First International Christmas

This Christmas was unlike any other, so it was a little strange. I definitely love Christmas with family, but this year we got to spend it with new friends! Here are some pics of our decorations and opening presents!

Candle Pyramid (I owe this purchase to "Christmas Vacation")

Garland I made from some branches!

Me opening presents from mom on Christmas morning

Ryan opening presents

Our Hokie Memorial Wreath, I also made this out of branches!

Our lovely tree, with an European tree topper and fake snow!!

What's a tree without snow!?

Prague in the freezing cold!

The weekend before Christmas, we traveled to Prague via train. It took us about 4 hours to get there and we were accompanied by Erin Murphy. Erin hung out with us for 2 weeks while on her winter break from the University in Norwich, England. Ryan was obsessed with the Charles Bridge, because the opening scene for Mission Impossible was filmed there. The city was really beautiful and extremely cold. There are tons of crystal and glass shops and souvenir shops. We went into a store on every block just to warm up...and of course look at all of the goodies! Needless to say Erin and Ryan were sick of the glass shops...I however, cannot say the same for myself. It was so pretty! The architecture is of the medieval style and the town is really beautiful! Here are some pics from our trip!!

The Vltava River at night

The Powder Tower

My new mittens!

Astronomical Clock on the side of Old Town Hall Tower

On the Charles Bridge with the Castle behind us

Duchess taking a peek at Prague on the Charles Bridge...she really hates that bag!

Erin and I looking at the map

A guard in front of the Castle

The three of us in front of an art museum

Church of Our Lady Before Tyn in Old Town Square

View from bridge at night

It's Christmas Time in Wien!

Right now you will find tons of Christmas markets full of people agressively fighting their way to stop and look at each stall, lots of desserts, and lots of hot drinks. For example, Gluhwein is a heated wine with spices. They have something here called Punsch, and like most European food/drinks, it has alcohol...which makes it well...gross. I think I'll stick to the kid punsch. The streets are decorated with chandeliers, ornate lights and advent calendars. It really is a fantastic place to be at Christmas time. We visited some markets Sunday, so here are a couple of photos of our visit to Schönbrunn and the Rathaus. In the next blog we'll tell you a little about Austrian traditions!

In front of Schönbrunn

Schönbrunn

Rathaus Market at 5pm...it's super dark at 5!

Rathaus Market and decorated Strassenbahn

It's snowing!!!!!

I am a very huge fan of snow, so this morning when I looked out of the window and saw that it was snowing, I couldn't help but jump up down! Yay snow! Here are some pictures I took while Duchess was using the sidewalk as her toilet. It's her new thing since its cold and she thinks she should not have to walk further than our front door to use the bathroom. O, Duchess...

Enjoy the pictures! Because I am definitely enjoying the snow!

The Rathaus

Looking up the street

Rathaus x2

The 232nd Marine Corps Birthday Ball

Tonight we attended the Marine Corps Ball. This event marked the 232nd birthday of the Marine Corps. It was held at the Hilton hotel in the middle of Vienna. This was our first ball here (I'm sure there will be more....Vienna is known for it's galas). Linz looked absolutely beautiful in her gown, and I pimped out my tux (one of my co-workers even said Linz looked stunning.....maybe I should keep an eye on this guy). The evening began with cocktails.......we got a little tipsy off of our Coke. Then, the Marines began their ceremony, which consisted of the showing of the colors, the national anthem, a quick speech from one of our DCM's (Deputy Chief of Mission...aka the deputy ambassador), and the cutting of the cake by the Gunnery Sergeant. Then we ate dinner. I won't go into much detail here.......it was food. The rest of the night was spent mingling and dancing. In fact, we just got home about 30 min. ago. All in all, it was a pretty good night and a good first ball experience. Check out our pics...


I don't mean to brag or nothing....but we look good. Naturally we were the most popular couple at the ball. Everyone was like, "hey Linz and Ryan, come talk to us," or "hey, will you two take a picture with us?" Geez people, come on....give us a break! Just the price you pay I guess.....(and for those who don't know me too well, please realize that I'm being sarcastic. as you can see from the picture, my head is definitely NOT that big.)
This isn't a great pic, but this is the group of friends we went with....or with whom we went if you're a stickler for grammar.


The Marines singing on stage.....they were loud....and tone deaf. Not a good combo.

3 very lovely ladies.......

Here's the dance floor....I really felt like I was back at my senior prom. Complete with drunk people and bad dancing!

Here's a pic of me with my boss, Valerie.

Linz and I with the Brian, the Gunnery Sergeant (aka "gunny"). He's a good guy...we like to play volleyball at the Marine Base with him and the other Marines. He's also scary big...would not want to tick him off.

I just really like this pic....

Pumpkin Carving

Last weekend we went out with a few friends to pick out pumpkins to carve for Halloween. We drove about 30 minutes outside of Vienna and wound up at a little farm. They had over 300 different pumpkins...unbelievable! We ended up eating lunch there....they had a buffet with a pumpkin theme. Everything was made from pumpkins!! It was surprisingly good. After lunch we all picked out our pumpkins and went back to our friends Joan and Nate's place to carve them up. See if you can guess which one is mine from the pics below! I'll give you a hint....I really like VT.

Hokie pride

Ryan and Duchess displaying VT pride (He's so silly!)

Good news!

Lindsey has a job!! Yay!!!

Our Wonderful Weekend in Salzburg

So, I figured I'd give Linz a break and update the blog for our most recent adventure. This past weekend we traveled to Salzburg (birthplace of Mozart and setting for "The Sound of Music"). This was actually Linz's bday trip...we just delayed it for a week since I had a 3-day weekend.

Salzburg was awesome!! We went on the Sound of Music tour, took a tour of the Bavarian mountains and the salt mines ("Salzburg" translation = salt mountain...who knew?), visited the Hohensalzburg fortress, and on our last night we experienced the Mozart Dinner Concert at the Stiftskeller St. Peter restaurant (which is the oldest restaurant in Europe).

We have tons of pictures, so I'll have to break this down by category....

First we have the Sound of Music tour. I grew up watching this movie, so this was a pretty interesting tour for me. As you may or may not know, the story of the Sound of Music is a true story based on the life of Maria Von Trapp. The tour took us to all the main locations from the movie. Here are some pictures...

This is the Captain's lake house from the movie (although not the real Von Trapp house). If you look closely, you can see the flower garden towards the bottom right. This is where Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer danced during his little "party."
These next two pictures are from the "Do-Re-Mi" song. The first picture is the statue of Pegasus, which the children and Maria danced around. Next is Linz with the gnome statue that the children all pass and tap on the head during the song. Next time you watch the movie, keep an eye out for the gnome. In the park, there's a whole section with like a dozen gnome statues, and we just happened to take a picture of the one that was in the movie...craziness.
Next we have the gazebo from "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" where Liesel and Rolfe sing and dance. Awwww......
And last we have Mondsee Church, which is where the Baron and Maria get married. This is actually well outside of Salzburg...took about 40 minutes by bus to get here...

So, that does it for the Sound of Music stuff. We actually saw more than this, but these were the best pictures.

Now, on to the Bavarian mountain/salt mine tour. Unfortunately, it was rather foggy on Saturday, so we didn't really get any pictures of the Alps. Oh well, guess we'll just have to go back. But the salt mine tour was really good. We had to put on these suites so we wouldn't get salt all over our clothes, and we traveled almost a mile into the mountain by a little rail track. Once in the mountain, we had to venture down. This was accomplished by slides...yup just like at the playground. And eventually we had to cross a salt lake within the mountain in order to get out. If you want to know how they mine the salt....well, look it up yourself, this blog post is already too long....

Here we are in our super-cool salt mine uniforms....

Here is one of the mine shafts....

And here is the salt lake we had to cross...

Next we have our tour of the Hohensalzburg fortress. This is the largest fortress in Europe and was built by Archbishop Gebhard around 1077. I have a lot of pictures for this one....

My favorite pic...you can see the fortress overlooking the city.

Road to the top...

View from the top...

Me and Linz at the top...

Canon overlooking the city...

Ye old toilette...

Armory...

Mask of shame and other torture devices....this was a cool room!
See that house in the middle? That was the executioner's house. They had to separate him from the rest of the village cause apparently no one wanted to be near him!! Hard to believe...

These walls and towers surround the city...you see 'em everywhere.

One of the many passages in the fortress...

Tracks leading up to the fortress. You can pay 10 euros to take the tram or just hike it. Of course, we're in such peak physical condition that we hiked it....and almost lost our lunch in the process...

Alright, and now for the Mozart Dinner Concert. This was our last night there. We had a 3-course dinner while listening to a live string ensemble and 2 operatic singers. I'm not much in to opera, but these people were fantastic. And next to us sat a married couple from Belfast. They had awesome accents! We enjoyed talking to them as much as the concert. Definitely have to make it out to Ireland at some point...

Here we are before the evening began...
Male singer with string ensemble behind him...
Female singer...

And here's a movie clip of the two of them singing 'Papageno! Papagena!' from Mozart's "The Magic Flute." It's too dark to see anything, but you can still hear them...




And now for some miscellaneous photos...

Linz and I in front of one of the many lakes in the lake district...this might actually be Mondsee lake, I don't remember...

Mirabell Palace...this was built by one of the Archbishop's in 1606 for his girlfriend. They ended up having 15 kiddies together. Naughty naughty!


View of the fortress from the Gardens in Mirabell Palace...
Birthplace of Mozart...

Linz looking upon her husband with loving adoration...

There we go...there's the look I was hoping for...


Alright, that will do for now. We took way too many pictures to post them all here. But these were some of the best. Overall, I must say that Salzburg was great. It would have been better if it wasn't as foggy...but can you do? Not sure where our next trip will be, but we'll be sure to take plenty of pics.