Slovenia

Hey look it's my last name!
The Ljubljanica River
The Dragon Bridge...slovenia's mascot
Small street in Ljubljana
Ah yes how i miss my cat, luckily there are cats everywhere in europe. this fiesty little guy was on the prowl for something, i think a ferocious
leaf


BLED LAKE

Bled is in the northwest corner of Slovenia. Almost surreal. It used to be an old resort town for Europeans. The lake is 6km around with a little island in the middle that houses a church from the 13th century. I caught this town on the off-season. The people out and about were mostly locals. The trees were just turning and save for the church bell that rang every once in awhile and the sound of the ducks it was pretty much silent.

The colors on these ducks was so brilliant it looked like someone crayoned them. They were often fighting, yelling at eachother and then bashing each other with their wings and beaks. It must be hard to fight as a duck, especially to fight another duck because i didn't get the feeling that they could actually hurt eachother.

One of many gondolas waiting to wisk you off to the island

Austria Pictures

The famous Mirabell Gardens from the Sound of Music. Some people got really into it, like the japanese man singing "the hills are alive" just a little to seriously to himself.
Some flowers in the gardens...and the dreaded snow.
A view from their castle on the hill
More garden pics, the Schloss Mirabel palace is on the right.

Venice

Venice was an unplanned stop on the way back to france. My train stopped here and I wandered around for the morning before my afternoon train. Venice is made up of 117 tiny islands, thus there really aren't any roads to speak of. All transportation - including public - is done in the canals. People wait for the "metro" and jump onto a sort of pontoon boat looking thing. Some of the islands are bigger than others so there are some streets, but the funny thing is, there aren't bridges where the real streets on the islands meet the water all the time. Sometimes you head down a street only to realize you're looking at water with no way to cross. Fun fun. Getting lost is inevitable, every two feet the names of the canals and streets change. You just aim yourself in the correct direction and go. If you actually tried to know where you were at all times your head be burried in the map at all times. So when you get lost, and in the event of being in a hurry like wondering if you're going to miss your train, just point at your map and corner a local. Sometimes they aren't even really sure, but they at least give you a general idea of where you are.
Some Gondolas on the left...if you want some romance it comes with a hefty pricetag of 62 euros an hour!!!
A Venetian "side street"

Austria

So here I am in Austria. It's snowing, it's cold, but ok it's really beautiful too. I spent the last day and a half in Salzburg...famed for being the birthplace of Mozart. It was pretty small, i think I saw pretty much everything i wanted to see in the time i was there. I also had fried bratwurst...mmmm...i didn't think you could make it any fattier. But yes, let's fry it. And then put some potatoes and saurkraut with it because that's the way they do it.

As I pulled away from the Lyon train station I suddenly realized I had not brought an extra set of cantacts and my glasses suffered the same fate of the camera so they weren't with me either. Ah, whatever I tried to think nothing of it. And then I woke up this morning only to realize I had a large rip in my right contact. I momentarily freaked out, because I didn't know what else to do. And then I thought long and hard about going back to france because I was not about to make it 7 more days with no contacts. Then I envisioned what David would say if I showed up 14 hours later, entirely too early to have finished my trip. After much intellectual contemplation I concluded that Austrains must wear contacts too and I journeyed out of my hostel on a quest to figure out where I might find these elusive contacts. About one minute down the street I found an Optik! A nice Austrian girl checked my eyes and gave me a contact for 6 euros. Now I can see and I'm in Vienna.

Vienna is the Paris of Austria. Not my favorite so far, but I'm finding I usually prefer the small towns...like Salzburg, to the large ones. I went to two art museums today. One had a extensive Picasso exhibit going for the fall so that was interesting. I have never seen so much Picasso in my life. The other one was mostly artists like Klimt with more of a modern flare also which is quite a nice change from the stuff I've been seeing.

And now I'm off to Slovenia! I bought my ticket today and somehow it was special deal day and I got 50% off. I love Slovenia already :) Apparently I probably still have some family there but I can't get any specific details. Everyone and their mother has my last name there, so that doesn't help much either.

Well that about does it, I'm going to see the Vienna Imperial Orchestra tonight. Some nice man in a get-up selling tickets last night convinced me to go...well convinced me to buy tickets from him anyway :) I figure I am in Vienna. Mozart here I come.