Life in Vienna

So, I had a post ready to upload the other day, but our internet in the castle went down because of a storm!! 

I can't believe we have only been in Vienna a week! It feels like we have been here forever!! I am already getting familiar with the city and with getting around! We take the tram and the underground system to get to most of our places. We have already seen so much here!! We went to the site of some ancient Roman ruins and then to a museum about them on Sunday afternoon. Yesterday, our group went to the Kunst museum where we saw a lot of amazing art!! We have also gone to three beautiful churches this week! 

Along with going to all of the sites around Vienna, we have been working on our culture and language classes. A Viennese woman comes to the Schloss (our home!) everyday to teach us about the history of Austria and Vienna as well as to teach us some basic German! It is very interesting to learn about all of these cool historic places and then to get to see them in the afternoons! The German is going pretty well so far, but I am still far from fluent! 

While we are in Vienna, our group volunteers at a children's shelter. We went for the first time on Tuesday! I spent most of my time hanging out with baby Hero... he was so cute!! 

The group has been getting along really well so far! A lo

t of places around Vienna close pretty early at night so we end up spending our evenings stuck in the castle.... but oh we have fun! We have been having movie nights, dance parties, and we even played hide-and-go-seek/sardines at night! Sardines was pretty scary at night because the castle is so big!! The castle is beautiful in the light, but when it is dark it is pretty creepy!!!! 

That is mostly what has been going on during this past week in Vienna! Next week is pretty much the same for us until Friday: that is when we get to go on a group retreat in the Alps! How exciting!! 

Miss you all!!! Love!!!! 

We went to the market!! 

Stephensdom Church

Baby Hero, from the children's shelter

Gelato!! 

Schoenbrunn Palace! 

I got a 43 sign! First of our group to get one!! 

WhatUpVienna

We are finally in VIENNA!!! :) 

Our quick 2 hour flight got in around 6 pm on Thursday evening... It seemed so short compared to the super long Dallas-t0-London flight! The castle is BEAUTIFUL! Alana and I are roommates and our room is wonderfully spacious! We have the most adorable windows that open to the view of the castle's drive! I love seeing the sun shine through those windows in the morning! :) 

Even though I am really excited to finally be in Vienna, I already really miss London! We did so many cool things in such a short time! We really were going at whirlwind speed... 

Here are some pictures from what I did in London: 

Big Ben and the Parliament Building at night

Alana and me kissing Alexander the Great at the British Museum

Les Miserables was AMAZING!!!!!!!

Platform 9 3/4 where Harry Potter boards his train to go to school :)

Westminster Abbey... it was so beautiful!! 

Me and the Rosetta Stone!!

This one is for Daddy:

Buckingham Palace, right before the changing of the guards! 

Overlooking London from the top of St. Paul's Cathedral... climbed nearly 600 steep steps to get there, but it was totally worth it! 

This is on Millennium Bridge! (Alicia & Erin, this is the bridge the dementors circled at the beginning of the last HP movie)

We saw Wicked! :)

Tower Bridge (usually incorrectly called London Bridge)

Natalie, Lauren, Alana, me, and Katie in front of St. Paul's

Welcome to London!

We are in London!!!!
That is about the only thought I can think right now! I am so exhausted from the travel over here and jet lag, but it doesn't matter because I am in LONDON!!
As soon as we got off the plane and put our bags in our hotel, we hit the streets of London on a walking tour... we saw so much today already!! AND I had very yummy fish and chips for dinner!
Like I said, I am VERY sleepy so I will share some quick pictures and then get some sleep!

Twas the night before Europe...

2:30 am... just got back to the hotel.

So much for the great night of rest before the big trip! The Flos made a lil trip to the E.R. after we took a closer look at my apparently infected eyeball. All week

long my eye has felt pretty irritated, but it suddenly got extr

a red tonight! When Mom, Dad, an

d I looked at it, we could actually see marks on my eye where so

mething wasn't right! So we went to the hospital (as nothing else was open at that time). Got me all patched up, and, long story short, I will be wearing glasses for a while! Goodness!

Well, that was written last night when we got back to the hotel. Sin

ce then, we went on a roller coaster of a ride trying to find someplace that would give me new lenses for my glasses. Being the smart packer that I am, I failed to bring the glasses with my latest lenses, therefore leaving me with really old headachy one

s :( By a miracle we found someone to update them (after a LOT of faxing drama to get the right information to the Oklahoma eye offices)! Whew!

Basically, it has been a super long week. SUPER long. Here are some pics from the week!!

My "To-Do" and "To-Pack" lists!

Alana, Natalie, and me during send-off chapel

Daddy, Me, and Mommy during the send off dinner!

They LOVE late night hospital visits!

yayayay!!