Wien

I arrived in Vienna from London mid-afternoon on Saturday. As I walked into the arrival hall, I was pleasantly surprised to see people waiting with their dogs for their loved ones to leave the airport. And not just little yippie dogs; it was all sorts. Also realized straight away that I know next to no German. Commence the smile and nod that was used through most of my trip to Europe.

I took a bus into central Vienna without a plan or a place to stay (sorry mom!) I stopped by a hostel that I had written down, but they were full. They called another one down the road that had availability, so me and my backpack walked down to the Westend City Hostel. This was only the second hostel I'd ever stayed in – Julie and I spent a memorable night (or was it 2?) in a hostel in Harlem a few years back. I met some of my roommates for the night, and then headed solo into the city. Once I got off the ultra-touristy shopping street Mariahilfer and into the center of Vienna, I saw why everyone calls Vienna so beautiful. Gorgeous buildings everywhere. Every corner you turn, here's another grand building.

National Library

I stumbled into the summer Film Festival, where they show cultural movies every night for 2 months during the summer. I watched the Zurich Opera House performance of Carmen on a ginormous screen, drinking a beer after having some kind of cheese schnitzel. Fun fact that I didn't put together until reading my guidebook for the trip: Wiener schnitzel? Schnitzel from Vienna.

Film Festival in Rathausplatz

On Sunday, I woke up late (LOVE hostel time, no alarms unless you've got a train or plane to catch), had some breakfast at the hostel, and set out to explore the city with my new buddy Garron from Oregon. First stop was Stephansplatz, where we stopped into Stephansdom and walked up the many, many stairs to the top of the tower. Nice views of the city from the top. Vienna is a sprawling city.



I read in a newspaper that Austria has seen only a 2% decline in newspaper distribution, compared to something like 30% in the US. I read this fact as I sipped a coffee in a cafe in Vienna – cafe culture RULES.

Statue in the Habsburg Palace

I was also on a mission to see the Danube. I'm glad I had a buddy this day, because the body of water on my map turned out to be a canal, and I would have been sorely disappointed if I thought that was the Danube. We took the Ubahn to the river, and we were all over the boats once we got there. All the paddleboats were rented, so I lounged and drank my Erdinger while Garron rowed us around a little island in the river. I saw my first-ever nude beach as we went around the other side of the island. I enjoyed my awkward shirt and shorts tanlines from 2 hours in the boat in full sun, thankyouverymuch.

Swan on the Danube

Sunday night a group from the hostel went to a pub somewhere and had a few beers. This is where I fell absolutely in love with the hostel culture – meeting a bunch of travellers around my age from all over the world, trading stories from home and stories from travelling. I'll probably never meet a lot of these people again, but it's such a wonderful experience.

Beautiful views from a break on the grass

Monday was a travel day. After stopping for some apfel strudel and snacks for the train, I got hopelessly lost trying to find the correct train station to get a train to Prague. Once I was on my way, it was a nice 4.5 hour ride to Prague through the countryside. I wish I could say I enjoyed all of the views, but I slept for a good part of the ride.

One thousands apologies to the city of Vienna. My German is so terrible that I spelled your fair city's name as Wine when I first posted this. It is also so terrible that I thought Einbahn was some important place with arrows pointing one way all over the city for it.

Oxford

I took a bus trip from London to Oxford for a Sunday afternoon spent wandering around one of the ultimate English college towns. The weather was beautiful, as it had been for just about the entire trip to London.

Christ Church

I was thinking "what, cows on campus?!" but then I remembered I went to Penn State.

I paid to get into Magdalen College (pronounced maudlin). It was pretty, as all the colleges are, but I don't think it was worth 4.50GBP.

Courtyard in Magdalen College

I also went up the St. Mary's church tower for great views of Oxford and the surrounding countryside. There's something about the English countryside – big open skies, rolling hills and fields.


I also stopped into the Ashmolean. I love that so many of the museums are free; it takes a lot of pressure off to rush around seeing everything to get your money's worth. I saw a few exhibits and then carried on with my visit to Oxford.


Streets of Oxford

I went to an ice cream shop and then hopped the bus back to London. I was a little disappointed by Oxford, but I think it had a lot to do with the masses of teenage (mostly American) tourists that overwhelmed the city during the summer. It was pretty, but I had more fun wandering around Cambridge last year (sorry Oxford!)

London: best way to beat the East Coast heat

I got a call on a Wednesday that I would be needed in London the following Monday for a few weeks – was I available? Heck yes! It was for a bit of a role transition, which I anticipated and looked forward to in about October time, but it got pushed up a bit (hooray!) Plus, I was just about ready to start planning some sort of summer vacation, so this was an excellent jumping off point to Europe (more on that later...)

I was put up in a apartment/hotel this time around, complete with a stove, fridge, washing machine (!!) I already love the city, but this was a huge help in making me feel at home in London. Admittedly, I didn't do much cooking, but it was nice to have the option.

Digs for most of my trip

I've done a lot of the touristy things in London, so I took the weekends pretty easy. Wandering around the neighborhood, South Bank, sitting in parks and squares reading. I did get funky in Camden Market. Well, the funk was all around, at least.

Camden Lock

I had gorgeous weekends, and really nice weather all around. I've said this many times to many people, but it was nice to be in a place where the high temperature (mid-70s to 80) was NY's low temperature. Can't say I really missed not being in NY for one of, if not the, hottest Julys on record.

Probably the most asked question: isn't London so rainy?!

My time in London was really nice. I had a lot of pubtime with my workmates, caught dinner with friends in London, and I got to meet some family for the first time. Stuart and his family were gracious enough to have me over for dinner. We worked out that we're second cousins on my mother's side (my great Aunt Jane's grandson). It was really nice to meet them – they're lovely, and I'm excited to meet child #3 after she arrives in September.

Thanks for having me, cousin Stuart!

Land of Sweet Tea

I spent Memorial Day weekend visiting my friend Ashley from Penn State down in Elizabeth City, NC. I took a bus down to Baltimore and spent the night at my friends' place before we hit the road on Friday.

We had a raucous dinner at Applebee's on Friday night, followed by catching up with everyone afterwards. We spent Saturday running around getting ready for the big party that night. The party was a ton of fun - good food, dancing, and meeting the new people in Ashley's E-City life.

PSU and Virginia friends with the birthday girl and her boyfriend Justin

Hammer and Vanilla chilling out after the party

We went down to the Outer Banks on Sunday for a few hours. The beach at Nags Head was really pretty and wasn't overly crowded (though it was tough to find parking). The water was cold, but we all jumped waves for awhile on a perfect beach day. After that, we said goodbye to Sara (back to Tucson) and Laura (staying for a few extra days in OBX).

Steve, Laura, Me, Ashley, Sara, Matt after some good beach time

Matt and Steve and I took back off to Baltimore on Monday. We stopped in Williamsburg, VA to wander for an hour and grab some lunch. It wasn't quite what I was expecting - I thought lots and lots of cobblestones - but it was neat nonetheless.

Governors Palace

Sitting in traffic outside Richmond, we spotted a black lab puppy without a collar sitting on the side of the road. Steve jumped out of the car and picked her up. We shared the backseat back to Baltimore where she got a vet check-up, 14 ticks removed, and scanned for a microchip. No microchip, and efforts to find an owner didn't turn up anything. Matt and Steve found Virginia a new home with several other labs.

Virginia the navigator

Thanks to Mama and Papa Sweeney for hosting a great weekend, and having a fabulous daughter to bring us all together.

Bienvenido a Miami

I spent a few days in Miami last week for work. The days were spent in a conference room, but the evenings were spent eating delicious food and imbibing a few adult beverages.

On Friday, I took off to South Beach to spend an extra day and a half on the beach. I met up with my friend Joanna from Penn State, and her friend from home, Erin. We went to dinner at Joe's Stone Crab for dinner. Tasty stone crab (my first), fried green tomatoes, and key lime pie. Oh, and Bill Clinton was there.



I spent Saturday on the beach, and wandering around South Beach. I got some sun, and came home with some awkward tan lines, and a further appreciation of Miami.

Now I'm in NY

I moved into Manhattan at the beginning of April, and I've been busy working and doing some exploring - time for an update!

I'm in a 3-BR on the Upper West Side near Lincoln Center. I share with 3 cool roommates, and 2 happy, furry, tail-wagging roommates.

View from the balcony

View from my bedroom (!)

I live very close to Riverside Park, and I've gone running there a few times now. It's a nice path; there's a boardwalk for a bit, along the river, and some neat sights (including the 69th Street Transfer Bridge)

And, I'll leave you with a shot of the flowers in bloom from a few weeks ago. Somewhat relatedly, I went to the farmers market yesterday, and saw lilacs for sale from $5-$7 a bunch. I find this absolutely hilarious, because I could make $100 if I went back to where I grew up and raided the lilac bushes.

Iceland

I spent 4 days in Iceland with my department for a team meeting. A lot of time was spent in a stuffy conference room, but we did get a fair amount of time to explore.

We flew in Sunday night, arriving early Monday morning. Reykjavik is at 64°N, so the sun didn't rise until about 930 while we were there. I didn't get much sleep on the plane, so I took a nap and headed out for a hot dog at noon. Iceland uses GMT, so it's the same time as London (+5 from EST).

Apparently this means "town's best" in Icelandic. The lamb hot dog was pretty tasty, with its mysterious brown sauce and crunchy bits

After an Icelandic Viking beer with some NJ colleagues, I wandered around Reykjavik to get a feel for the small city and take in the scenery. 2/3 of Iceland's population of 300,000 live in the city.






One of the highlights of the trip was the food and drink. I ate a lot of seafood while I was there. Cod, halibut, salmon, and some lobster soup were more of the traditional seafood, but I also had smoked puffin, minke whale, and a black seabird. I had opportunity to have reindeer (already had it in Alaska), foal (was gone before I got a chance to try), and fermented shark, but I passed on the shark. The colleagues who tried that one gave reviews of bad sushi and urine.

On Wednesday, after a morning of meetings, we drove about 40 mins south of the city to have an ATV adventure along the coast. We paired up on quads and drove around for about 2 hours. I opted to be passenger the entire time. I was having a blast on the back of the quad - we maxed out at 55 mph. It also gave me time to take in the alien landscape - no trees, all black lava rocks.





On the way back to the airport, we hit the Blue Lagoon, a thermal bath. The water is a really pretty blue color, heated by the outflow of the geothermal power plant - way cooler than it sounds.



I would very much like to get back to Iceland to see the rest of the country - glaciers, hiking, etc. I'm so glad I got an opportunity to see it - and seeing it in the winter wasn't bad at all.