Vienna & Venice

On Tuesday April 10th, my 2 week long excursion of country hopping began. The first week consisted of 2 class field trips, to Vienna, Austria and Venice, Italy. Prior to going, I was very excited for these two trips because we

have some family history in Vienna, and Venice has always been a dream destination of mine that I honestly NEVER would have thought I would actually get to go to!

We left Tuesday morning by bus to head to Vienna with all 23 of us students and our Professors Doug & Jan, and Jan’s adorable and intelligent son, Damion. After arriving to Vienna we walked what seemed like 20 miles and arrived at the Vienna City Centre where the Hofburg Imperial Palace is. This used to be the political center for Vienna, and today it has a similar role for the Democratic Republic of Austria. We walked all around the outside and then ventured over to St. Stephen’s Cathedral which is the big famous church in Vienna. We were able to go inside and see all the beauty of this church which was breathtaking. The next day in Vienna we went inside the Imperial Palace that we had seen the outside of the day before. Inside was hundreds of Austrian crown jewels and various coronation gowns and swords. It was very intriguing to see all of this renaissance style clothing and jewelry…sorry mom I didn’t bring you home any crown jewels…

After learning some history about Vienna we got to go explore on our own for the afternoon! It was sunny & 75, this was a pretty foreign concept to us, given that so far on our journey in Euorpe it’s been cold! We decided to take advantage of this warm weather so we found some beautiful parks with colorful blooming flowers and just wandered through them all afternoon, occasionally stopping to sit or lay down in the grass and soak up some of the sunlight! Later that night Annie, Kelsey, and I found a burrito restaurant called, Max & Benito, and let me tell you, this was THE BEST burrito I have ever eaten! I’m not a big meat person so I got rice, beans, and all the veggies they had, with their salsa verde sauce and I couldn’t tell you what they do differently there but this burrito was LEGENDARY. Overall, day 2 in Vienna, was such a good day! J

Thursday morning we woke up bright and early to get back on the bus and head to Venice!!! However, a girl in our group named Bre, hurt her ankle pretty badly while coming down the stairs that morning so we made a 2 hour pit stop at the hospital and got her some pain meds and a splint. We then headed off on our 7 hour bus ride to Venice. This entire bus ride had the most beautiful scenery of any road trip I have ever been on. We had to drive directly through the Alps in order to get there so we were surrounded by mountains, beautiful green trees, and open hills and fields the whole way. I didn’t sleep for even 5 minutes because I couldn’t stop staring out the window at the gorgeous nature surrounding me! Although it was magnificent it made me pretty homesick because I just kept thinking about how much my family would’ve appreciated the beauty of the Alps! Once we arrived we took a water taxi to reach our hostel which was very very fancy… a big switch up from what we’re used too! We then went and grabbed some dinner down the street at a pizza and pasta place (go figure) named, Tortuga! The workers there got quite the kick out of us Americans and the food (and wine) was delicious!!

The next morning we started our day by eating breakfast at our hostel, which was buffet style, so you bet your bottom Euro we stuffed our bellies as full as we could because you don’t come by buffet style food very often in Europe! We then went by foot to San Marco’s Square! We went inside the huge church there, also called St. Mark’s because it was believed that Mark from the bible used to live there, which is pretty cool! The church is on the end of the Piazza San Marco (San Marco’s Square) which is right by the water and is quite beautiful! Jan taught us that Venice is actually made up of 180 little islands!! I knew Venice had many canals but I guess it never crossed my mind that the land in between each canal would be considered different islands! I thought that was a pretty cool new fact.

Later that day after we were set free from the group, you’ll never guess what we did… a gondola ride!!! If you go to Venice, you just have to go on a gondola ride, it’s pretty much a law! I had assumed this would be a very peaceful ride but it was so much better than I had even imagined. It was a 30 minute ride through a bunch of little canals and it was the most relaxing thing in the world. I loved it. 10/10 would recommend going to Venice and taking a gondola ride! We then did some souvenir shopping, which is one of my favorite pass time’s ha-ha. Later that night each of us bought a bottle of wine and 20 of us sat out on the deck of our hostel overlooking the water and we all reflected on our time together so far. I felt like everyone on this trip is learning so much about each other and we all talked a lot about how lucky we are to be here and how crazy our journey has been so far! I am so thankful for this group of people that I am here with, they all have incredible hearts!

On Friday everyone went their separate ways to begin their spring break adventures, but my spring break group had planned for 1 more day in Venice, thank goodness because I was NOT ready to leave! One of the many little islands of Venice, called Murano, is a glass blowing island. It is known for all of the beautiful pieces of art they hand make out of glass. We took a water taxi there to see what this was all about and WOW, I loved it there! It was less busy than the main island of Venice and it was so artsy and cute! We payed a couple Euro’s to go into a glass blowing studio. We watched a man make 2 different pieces of art out of extremely hot glass. The process was so memorizing! I love Venice with all of my heart and I will most definitely be back there someday! Most places we have gone so far have been amazing in their own way but for the most part they have all been big cities. Venice was an island and had a much more tropical vibe to it which I really enjoyed.

I think this week long field trip was a big turning point for our group as a whole. We all got a lot closer and learned so much more about each other! There are so many people on this trip that my path probably would’ve

never crossed in Kearney had we not all taken this chance and came on this trip! I love discovering new things about each and every one of them and I know when we all have to go our separate ways at the end of the trip it will be so sad and heartbreaking but I am confident we will always stay friends because you really do gain a bond with people that is unlike anything else when you travel the world together! Thank you Vienna & Venice!!! J