Here are a few quick shots of the Habsburg hunting lodge: Schonbrunn:

Front gate.

At the top of the hill. Schnobrunn and Vienna are behind us.

Cafe @ Schnobrunn where we had lunch.

Me, being self conscious.

There’s obviously more to talk about but we’re off for three days in Salzburg and surrounding ski areas right now.  M is frantically packing and getting everything ready.  Me?  I’m blogging and relishing the fact that I don’t have to PLAN anything.  :)

Also, the 4th Terminator was awesome.  This time, with more apocalypse!

I’ve only been in Austria for one week but I feel like I’ve gotten the culture and relaxation that I’d normally get in one month.  I think it’s a combination of the amazing food we’ve eaten (mostly all healthy organic vegetarian food) and the general feeling of levity here.  It’s so obvious that there is an infinite amount of love in this house and even as an outsider, I’ve felt all that love in so many ways.

I’m starting to really pick up Hungarian too.  I can’t speak it very well but I’ve done a lot of listening and can pick out bits and pieces of the conversation.  Enough to get a general idea of the conversation topic.  Gesticulation helps too.  :)  Last night, I had my first Hungarian dream.  I was a contestant on a dating reality show where a group of American women were sent to Hungary with no language skills, cultural skills, etc. and the goal was to compete for the affection of a group of hot Hungarian bachelors.  We had to hurry up and learn the language and culture in order to win them over.  The group of women was further divided into smaller ‘challenge’ groups and as we won challenges, we also won the advice and help of a local Hungarian person and they’d help us with language, fashion, etc.  In my dream, I knew perfect Hungarian and remember being disgusted by one girl’s improper use of the word ‘normal’.  There was more but it was all too weird to write down.

Today, we were supposed to go to Budapest but I got hit with a gnarly sore throat and am now experiencing the M Family Princess Healing Method.  One of the first stories M told me when we first met was how his parents treated the kids when they were sick.  The kids were treated as Princes of the Household.  Babied and coddled and nudged to drink more fluids, blah blah.  I’m now experiencing this.   It’s just a sore throat but I’ve been under strict rules not to move, drink fluids, let them know if I needed anything, been given antibiotics, throat spray, cough drops, honey, and his dad even called his friend who is Chief of Medicine at the largest hospital in Romania to make sure that they prescribed the correct medicines for me.  For a sore throat!  I have to admit, I do feel better than I did this morning and it’s in my best interest to accept all the healing they can throw at me.  We leave for Salzburg tomorrow for three days and I refuse to miss out on anything there.   M made me feel better by telling me it was raining in Budapest anyway so it was a good thing we didn’t go.  (It was actually sunny and gorgeous…shhhhh)

I got this cold by doing some hardcore sightseeing and shopping the past three days.  Here’s a quick run down:

Day 1:  I’d been trying to get us into some sort of concert since I got here but with the holidays and all, that was proving to be too hard. (and expensive)  So I found a ‘free concert’ at the Church of the Augustinian Friars which is the church that all the Habsburgs  got married in.  Turns out, it was a full blown German Mass service with a little bit of music tossed in.  Oops.  But the architecture was gorgeous and we stood up and sat with the rest of the group so all was ok.  Then we headed to the State Opera house for a tour.  GORGEOUS.  It’s a shame though.  The Americans bombed it during WW II and half the building was lost.  The difference between the old and new (1950’s reconstruction) is really obvious but it’s still amazing.  Pics:

The Grand Staircase.

View from the outside.

Next up: The SiSi Museum which was such a let down that I’m not even going to bother recounting any of it.  Done.  SiSi and I broke up.  :)

One of my favorite things about Vienna is the juxtaposition of old and new.  Here’s a picture of Roman ruins which are right at the entrance to the Habsburg Imperial Apartments:

Up next, we headed to the Natural History Museum which completely blew my mind. The building itself is stunning but the actual collection inside could take you a month to go through. Hundreds of thousands of real natural history, giant quartz (over 2000 karats), jade, gold from all over the world, rocks and minerals I’d never even heard of, dinosaur bones, fossils from every epoch, and more mammals than you could even begin to imagine. M and I walked at a brisk pace and even skipped a quarter of the museum and it took us three hours. We barely even stopped to look at anything! Pics:

The Natural History Museum, Vienna

View of the inside.

The door was very very heavy.

Blah blah blah.  More museums.  Blah blah.  Let’s get to the good stuff: the food.  Namely, the Hotel Sacher chocolate cake.  This cakes is legendary, quite literally, and it’s essential that visitors to Vienna stop in at the cafe to drink tea and eat their cake.  It’s a chocolate cake with apricot filling and covered in chocolate ganache.  Unsweetened whipped cream is a must.  The cake was first made in the early 1800s and the recipe is still made exactly as it was back then.  I have to say, having a boyfriend who speaks fluent German is really the way to go if you’re traveling here.  He’s been able smooth and sweet talk our way into all kinds of places: like restaurants.  A 40 minute wait for tourists immediately became instant seating once he busted out his German.  Awesome.  Here are some pics of the cafe and, of course, the cake:

Cafe @ The Hotel Sacher.

Hotel Sacher cake!

I’m not exaggerating when I say that all we’ve done here is eat.  Seriously.  And how could you not?  The food is all so amazing!  I’ve come up with all sorts of ideas for when I get home and I’m going to try to incorporate a lot of the styles into my own daily cooking.

M is currently waiting for me to finish this so we can watch Terminator 4.  We watched Terminator 3 last night in honor of Ahhnuld (Arnold) and it ended in such a cliff hanger that we’re watching the 4th one tonight even though there are no Arnold cameos in it at all.

Tomorrow: Salzburg!  Rest assured that I will do my best Maria von Trapp and run along singing in those animate hills.  :)

Hello faithful Fluvial fans-

I’m writing to you from Vienna, Austria. Why didn’t anyone tell me that Vienna was so gorgeous? For whatever reason, Vienna completely escaped my radar and Paris maintained the title of ‘The Most Romantic City in Europe’. I’ve only been here for a few days and the city has completely captured me. We walked around the center of town today and I was blown away by the white buildings with their ornate cherub detailing, tin ceilings, perfect symmetry, all of it. How could you not be in love when you’re here?

M, for his part, has never explored the city. Having grown up here, he says that he never really appreciated it and now since a continent and the Atlantic separate him from his family, he spends his trips here mostly with them instead of being a tourist. The fact that I’m here this year gives him a chance to see all the things that he should have seen years ago.

But before we even get there, there are a few back up stories to tell first:

1. I became a medical tourist on my first day here. As is custom on trips that require an 8+ hour plane ride, I ended up in the doctor’s office but this time it was by choice. Me, the girl with no cavities, ended up having THREE. The bill that was presented to me for filling them and doing some other work totaled more than $2000. Insane and it was times like these that I’m grateful to have a boyfriend with two dentists for parents. We sent my xrays to his dad and he assured us that the work was not urgent and that he could do the work for me while I was here. Having never had a cavity filled, I was completely freaking out. There was even more added pressure because the work would be done by my boyfriend’s DAD whom I’d only met once before when his parents came to Seattle last summer. Oi.

I figured I’d let my jet lag act as natural Xanax so we headed in. All went mostly well, except for the nerve he hit on the last tooth (with no anesthesia). It was a bizarre kind of pain but in the end, I got all my teeth fixed, a night guard fitted, and sealants put on my teeth. All my M’s dad. Bonding.

2. Here, Christmas is a little different. Instead of the whole family going out to search for the perfect tree, the children are told that the Christmas Angel brings the decorated tree and all the presents. In reality, it means that one parent goes out the day before Christmas Eve and finds/decorates the tree, while the other parent takes the kids to watch a movie or something, giving Parent #1 time to find/decorate the tree and put out the presents before the kids come home. I think this is a silly way to do Christmas and M and I have decided to stick with American tradition regarding christmas trees. So, M, his dad, and I went out to look for a tree. And the selection was AWFUL. Seriously bad. So M came up with a joke plan: Why not take the bottom from one tree and the top from another, but them down to size and bond them together? His dad thought it was brilliant so that’s what we did! Pics below:

The composition of Frankentree.

Frankentree completed!

Around 2pm on the day before Christmas, M’s dad announced that there would be a talent show and that everyone had to participate. That left us about 24 hours to find and prepare a talent for the rest of the family. M did a magic trick, his brother taught the dog to play board games, his mom got a free pass because she’d been cooking all day, his dad wrote a song about the dog (the dog is Supreme Beloved in this house), and (at the suggestion of M) I sang a traditional Christmas song in Hungarian. M’s family fled from Transylvania to escape the Communists and for a variety of reasons, Hungarian culture, language, food, etc. is revered in this house. I’ve been learning Hungarian for about 6 months now and as a show of gratitude, I decided to sing the traditional Hungarian Christmas song. Not to toot my own horn, but I totally killed it. His mom gave me the biggest bear hug and had to wipe away tears and his dad got out a recording device and asked me to sing it again so he could send it to his family still in Hungary. His family is so warm and welcoming that it felt nice to do something that they’d appreciate.

So Christmas came and went, we opened presents and played with the dog and retreated for some good sleep.

This morning, we had another epic breakfast (I’ll post a pic soon) and headed out to the city for some site seeing. Oh. My. Goodness. Again, why did Vienna escape my radar for so long? The city is completely gorgeous. We went to St. Stephen’s Dome which is right in the middle of the city, explored the church and then took a tour of the catacombs beneath the church and the city.  During the plague, they would stack the bodies on top of each other all the way to the ceiling.  Apparently, the stench from rotting flesh was so strong, that services could no longer be held in the church above, so the practice was abolished.  Gross.  On a brighter note: here is a picture.  I’m the girl with the faux-furry hood.  It was very very cold:

Interestingly enough, this was one of the few gothic style buildings I saw today.  Downtown Vienna (at least from what I’ve seen) is comprised of wide avenues with beautiful white buildings decorated with pine boughs and white twinkly lights.  The wide avenues are connected by narrow cobblestone alley ways with handsome little shops that look like something out of Harry Potter.

After the church, we went for a quick lunch.  Who knew that Austria was so Vegetarian friendly?!  Again, I was totally ignorant before I came here.  We found a little pub and had ‘bar food’ which was amazing.  I wish I could pronounce and type the names of the food we had but it was all in German and I’m only learning Hungarian:

Once we left the restaurant, we were in for a treat: Vienna at night.  The whole downtown core is lit up with beautiful chandeliers strung between building lighting the wide avenues below.  Completely mind blowing.  So we wandered the main street until we made it to the Hapsburg Imperial Apartments which now house about 20 museums.  I really wanted to see all the jewelry so made a quick stop in the Treasury.  We saw the baptismal clothes and implements for the Hapsburgs, the crown for the Hungarian Emperor (made in 925 CE), coronation robes, swords, spears from 800 CE, omg.  I was looking forward to seeing Empress Elisabeth’s (Sisi) jewelry collection but, oops, it’s actually all in it’s own museum.  Tomorrow!

Vienna at night.

View of the Imperial Apartments.

Tomorrow, we go to the Natural History Museum, Sisi’s Jewelry Museum, a concert/mass at a church, chocolate/orange cake at Hotel Sacar (sp?), and whatever else sounds good at the time.

If I’m truly honest with myself, I’ve never seen a city more beautiful.

In a few days, we’ll be taking a day trip to Budapest to see the UNESCO sites and take a dip in their world famous baths. We will spending New Year’s Eve in Salzburg at a resort at the base of the alps. Skiing during the day, relaxation in a ‘healing cave’, formal dinner and dancing at night, and a traditional lead pouring at midnight.  Not entirely sure what lead has to do with New Year’s Eve but ok.

Magic.

And in closing, a picture of the dog:

For the past few months, I’ve cut out nearly all meat (fish included) from my diet.  Since my man is vegetarian, it’s easier this way and honestly, I feel that it’s healthier for me.  I’m allowing myself ‘meat vacations’ but only when it’s really really good quality stuff.  So that way, if I ever end up with a slab of medium rare Kobe beef in front of me, I don’t have to cry salty tears.  

Here’s the deal though: finding non-crazy hippie guides to being vegetarian is difficult.  I’ve been searching for a veggie Bon Appetit style magazine but it simply doesn’t exist.  Most of the veggie lit out there is aggressive, preachy, and is directed at people who are already vegetarians.  Where’s the bridge?  I can’t find it.  

In the meantime, the internet has been my friend with websites like this:

Twenty for Twenty Vegetarian Edition

This particular site gives you 20 staple ingredients for vegetarian cooking and with those, you should be able to make all the recipes they list later. The man quickly pointed out that this list is leaning heavily towards the Mediterranean diet but since that’s my favorite style of eating, I didn’t mind.

Do any of you have good vegetarian resources? I’m already familiar with the PPK and vegan cupcakes. Also, I’m not going vegan…just vegetarian!

By now, it should be common knowledge that God created the internet so that all of creation could easily and quickly share videos and pictures of cats doing silly things.

I don’t even remember how I found this website (which is especially sad since it only happened about 40 minutes ago) but holy goodness, I’ve hit the motherload of silly pet/cat videos: Pet Project

Here are some of the highlights I’ve found thus far:

This one isn’t on the blog but it’s one of my favorites.  OMG.  I can watch this anytime anywhere and end up in a pile of giggles:

If you can just get your mind together
then come on across to me
Well hold hands and then well watch the sunrise
From the bottom of the sea

But first, are you experienced?

My mom did me a great favor as a kid by forcibly removing the New Kids on the Block cd that was illegal contraband cleverly delivered to me by a well-meaning grandparent in a Christmas stocking.  That stuff wasn’t ‘music’ in my mom’s ears.  I got a rocking good education on everything from old time real country a la Hank Williams and Patsy Cline, to blues by Muddy Waters and Bessie Smith, and then, of course, the music that rocked her world as a teen and early 20’s girl: ROCK.  Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, all that stuff.

What’s my point?  My point is, when I first heard Jimi Hendrix, I had this crazy feeling inside.  A rush, of sorts.  I was a young kid who blasted the ‘Annie’ soundtrack on my record player and yet I could totally appreciate the guitar riffs and marveled at my mom who would go into a sort of musical dance trance while washing dishes or something.  

Most of us have had an experience like this.  Why?  A friend posted this journal article from 2001 and it was so great that I thought I’d pass it along here:Intensely pleasurable responses to music correlate with activity in the brain regions implicated in reward and emotion.

Turns out, the brains structures that provide that euphoric feeling when you listen to music also go nuts with other stimuli such as food, sex, and ‘drugs of abuse’.

Interesting, no? Musical euphoria has come up for me a lot lately because a) I’m making a lot more music than I have in a great long while and b) I’m dating someone who loses the ability to focus on anything else or even speak when music comes on. Seriously. I do not hold him responsible for anything he agrees to, says or doesn’t say, or even gestures about when he listening to music. Now I know why.

And here’s a live video of Jimi Hendrix just to bring it back ’round. I couldn’t find a video of him singing the song that started it all (for me), Are you Experienced? but here he is singing ‘Hey Joe’

All my grandpa would say is: Get a hair cut’

I discovered Wired Magazine today. What took me so long?! It’s awesome! It’s like Nature without all that lofty snobby ‘abstract’ horse pucky.

The website included the best thing I’ve read all day in their article entitled : 7 (Crazy) Civilian Uses for Nuclear Bombs -

“You might think of nuclear weapons as just the most fearsome weapon ever invented by humans, but that would be seriously underplaying their versatility.”

C’mon.  That’s just priceless.

Read the rest of the article here: 7 (Crazy) Civilian Uses for Nuclear Bombs

The best thing I read yesterday was the back of a book entitled ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’ by Seth Grahame-Smith. Behold:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains.” So begins Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, an expanded edition of the beloved Jane Austen novel featuring all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie mayhem. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead. Can she vanquish the spawn of Satan? And overcome the social prejudices of the class-conscious landed gentry? Complete with romance, heartbreak, swordfights, cannibalism, and thousands of rotting corpses, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies transforms a masterpiece of world literature into something you’d actually want to read.”

The book cover ain’t bad either:

Yes, that’s how strong my desire for the new cookie book ‘Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar: 100 Dairy-Free Recipes for Everyone’s Favorite Treats’ is.

It’s not so much a desire as an intense yearning leading to frustration and angst because, as of now, the book is not resting in my lap as it should be.

I made the mistake of looking at the PPK Blogand it set it all off again. Look at the pictures! I gots to have me some pecan bars and iced grapefruit icebox cookies!

Only three words succinctly express what I feel right now: NOM NOM NOM

And in case you aren’t already writing on the floor in complete agony and desire: Gingerbread Waffles w/ Carmalized Figs:

Hurts, doesn’t it?

I noticed the other day that my post about the Mandelbrot Set has been seeing an unusually high amount of traffic lately. Through the magic of the ‘People found your blog through these links’ feature of WordPress, I found out that people have been finding my blog by clicking links on a blog about…. Intelligent Design! I guess a pro-Intelligent Design blogger made a post about the Mandelbrot set and somehow linked me in there somewhere.

Odd but ok.

Robotbugs ruined my day. In that, he sent me the best new time wasting website and now I’m totally hooked. It’s called Postcards from Yo Momma and is sort of like Post Secret but it’s a website filled with various electronic communications between moms and their kids.

Gems like:

“I’m glad you arrived safely and take care. I love you have a good school year.
Love,
Mom
p.s. stop being picky and get married”

-and-

“Mom: Checking On Something be right back
Me: ok
Mom: The little box keeps saying in RED that “Holly is busy. You may be interrupting.” Obviously they DON’T REALIZE that I’M YOUR MOTHER!!!!! going to have some lunch now and the do a few errands. It was nice having a little IM session with you. We Will chat soon. Lots of Love MOMMA”

-and-

“I’m not sure if I’m Tweeting or Twatting, what’s the difference?”

I could fill an entire website with the texts and emails my mom and I send to each other now that we’re coworkers. I never ever in my wildest dreams thought I’d end up working with my mom but it’s actually completely great. So far, I’ve introduced her to the YouTube, explained who Beyonce is, taught her how to text, and I keep her up with slang. She’s now started to say ‘Oh SNAP!’ whenever we get a big order.

Anyway, enjoy!