where we've been - part 2

*Nick in Vienna

Well, it has been quite awhile since we've posted anything. Hopefully you all have gotten by. We had another huge grant application due on Dec. 15th that took up pretty much all our time. And now my family is visiting us in Vienna so we've turned into tourists the past week and haven't had much time. We're going to do some more specific posts on highlights, but I thought I would just mention a few of the things we've been up to the past few weeks.

I went to Paris on the 9th. During the days we worked like crazy on the grant application, but most of the nights we were able to have fun. We went to a couple Paris Christmas market, went to one opera and one ballet, and explored new parts of the city we had never seen. On the 14th my brother arrived from the states for a visit to Paris before we all went to Vienna. We had to send him out a bit on his own, but he had a great time touring around Paris. We finished our grants on the 15th (with over 15 minutes to spare!) and spent a couple days in Paris with my brother. We went to an amazing display of Monet (more on that in a later post), had a four-hour dinner with one of Jane's friends, and went to the art studio/cafe that Jane had been to for Thanksgiving.

On the 18th we flew to Vienna. The trip to the airport was not smooth. It had snowed during most of the day and it was wreaking havoc on travel, or at least that is how it seemed. We went to the metro about 2 1/2 hours before the flight, but the trains were so crowded that it took 4 trains to get us all to the north train station - the first one we couldn't fit, then Jane got on the next train, then me, then Ben. It was a crazy mass of pushing people (who mostly all stayed very calm) and being virtually unable to move. We finally made it to the train station where we took a train to the airport. We actually got our tickets very quickly and made it to the gate with about 30 minutes to spare, but the flight was delayed. After waiting a couple hours in the terminal they got us in the plane where we then waited another two hours before taking off. We landed in Vienna around 3 in the morning - about 4 hours later than we were supposed to. None of the transportation was running yet, and there were no taxis, so we had to wait until about 5 for a train into Vienna. When we got to my parents hotel at about 6 they were very relieved (they didn't know what was going on and why we were 6 hours late because we had no way to contact them).

For the past couple days we have seen some of Vienna and took a lovely day trip to a monastery town called Melk (more on that in a different post). We also went to the ballet. Unfortunately, it has been so cold (around 5 farenheit) that we have barely been able to be outside, which is a shame because Vienna is beautiful at Christmas. It is supposed to warm up in a couple days. Today my parents and brother took a day trip to Salzburg, but Jane and I stayed here to recover and save some money.

We'll post more soon now that we are starting to recover.