures of the museum.

Cript of the Hapsburgs

The other day I went to the Hapsburg royal cript. Almost all the dead Hapsburgs are burried there. The Hapsburgs ruled a part of Europe for along time. There were dozens of coffins and all were decorated with skulls, angels, and pictures of battles. The Hapsburg symbol (below) is a double headed eagle with two crowns. Maria Theresia and her husband, Francis of Lorrain are burried there and they have a huge double coffin!

Cafe, cafe, cafe!!!!!

          In vienna there are lots of cafes. Some good, some bad, and some very very wierd. Cafe Blue Orange is a great bagel cafe. Good coffee, great bagels and Ben and Jerry's ice cream. There i had a Melange coffee, which is supposed to be weak but mine had expresso in it.YUM! Cant wait to go back there. Cafe Mozart: fancy, expensive, bad coffee. The cat caffee: this caffee is true to its name, there are five resident cats, and the whole place revolves around them. They climb on the shelfs on the wall,theres toys to play with them, lots of soft places to sleep, and you can order treats for them! This is a picture of thomas. I hope i get to explore more cafes while im here and ill be sure to post about them!

Soft, white, frozen H2O

           It snows in Vienna... A LOT! Every other day its snow, snow, snow. It was very magical at first but the last few days its been annoying until today... today the snow stuck and we got five inches of soft white frozen H2O... we did the only thing that you should do on a snow day (we being my sister,my mom,and I). We went sledding! We went to the park and found a big hill and down we went!!! We also managed to discover the best thing ever! We call it... The Bike Sled! It was found in the house basement where we like to play ping-pong.  It was soooooooooo fast! You can see it on the top. Or the bottom depending on the size of your right nostril.