Europe Trip 2007—Vienna

2:40am we were on a big fancy taxi cab from Vienna airport to our downtown hotel. The cab driver was pushing 140 km/hour on the airport freeway, passing every moving object. I quietly fashioned the seatbelt in the back seat and asked David to do the same. Not too long after we got to our hotel safely I passed out in a nice big bed.

In the sunny morning light, I found the room was really big; other than the bedroom area there was also an entrance area and living area. The hotel lobby had a library and reading room, the building itself was beautiful too. It used to be a Riding School. We left the hotel early to see the morning practice at the Spanish Riding School. No cameras were allowed at the practice, so I don’t have any photos for that, but the experience was nice—with gentle classic music, the dressed up riders rode their well trained horse for practice. For both horses and riders every movement was controlled, every motion had rules. I could watch it for hours.

Vienna, capital of music, it was classic, peaceful and friendly. Walking in its streets, crossing its bridges, I enjoyed the romantic atmosphere. If the Seine River in Paris is a beautiful lady, then Danube River in Vienna is a sheet of music.

Danube River

Another reason for me to love Vienna — Princes Sisi! I had seen the Princes Sisi movie when I was little and have been a fan of Sisi since. I had already visited Munich where Sisi was born and Vienna was the place where she lived after being married to the King of Austria. Vienna is the place to get to know more about the real Sisi—Empress Elisabeth of Austria. The real Sisi was really pretty too, although her personality wasn’t the same like descried in the move, still, I was glad that I was there, and that was the closest I could get to Princes Sisi.

Princes Sisi

There is something about Vienna connected to me, it is the only city that I’ve visited that let me feel that romance in the air. Is it Sisi? Is it music? Is it Danube? I don’t know.

Too bad we were only there for 4 days.

Europe Trip 2007—Paris

It was after 9pm when we landed at Charles De Gaulle airport, the famous airport looked old and dingy. We went to the window for the weekly transportation pass first, and then tried to figure out how to get our hotel. Thanks to our Japanese cell phone, we’d able to call the hotel for directions. With the help of the information window at the airport, the subway station and the local people on the bus, we found our hotel by 10:30pm. The room was small, but nice and comfortable.

Throughout all the sight-seeing, I liked the Louvre Museum and walking in streets of Paris the best. We spent 2 whole days in the Louvre and did lots of walking in Paris. Some times we needed to ask for directions and French people were helpful—they answered in French with hand signals, and that works. To see Paris’ Catacombs was my idea because I heard so much about it from the travel channel in the States. It was troublesome to find, the Catacombs’ entrance on the map in our travel book wasn’t right. I was every excited when we were finally going down the spiral staircase deeper underground. Then, a strange thing happened—as the staircase ended we started walking into a dingy short narrow tunnel leading to the catacombs. Within a minute of walking in the tunnel, I started to panic, the tunnel seems endless to me, the more I went forward, the more I felt trapped. I stopped David and told him that I couldn’t go any further and had to get out as soon as possible. I encouraged him to go ahead without me and went back to the entrance. The staff at the entrance was surprised to see me because the exit was at the other side of the tunnel.

“Did you see a ghost?” the staff teased with a smile.
“No.” I said, “Claustrophobic.” Everyone at the entrance laughed.

One of the staff carefully told me how to get to the exit a few blocks away to wait for David to come out and reminded me that the tour will take about 40 minutes. I easily found the exit. Again, the staff was very friendly and offered me a place to sit and we chatted with short English phrases. There was a skull on the table and I had been told it was real.

“Can I touch it?” I asked with a finger pointing at it.
“No.” staff answered.
“Can I hold it then?” I decided to keep myself amused while waiting.
“OK” was the replied.
“Really?” I placed both my hands around the skull, pretended to pick it up and check the staff’s facial expression at the same time.
“Yes, yes.” He nodded.
And then the staff happily helped me to take pictures of me holding the skull.

A week after, we took a red-eye flight to Vienna.

More Wishes:

• Check out more Museums in Paris.
• Come to Paris with my girlfriends for shopping only.

Europe Trip 2007—Munich

Last September David and I had a 3-week vacation in Europe. We visited Munich, Paris and Vienna. Each city has its charm and I enjoyed all of them.


Sept 18th, we arrived at Munich, where my dear friends Lingling and Mike invited us to stay with them. They have a beautiful apartment right in the center of the town. We were so lucky.


It was a few days before the Oktoberfest; this gave us time to check out the city. I had a list of places that I wanted to see---the city center, list of Churches, City Gates, Museums, the English Garden…although I didn’t get to see everything on my list, I enjoyed everything I did see, specially the English Garden. It is a very big park with a branch of the Isar River running through it. It was so peaceful and relaxing, I often forgot that we were still in a city. At the park, the most exciting part, I got to see the legendary Isar River Surfing!

Isar River Surfing

Oktoberfest

For me, Oktoberfest at the fairground was fun to watch, yes, I said watch—People watch, event watch and so on. If you are not much of a drinker, with 1 liter mugs, the party would only last 1 or 2 beers. Instead of drinking we enjoyed the crowd and food.

However, we could not come to Munich without having German beer, and at that time of the year, when there were beer gardens everywhere in Munich, we just had to give it a try. My German friends took us to the beer garden at the English Garden—with music, sunshine, trees, dear friends, great food and cold beer, life cannot be better.

A few days later, we left for Paris.

Personal Opinion:

• Munich locals are good looking and tall, but a bit cold and distant.
• German food is great for my stomach.
• Italian Oktoberfest crashers are fun to talk to without English.