Through the looking glass

Vienna is GREAT! It is like a little bit of Florence and Prague with its own unique influences. It reminds me of what I am missing in America because one street will have tons of shops and it will end in front of a huge gothic church. it just makes everything that much more spectacular. Yesterday, we had started a very long but fun day. We woke up early and headed down the main street for some early morning shopping. As some of you may know, I collect logo shirts from every country/city I visit and I was determined to find something from Vienna... and I did (you will see). Then we headed to the history museum of Vienna because someone from job recommended it to me. It set the stage for most of the history of Vienna so we were somewhat prepared for the rest of the sightseeing ahead of us. After the museum we went to the Karslplatz to see the Karls church. It was very pretty with a huge green/teal dome. The inside had intricate paintings and a lift to take us to the top of the church. A

The A's stand for Aussies and Austrians. Everyone here is awesome!Last night we went out to a bar called "torino" in venice and we stayed out pretty late. we had some wonderful wine and met some wonderful people. We met three Australian girls, one of them, named loren, who told us all about australia. she is a teacher and to get to work she has to travel 4 times a year by two planes. very crazy. she teaches in a small aboriginal community. it was fun getting to know them and we all exchanged information. The next day we woke up and left early for vienna. we arrived after a 10 hour train ride but we had the whole cabin to ourselves. we met a young man on the train who asked us where we are traveling and we said we were from america. he told us how lucky we were and how he wants to come live there one day. he said "here is the rest of the world and america is a world of its own". kind of puts in perspective how lucky we really are. anyway, vienna is HUGE! anyway

Apparantely, yes there is. it was actually the first established ghetto in venice created during 1516. it also was used actively during the second world war. so today i went to visit a jewish ghetto but that is not the only thing. the day started with our last shopping trip around san marco. i got some ciao ciao and ciao bella shirts... my favorites of course. and i got some cool glass rings made from venetian glass. then we went back packed up because our train leaves early tomorrow morning for vienna. after we took a long walk to the ponte rialto which looks like the paintings of venice. the canal runs through it and there are shops and restaurants all along the canal. we walked from the ponte rialto to the jewish ghetto where we saw that museum of the ghetto. it became almost quiet and scary immediately. it was interesting. then we headed to the accademia museum and saw paintings by titian and bellini. it was nice. the best part of venice is walking into the little shops and getting

Ok so I am back at it again... Europe Part II. For those who do not know I am going to Venice, Vienna, Budapest, and Zurich. I am very excited! We left on Sunday after a fun saturday in NYC with Neesa and Arti. The plane ride was umcomfortable because the kid behind me kept kicking but it was still great b/c I was flying here! We got to Zurich and took a trian to Santa Lucia, Venice. It is sooo beautiful here!!!! The water is a pretty green and it is breezy/nice. The first night we walked to the Piazza San Marco and found a nice restuarant to eat. I got back into the groove of saying "ciao" "grazi" "prego". It is so much fun to use my limited Italian. Today we took a vaporetti (water taxi) out to the island of Murano to see the glass blowing factory. I bought a little gondola made of glass for my apartment. It was neat to see it again just like the time I went to Caracas, Venezuela. Tonight we plan on meeting a friend at this club called Piccolo Mondo. Tom