Way Down Vietnam Way: Winter in Europe...

...our best idea yet.

We've been in Europe for almost a month, and often we think "we should update the blog" but that thought quickly gets crowded out by others: "that apartment building is older than our country" "my, this church is beautiful" "holy christ, I'm so cold I think I might die". So here we are... almost a month into traveling and we have not updated once. Whoops.

First things first, to answer many of the questions we've been receiving, we are writing this post from a beautiful apartment in Vienna. We're here for about five or six days and part of our task within that time is to figure out our next steps. Before that it was Budapest, Cesky Krumlov, Prague, Brussels and...

London:

Our first destination was London. We figured culturally and linguistically, it would make for the easiest entry point. Also, tickets from Austin were dirt cheap and direct. The flight was a real highlight - free booze, free T.V.--that played, among other things, a complete collection of Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Led Zepplin, and the movie Boyhood (which, coupled with all the wine had me sobbing for a good ten minutes after the movie ended). We were in London for about four days - not counting the absurdly jet lagged first day, where we wandered around aimlessly for hours, forgot to eat, and then passed out at six pm. Again, Europe, our best idea yet.

London was a lot of wonderful experiences with some minor frustrations thrown in for good measure. We stayed at a great Airbnb place with a very sweet woman and her very saucy very opinionated eleven year old son. The house was a bit outside the city center which allowed us to explore a neighborhood we otherwise would never have seen. And, it was very close to the Imperial War Museum - which meant that we could go twice and not have to worry about it. Also went to the V&A twice. London= fantastic museums. London also = never ending tourist season and lines, something that was made very clear to us when we forgot what day it was and went to the British museum at noon on a Saturday. We saw the actual paintings, frescos, and artifacts I have used while teaching history (e.g. the rosetta stone and Cleopatra's mummified corpse), but we also had to fight (e.g. impotent huffing and scowling at other tourists) for views and called it quits after about an hour.

Our favorite aspects of London were the parks. Despite the cold and the fact that most trees had lost their leaves, they provided much needed respite from the crowds and the frenetic pace of the city. They also provided the perfect setting for coffee drinking, which we did a LOT of the first week.

Here are some pictures of London. I'm giving them to you completely decontextualized because I am out of practice writing and my brain is done. Thank you for understanding.