It's a winter wonderland in Wien!!! :)
This week has been so exciting, because it's my first Vienna snow! On Tuesday night it started snowing on my way back from class, and by the time that we all woke up on Wednesday morning..... the ground was covered! It had snowed about 5-6 inches overnight! Now, Vienna is an incredibly beautiful city normally, but when it's covered in snow... it's really remarkable. I had a lot of fun just walking around and looking at the city.

On Friday, several of us decided to make a day of the snow-covered Vienna. Alex from Sweeden, England Will, Ricardo from Peru, Laura, Nicole, Amber, and I headed out to Belvedere Castle on the other side of the city. The castle and the grounds surrounding it were so beautiful in all of the snow. They had even begun to set up the season's Christmas trees around the palace! We've already started celebrating!!! :)

While we were walking around outside, the boys thought it would be halarious to get in a snowball fight. The Vienna snow (we soon found out) is EXCELLENT packing snow! Before too long, we were throwing basketball-sized snowballs at eachother, and dodging in and out of the stone figures and gargoyles in the courtyard! I have to hand it to him.... Sweedish Alex really knows how to throw a mean snowball. :)

After playing in the snow for quite a while, we went inside the palace for the art exhibit. Today, there was a big exhibition in the state rooms of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. We got to see a lot of Van Gough and Monet originals, which were incredible! The colors that they used were absolutely amazing. -- One thing made me laugh, though. On the wall, there was a tiny painting of a lemon..... now, I might not be an incredible art genius.... I mean, MAYBE I missed something -- but what is so incredible about a picture of a lemon?!? This little piece of fruit was hanging right next to a glorious Monet landscape! I surely don't know, lol.

On the way back, we discovered that we weren't the only people who decided to engage in some snowball fights. At the end of Kenyongasse, there's an elementary school. On either side of the road, the kids were engaged in some type of gorilla snowball warefare. These kids were RUTHLESS! They were dodging behind cars and drilling eachother in the head w/ snowballs. AND WE WERE IN THE LINE OF FIRE! I think that Alex got pegged in the head by this little Harry Potter-looking kid. I'm not sure, because I kept my head down and hurried out of the war zone as fast as possible!!! lol. We were amatuer snowballers compared to these Snowball Hit Men. They were out for blood, and innocent passerby were not spared.

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Amber and I continued the weekend of winter wonder on Saturday. We got up early and went exploring along the famous Vienna Christmas Markets at the Rathaus. This market has been in existence for over 200 years, so we were very excited. There were tons of booths decorated all in lights and garland, people singing, horse carriages driving around, a HUGE Christmas tree in the middle of the Rathaus square, and the smell of gingerbread wafting through the air. (Mom likes the word "wafting," so I thought it would be appropriate here, lol) It's not even Thanksgiving yet, but Amber and I are completely in the Christmas spirit!!! We got to look at a lot of beautiful hand-painted ornaments, jewelry, nativity scenes, etc. It was seriously like being in the North Pole for a day!!! We were so happy! :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS (almost!)