Vienna waits for you

So I woke up very early to get on the bus (which DOES not wait for you) to Vienna. After a very dreary rainy drive to the city, we got to this little Church to have Mass. I swear, ever church I go into is just as beautiful as the last one. They get better and they are just over flowing with the Holy Spirit.

After a beautiful celebration, PACKED full of Franciscan students, we were off on a tour. My group was led by a Franciscan Alum from '03 who lives in Vienna now and works for the UN. He was very fun to have as a tour and knew a lot about the city. The best part, he tried to keep us out of the rain as much as possible! So as he was showing us various sights the city had to offer we all of a sudden hear this loud music! We hurried into this dome shaped covering and there was a marching band!! It was very cool, but scary. Scary because there was an angry Austrian man who was blowing a whistle loudly at us to move out of the way. Despite being terrified of the chance of being yelled at in German, we enjoy thoroughly the marching music as we kept dry.

Finally (and I mean finaaallyyy) we got to eat lunch! On the school's dime of course haha. We ate at this sweet place called the 12 Apostles. It was like in the basement, which sounds kind of creepy, but it was like a wine cellar and had great food!

We stopped by several other churches, the most magnificent of them was definitely Saint Stephen's Cathedral. They had 24 hour adoration of the exposed Blessed Sacrament that day, so I spent some time before Jesus and thanked him for the unbelievable gift this trip has been to me.

After that, we tried to get to the Open Market. After asking a lot of German people trying to communicate as best we could with many large hand gestures, we were pointed in the right direction. Well all of a sudden, a wild party truck parade appears!! So about 15 trucks drove by BLASTING some music. Filled with crazy people dancing. Enough explaining here's a video:

We got to the open market and experienced a wide array of... dried fruit. Sitting out in the open with bees all around. Haha and every stall keeper asking where we were from and upon the answer of U.S. a response of "ahhh ammerriicaaa! obaammmaa!!" Apparently they love him here, for some reason. Anyways, i bought a mango. It was HUGE and sweet and not like mangos here in the U.S. I also bought an adorable scarf :) :) let the scarf buying begin!!

After that we wandered to some Italian Cafe and sat outside and enjoyed the beauty of the city.

Summary on Vienna: I loved it. What an amazing city. It was full of gorgeous architectural, super old buildings, and FULL of history. I mean we actually saw the place where Hitler announced Nazi's control over Austria and where JPII made a proclamation of peace and love.