Another wonderful weekend. Wachau!

The weekend after Prague was also jam-packed with fantastic things!

Friday night my apartment had a baking party and I made this wonderful creation:

Mom you would be so proud I did it without any help and no one died!!
It's not austrian but it's still incredible. Apple caramel pull-apart bread. YUM.

On Saturday, I went to probably one of the most epic concerts I'll ever get to see. My favorite conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, who is world-famous and probably the best conductor of this generation, conducted the Vienna Philharmonic playing Beethoven 9 for the Musikverein's (Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra's concert venue) 100th birthday. It was a BIG celebration. The tickets were tres expensive and I felt really spoiled as I sat in one of the private boxes in a ball gown. It would have been great to sit there very properly and act like some type of young and important royal person but we were running late and came flying into the concert hall just before it started. Not so graceful. However, it seems like every awesome event/adventure I have starts with a quick sprint so I suppose it was necessary.

There were camera crews and photographers all over and I'm hoping they'll sell DVD's of it that I can buy someday because it was incredible. I was sooo excited when Gustavo walked out onto the stage and from the moment he lifted his hands to start the concert, passion and energy just flowed out of him. It was also the first time I got to hear the Vienna Phil play live. Holy cow. The most fantastic sound I've ever heard. Like butter. It was hard to take in where I was and what an event I was a part of and I took away a lot of inspiration to go home and practice. I also watched more interviews with Gustavo and decided to add meeting him (ideally playing under him) to my bucket list. He's not just a genius of a conductor, but a really wonderful and inspirational person as well. 

 

Sunday might have even been more fun than Salzburg. My whole apartment signed up to go on the day trip with IES to Wachau and we had a blast. In the morning we drove to a monastery, Melk, built by the Hapsburgs as an attempt to get a bishop to come to Vienna. It was a beautiful building with the most bedazzled baroque church probably in all of Europe. I think the pictures speak for themselves:

So many cherubs!

Imagine playing phantom of the opera on that bad boy!

My favorite part is definitely the crown floating above. 

We got a short tour inside that had lots of neat things like chalices, vestments, relics, etc. The coolest part of the monastery was definitely the library though. Imagine the beauty and the beast library times 10. It took 13 rooms with double rowed shelves to hold all of the books. Can you say nerd heaven!? Some of the books also date back to around the 500s. 

Wine country 

After the monastery we learned some drinking songs and drove to this cozy restaurant where I had pork and a big fat dumpling for lunch out in wine country and then got to hiking. 

That little castle waaay up on top of the mountain was our destination but that was no problem for this expert mountain hiker!

Just kidding, I was definitely the last one up but in my defense that was due to my obsession with nature photography. I got some great shots though.

On the way up

Taking a break and basking in the sun like a lizard on this sweet rock

 

Made it to the top! Gorgeous view and in the middle there is the Danube

A piece of the castle ruins. This castle doesn't exist anymore but there are still some remains from the original structure. 

"Jenna, you're on top of the world, strike a pose!"

?

Our group had a lot of fun on top of the ruins and begged the staff not to leave but alas we had wine tasting to attend. Poor us! As this was my first official wine tasting, I'd say other than Italy, there couldn't have been a better place to do it.

You could say I enjoyed it

Here I'm trying Stürm which is baby wine. It's nice and sweet because it isn't fully fermented yet. But be careful, more than two glasses and it won't be so sweet anymore. Once you drink it this stuff continues to ferment in your body. ew. If you like sweet, I'd definitely recommend stürm. 

My favorite kind of white we had. They served cold cuts for dinner which was pretty weird and maybe not the best option when you're doing a lot of wine tasting. Maybe that's why the austrians have so much fun at meals...

The Wachau trip ended with a sleepy bus ride and then a second dinner with all of my roommates as soon as we got home. The cold cut austrian dinner didn't quite cut it so we made everything we had in the fridge. Perfect day, phenomenal weekend.