3/19/2010
Vienna is absolutely amazing. I definitely want to come back here and just explore. It feels very safe and I love all the side streets with the cute little shops, and how beautiful all of the buildings are. To just be able to walk through these amazing places is incredible. I love that the buildings are still being used and kept in such good condition.
We got to explore the castle - it's so different from Prague - the fact that there was 30 more years of Soviet occupation in Prague just gives it a completely different ambience. 
I'm so curious about all the history of the area - there's so much that I had no idea of. I'd still love to go to Italy and Spain and the United Kingdom - but I'd also love to come back here. I want to learn more German though, I hate having to get people to speak to me in English. I'm not sure I'd learn enough German to be able to survive, but it would be better at least. 
This is the Spanish Riding School, with the amazingly trained horses. They're beautiful.Another highlight is Saint Stephen's Cathedral. We sang inside - it was so amazingly gorgeous... and now, I shall submit you to lots of pictures.
We just went to the Zentralfriedhof in Vienna, where so many great musicians are buried. It's so strange that we don't know where Mozart is - buried in a pauper's grave. There's a monument to him, though - right next to Beethoven's grave. It bothers me sometimes how much music history I've forgotten.
3/21/2010
Today was definitely an intense day. We went to Mauthausen Concentration Camp - at least 100,000 people were killed there. They honestly don't know how many, especially between the satellite camps - Gusen, and the others that were connected. The feeling of complete and utter desperation - it just permeates everything that's still there. All of the buildings - the gas chamber, the crematoriums - all of that.
Tomorrow's our last day here. It's so strange to think about having to go back. I'd love to just stay here and get to explore more. I'm also excited to get to Salzburg, and get to explore that city. It's smaller than any of the others that we've been to, which is nice. I'm still not a fan of big cities, even when they're beautiful and gorgeous and amazing.
3/22/2010
Last day in Europe - I'm sad to have to be leaving. Salzburg was amazing though. We did a walking tour. We were told we'd get to see sights from the Sound of Music, but we actually didn't get a chance to. We saw Mirabell Gardens,
which is where the Do-Re-Mi Garden scene was filmed, but other than that - we didn't get to see other aspects. A bit sad, but most of it was filmed outside of the city, so we couldn't very well walk there.We also sang at a small little church - a Catholic mass, in German. It was interesting (we sang a Hebrew folk song, and an African-American spiritual, as well as some other pieces). We made the nuns cry, and they gave us chocolate - it was truly an amazing experience. We also got to sing in the Salzburg Cathedral - we sang Mozart in the cathedral where both he and his father worked. It was a truly amazing experience.
We saw the oldest bakery in Salzburg,
as well as the oldest coffee shop, and restaurant. Such a history that we here have no idea of because the United States is such a new country...-----------------END-----------------------
I'll be posting more pictures with captions so that you all can see (though they're also all on facebook) - but this was my actual journal that I brought with me.
