as much as i needed a relaxing break, it certainly is good to be back. i'll admit, i missed this little blogging habit- in a way it's my one of the few times i have to myself, and the perfect opportunity to reflect and really pick apart everything that has been going on in my life the past two months. there are a million details to dish on from the past nine days so why not start at the beginning.

first stop, vienna. like everywhere we traveled, i knew little of what to expect. singing the sound of music for the week prior to our departure was as much preparation as we bothered to do, but it turned out wonderful nonetheless. 

we spent the better part of a day exploring the hofburg palace, the ruling seat of the hapsburgs...which i loved if for no other reason than that aforementioned marie antoinette obsession and the fact that she was born there. on top of that creepy reasoning, i do love a good imperial apartment, especially anything baroque and horribly tacky with a good dose of chinoiserie. it makes me just itch to redecorate my asylum of an apartment with gilded everything and naked little angel babies. a girl can dream...

still playing the parts of the von trapp family, we sung our way to schönbrunn on the second day to see the summer palace, more tackalack imperial things, and a beautiful view of the city. 

after a long lunch in a traditional viennese cafe (more on the food later, i'm still trying to figure out how to go about it), we meandered around old town before our true cultural experience: the opera. what's great about vienna is that no only is there a huge emphasis on music, but it is made easily accessible to everyone. three euros laters and we had standing room in the opera house for the evening's performance of cavalleria rusticana. all i really got out of the plot was that mysterious and nagging phenomenon of catholic guilt, however if you just closed your eyes, listened, and imagined you were julia roberts sitting next to hottie tottie richard gere it was worth the uninteresting story line.   
throw some australians, free traditional herb liquor, and a steady IV of long-overdue starbucks into the mix and that, my friends, was vienna.