Days 1 & 2: Travel to Vienna, Austria

About 12 hours ago, I had that recurring thought: why, oh, why am I doing this again? Is it really worth the 6-8 hour flight and the loss of sleep because it's impossible for me to sleep in a sitting position? Why do I do this to myself?  And then, I land. I exit the airport, unload my suitcase for a few more hours and stroll through a breathtakingly beautiful European city. I admire the architecture, the clean streets and the surprisingly quiet capital city of Vienna and I remember. I exhale and say "yes, it's all worth it to see, experience and enjoy all of this once again."  And I will gladly do it any day if this is the end result. 

Quick recap: we had three legs of our journey: Cleveland to Detroit to Amsterdam, Netherlands to Vienna, Austria. All went off without a hitch and I finally got to use my secret weapon on the overnight flight. Years ago, I had heard the travel tip of partially inflating a medium-sized beach ball and using it as a pillow instead of those slippery, flimsy airline pillows that always get lost. Let's just say I was a lot more comfortable than probably most of the other people around me and I will definitely be traveling with my beach ball again. (I also slipped it in a pillowcase from home so my face wasn't against that plastic.). Score one for Schilling. 

We landed, met Ottokar our Tour Director and rode into the city center of Vienna. I've never been to this city before and my first impressions are how clean and quiet it is. (Ottokar would contribute that to everyone's home watching Austria's EuroCup match tonight.) The city is full of beautiful parks and palaces and statues or tributes to everyone from Mozart, Goethe and even victims of the Black Plague. We also visited St. Stephen's Cathedral which apparently is the third largest in Europe (after Cologne and Strasbourg).  We ate a traditional schnitzel dinner and pound cake with raspberry sauce for dessert. Now Ottokar has been nice enough to bring us to the hotel early so we can get the day's grime off of us and catch up on our zzzzz's. 

Horses of the horse-drawn carriages with pointy ear covers. 

St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna