Hello from Vienna,

It's been a while since my last post and a lot has happened. I haven't posted partly because I was sick for a few days, but am feeling much better now! I wanted to write on here again for my students at Chamiza Elementary. I am not sure when your last day of school is, so I hope I caught you in time!

Congratulations on completing the 2nd grade! It was so wonderful getting to know each and every one of you. I'm proud of all of you and what you have accomplished this year. I'm not sure where you all will end up next year, but I do know that Desmond will be starting a new journey at another school. I wish you all the luck in the world, Desmond! To the rest of you, I hope to see you around town and I wish you a wonderful year in the 3rd grade.

Here are a few pictures to start off your summer vacation!

Happy Saturday, all:

We had a four day weekend this week, so the girls and I decided to go to Salzburg on Thursday and come back today. Salzburg is most popular for The Sound of Music. Many parts of the movie were filmed in Salzburg and it's so obvious why they chose Salzburg. Everything was green and covered with flowers. There was a really neat castle at the top of one of the highest hills in town, next to the Abby in the film.

When we got off the train in Salzburg, we checked into our hostel, which was actually very nice. We unloaded our stuff and decided to explore the city on our own for the rest of the day. We found a nice Greek restaurant for lunch and then we walked all the way up to the castle. It was quite the steep walk towards the end, but the views were so worth it!

After the castle we of course wondered into some souvenir shops and did our thing. We could hear music from a distance, so we started walking towards the sound. We stumbled into the Salzburg Music Festival, which was really neat. It was hot outside and there were benches to sit and watch the performances and of course, lots to drink and eat! We felt really fortunate to walk in to an important part of Austrian culture, classical music.

When we got back to our hostel, they were playing The Sound of Music in the lobby, so we decided it would be fitting to watch it before we went on our Sound of Music tour on Friday. During the movie, we met two other girls from Dallas, TX. They were also coincidentally going to be teachers, but were just traveling Europe together over the summer. The are going to be in Vienna for a few days, so we may meet up with them while they are here! What are the chances?

Finally, the next morning arrived and it was time for our Sound of Music tour. I can't say enough good things about the tour. The tour guide was really funny and took us to see many important sites from the movie. Not only that, they took us outside of Salzburg to see other sites as well. It was a 4.5 hour tour  and if we hadn't gone on the tour, there is no way we would have been able to cover all the ground that we did.

Salzburg was a great trip and I would recommend it to anyone who has the chance to go. The people are friendly, the food is great, and it's very easy to get around the city. I'm so so happy to be on this journey and I will never forget it or the people that were with me. The girls and I get along so well and we are becoming very close friends. What more could I ask for?

Hello everyone,

Today's post will be primarily pictures, mainly because I'm too tired to explain a lot. The girls and I are very tired today, not for any particular reason. I think all the sight seeing is just catching up to us now. This weekend we saw the Albertina as I mentioned in my last post. We also went to Schonbrunn garden and the Gloriette. A Gloriette is a building on a garden built on a site that is elevated in relation to everything surrounding it. The Gloriette in Vienna was astonishing. I have many pictures to share with you. I will also post pictures of Schonbrunn palace. These buildings here are just out of this world! Talk to you all soon!

Enjoy!

The Albertina Museum

Greetings all,

Today was another jam packed day of exploring. Kristin and Tara came up to stay with us in Vienna for the weekend. They are teaching in another village about 2 hours away from Vienna. We decided to make the most of our Saturday and go to the Albertina Museum, home of about 50,000 drawings, more than 1 million graphic prints, and about 25,000 plans and sketches, as well as placards from the 19th-20th century. It is the museum with the largest and most important graphic collection in the world. We were amazed with all of the different paintings and drawings we saw. There were three floors full of art, so we spent about two and a half hours in there. We are hoping to go to Shonbrunn Garden and Shonbrunn Palace. Here are some pictures from today's journey.

Day 6 and we are exhausted!

Ok, it's time for an update! We are now on day 6 of being in Vienna and it is just breathtakingly beautiful here. I started at my school on Monday and the kids are great. It is very hard to communicate with them because they don't begin English lessons until they are in 4th grade and I'm in a 3rd grade class right now. A couple of the girls came up to me and wanted me to play with them while we were outside in the garden. I couldn't understand them, and they couldn't understand me either. So, one of the girls from Madrid, Spain started speaking to me in Spanish. I was a little shocked at first, but I understood what she said and so that is another way I have been communicating with the students. We had the day off of school today (Wednesday) for what they call May Day. May 1st is a religious holiday here, so all of the schools were out and a lot of shops were closed today. We used this day to explore the city a little more. We went to Madame Tussaud's, a museum with wax figures of celebrities. It was very interesting. Yesterday we climbed the stairs to the top of St. Stephan's Cathedral...it was an unbelievable sight and 343 stairs! Needless to say, we are very tired after 6 days of pure exploring. I will post pictures of both events below. I miss you all and hope you are doing well! I'm keeping myself pretty busy here, but I am a little homesick and missing New Mexican food! Talk to you all very soon!

We have arrived!

The long anticipated wait is over. We had one of the smoothest trips anyone could dream of! We got off of our final plane in Vienna, walked right through customs, and when we got to the baggage claim all of our bags happened to be coming out at the same time. Then, we had to go look for our Taxi. As soon as we walked out the door, we saw our sign and hopped into the taxi! Vienna is a large and beautiful city! The girls and I just got to our hostel where we showered up and are getting ready to go explore. We will start teaching on Monday and are so excited to meet the new students and teachers. Wish us luck!

The time has arrived!

Our plane just got to the gate and we are getting ready to board. We will land in Houston and then fly to London from there. Our flight will be 9 hours and 35 minutes from Houston to London. I hope I can sleep on the plane!!