A prodigy and a palace (also a nap)

Wednesday, May 15 (Day 9)

Slept through the alarm this morning.  Foggy head, sad brain.

Since Lilo and the other girls had to leave earlier than I did, I hung laundry, took a shower, ate breakfast, and took a later bus/train/U4 to the city.

I “worked” this morning after finding out that my computer charger has finally given up on me.

At about 11:15, we had a meeting about our upcoming weekend in Prague. I bought a chocolate croissant from the Anker (an Austrian bakery chain), which made me feel considerably better.

Our music class had an “excursion” at noon today, where we explored some Mozart-y sites. We saw the plaque commemorating where Mozart died (which is now a department store), walked to St. Stephen's (the same route taken for Mozart's funeral), and saw a cafe where both he and Beethoven had performed. We went to one of his old apartments, which is now a Mozart museum. Three floors of the apartment (which still have residents above!) are dedicated to the museum, housing information about Mozart's life, work, and family.

After the field trip, Abigail and I picked up a snack from the Anker and met up with Allison, Jessica, Meredith and Audrey at Schönbrunn, where they had been visiting the zoo (Audrey's first zoo!). The group of us walked all the way up the hill to where a monument and restaurant were.

We took pictures of the beautiful view of the palace and of Vienna.

We found a grassy area halfway down the hill in full sun, and the group of us laid down for a nap.

In between watching Russian tourists take silly pictures together, a grandfather photographing his adorable toddler granddaughter (who waved and threw grass at us), and meeting another student group from North Carolina, we napped for an hour in the beautiful Austrian sun.

For dinner, we went to an Italian restaurant in Heitzing. We got pasta, daiquiris, and dessert. The waiter was very patient with us :)

Audrey and I took the bus back, and took a walk through Lilo's garden. 

We enjoyed having an empty house to ourselves for a while before working on homework.

Despite a irritating head cold, days like this make me happy to be a student and happy to be able to explore cool new places. I'm very lucky to learn about people from different times, and people who are on this trip with me – I'm excited to grow      closer to these girls as the trip goes on.