Another Week

Sean came to visit for a whole week during Georgetown's Spring Break. It was wonderful having him here although now I'm counting down the days even more desperately, ready to get back to the states, my family, and my friends. Not that it's horrible here... just not for me. Nevertheless, we had a good week.

Sean got in on Saturday. We spend half the day letting him recover from such a long flight and then went roaming about Prague a bit. We ran into Shelby in Old Town Square and he was thrilled to see Sean. That night we went to the Teahouse in the Tower , walked through Letna Gardens, and then met up again with Shelby and a couple other friends for drinks. We still called it an earlier night, however. We saw more of Prague the next day, going through the Castle and Mala Strana ("Little Town"). It was cold and took a bit of adjustment from Sean but we made it through and he really seemed to appreciate the beauty of the city. I think it begins to go unnoticed by most us studying abroad here but it is really a very aesthetically pleasing place.

Monday it was off to Vienna. We took an early bus ride and slept nearly the whole way there. We walked around a little that afternoon but it was, again, freezing and bus sleep is a lot different from normal sleep so we went to bed earlier again. Tuesday we took a tour of the city. It was a weird experience being on a tour that alternated between German and English. We were also the youngest people on that tour by about 20 years. We learned a good deal though about the Hapsburgs and the city of Vienna. My favorite fact (albeit morbid) is that when a member of the Hapsburg royal family died, they would always take out their heart and their intestines and preserve them in two different places separate from the actual body. This has something to do with them becoming reincarnated on judgement day but Sean and I were a little unclear on that. We mainly just thought it was weird. Although, we did take a crypt and catacombs tour later that day and got to be in the same room as Empress Maria Theresa's intensines... We also took the metro out to Schonbrunn Palace which was the favorite part of my trip. It was a lovely place with tons of gardens to explore and great views of the city. I informed Sean that I would like to live there. He said he would work on it.


The next day was a power day. We did so much! In brief, we saw the Zentralfriedhof (national cemetary where Beethoven, Brahms, Strauss, and Falco are buried), the famous Anchor Clock, fine arts museum, Belvedere Palace, and the Lippizaner Horses. We did all this even after I had an allergic/asthmatic reaction to the Lippizaner horses at the Spanish Riding School. That night, we made it to a wine tavern near our hotel and tried a couple of Austrian wines and some apple strudel. Loooonnggggg day but nevertheless awesome. Even so, I definitely think both of us want to take a trip back someday. We saw so much but I feel like there was a tons we missed.

The one downside to Vienna was that I did get sick while we were there. I'm still sick but hopefully Anyway, that caused us to kind of take it easy when we got back to Prague on Thursday. Sean met my friends and we saw a few last things in Prague but mainly kept it low key. Sean got to see all the highlights of Prague and had real Czech food, though.

It was really nice having him here and extremely difficult to see him leave yesterday. That being said, 62 days until I go home!