My feet are tired.

Yesterday, We arrived in Vienna around noon.  We found our way to the hostel and headed to a church in the city called New City Wien.  The church was in both English and German languages.  That was a fun experience.

I knew the pastor and his wife, Brad and Stacey Hunter,  from the last time I had come to Vienna in 2008.  It was so fun though because it was almost as if no time had passed.  I felt like it was just the other day we were there and it was great fun talking to them.  They had a meal after the service and we stayed there and met up with another contact I had in Vienna, Josh.  Josh is the son of one of my fathers college house mates.  It was nice to see him and catch up with what he is doing here and back home.

After we left church, we headed to Stephensdom (Big recognizable cathedral in the center of the city) and walked around there a bit.  We walked all around some of the shopping streets in Vienna and saw some amazing buildings all lit up.  We then headed back to the hostel for the night.

Today is why my feet hurt.
We headed down a big shopping street this morning because today was Rosalie's birthday.  She had also picked out a few vintage stores she wanted to check out.  So we walked around and found a couple and walked through a flea market.  After that, we went by the Museum of Natural History and the Kunsthistorisches museum (Art History Museum) and down by the Parliament building and then to the Rathaus (City Hall) where there is typically a garden in front of it, but they had put in a HUGE ice skating rink.  There were two big areas to skate and then a whole bunch of small trails that you could go around on too.  We skated there for hours and that was really fun!  There were beautiful views from the rinks of beautiful Viennese architecture all around.

After ice skating, we headed to the Staatsoper (State Opera)  We heard there was a possibility of getting cheap standing area tickets and so we decided it was worth it.  The ballet Dornröschen (Sleeping Beauty) was playing tonight.  So we stood in line to get the tickets which were 4 Euro each!  4 Euro?  That has to be a mistake, right?  Nope.  And the area where we were standing had a great view.  The only problem was... the whole standing for three hours thing.  Hence, my feet are tired.  The ballet, however, was so amazing, the sets, the costumes, the performers, and the music.  I was surprised that the Disney version of sleeping beauty uses so much of Tchaikovsky's music in it.  There were at least 5 songs that I could tell that were in the Disney movie that came from the ballet. (If you didn't know this about me, Disney's Sleeping Beauty is my favorite Disney movie so I really liked the ballet)

Check out some pics of the day.

Cool colorful facades on buildings in Vienna.

Museum of Natural History.

Hofburgtheater, across the street from the Rathaus.

Rathaus with the ice skating park in front of it.

View from above of some of the skating paths.

 I found out how to get some of my camera settings to work... Artsy B&W of the larger ice rink.

 Ceiling in the Lobby of the Staatsoper.

View from my standing area place at the inside the Staatoper.