Free Weekend

This weekend, our group had the opportunity to decide for ourselves what we wanted to do. Instead of going away to different countries like many of our fellow friends did, the four of us (Mike, Brent, Lama and I) decided to stick around Vienna. 

On Saturday, we took Edith's advice and went to Baden, a small town right outside the Vienna city limits. We had a picnic lunch by the train station, and then wandered into town. The town area was decorated to look like Wien's Graben, with Eurocup flags and soccer statues. It was so cute!

The decorated "Graben".

Green streets!

We then found these great hiking paths, and walked up the mountain until we found a gazebo with a great overlook of the city. We spent about an hour there taking pictures of ourselves jumping off the railings. :)

Michael

Brent

Baden!

For dinner, we ate at another heuligen and had some great new wine. Our dinner was excellent and also very cheap! We Euchre for awhile, too, which was interesting since I'm not too familiar with the game. 

Our dinner: pork, corn salad, mediterranean salad, bread, and wine!

The heuligen sign from the outside.

We decided to head back into Vienna around 8pm so we could go out for Sarah Fetter's birthday. Unfortunately, I was very tired, so we actually ended up just sitting around. No big deal though, it was a perfect day--very relaxing and lots of fun with our friends!

Today (Sunday), Michael and I decided to just sit around downtown Vienna and do some homework. Right now we are sitting at Coffee Day, sipping on a melange and writing our mini papers. We're both taking the class "Senior Seminar--Values in Transit", which is a seminar course about people's values and their philosophies about life. We're reading a book called "This I Believe"--a collection of personal philosophies and things people believe in. It's a very eye-opening and intruiging read; I would definitely suggest it! Check out the website if you're interested in learning more or reading this week's featured essay. It's a great one.

Well, back to our homework. I hope everyone is doing well at home! I'm looking forward to coming back to American culture, but I'm also excited to live it up in Europe for the last 11 days we have here! Enjoy your Sunday, and Happy Father's Day! :)