Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Wedding Bliss

Our first stop (after a night in Virginia) on our trip home was to Kent Island Maryland for Nicole and Philip's wedding. I had been anxiously awaiting this weekend since Christmas becuase all of our high school girls would be together again and I miss that so much!
We arrived Thursday early evening to BBQ with some of the bridal party. It was a perfect night on the Chesapeake to stare at the breath taking scenary and stay up and talk with good friends outside late into the night.


Friday Zann played golf while the girls got pampered at the spa and had a yummy lunch.
Friday night was also picture perfect weather. The rehearsal went smoothly and we celebrated the night before the wedding with a crab feast at the beach club. We saw great pictures of Nicole and Philip growing up and toasted to them coming together!



We watched a photo shoot of the bride and groom

And laughed until we about cried
After seeing the quality of the light in this picture is when we decided we needed a new camera but unfortunately didn't get it until the end of our trip.

And then the wedding day!
We woke up at the crack of dawn to begin the beauty process. It was so much fun to be at Nicole's house all day and see the process of the wedding being put together. And what a beautiful finished product it was! And everything was perfect from the ceremony,

To the bridesmaid dresses and of course the bridesmaids
the picture would not flip....grrr
to the flowers,

to the tent.

We danced the night away to the awesome band and loved every minute of the whole weekend.
And best of all got to see how happy one of my best friends is!!!
They did not stop smiling the whole night :)

Here are some other pictures of the festivities...



Sunday, June 6, 2010

Hiking, Boat Ride, and a Picnic in Beautiful Weather!

Ahhhhh finally nice weather in Zurich (even though I don't think it is here to stay)!
Saturday afternoon we went hiking with my friend Jackie from ICS to the Pfannenstiel.





The trails near our house are so beautiful!
One minute you are looking at the Alps and Lake Zurich and the next...



a field of cows. The cows all have bells on their neck so walking hear a pasture you just hear the sounds of bells. It really makes you know you are in Switzerland!
It took us a little over two hours to hike to the top and reach the viewing tour. We stopped at the restaurant for a snack, ice cream, and beer! Then walked down to Egg and took the train back home.

Today we FIANLLY went on a boat ride. Part of the public transportation in Zurich are boats that go around the lake to make travel to either side quicker. We have been talking about doing this forever! We met Bridget and Ryan and took the boat on a 25 minute to a park in Kusnacht for a picnic. Something about being on a boat just makes me happy! We picniced and rocked in the hammock then went to the Beer Garden for some Movenpick icecream and a beer. Great day! Next time is the two hour trip to Rappersville with our own wine on the boat!


And we got to hang out with cutie Olivia!

Girls Night Out!

Friday it was GIRLS NIGHT OUT!!
We all got dressed up to go see Sex and the City 2.
We started out the night at Santa Lucia for pizza and wine before the movie.



I hadn't been to a movie yet in Zurich, but the movie theater here has a bar and they were serving COSMOS! We had to get one to get in the right spirit!



It was a great night out with the girls that must become more of a tradition!

Friday, May 28, 2010

Vienna, not Virginia :(


So Zurich has looked like this for the past FOUR weeks!!
We really wanted to go somewhere warm and relax and do a little sightseeing for my 4 day weekend (love the Catholic holidays here...Ascension Thursday!!!) Well we looked everywhere within a 3 hour flight and everywhere was going to rain. So, we decided on Vienna, Austria.


Starting the trip off in style! Even though it was only an hour flight we took advantage of cheap business class!  It was only $15 extra.

And had a great breakfast.


We landed in Vienna by 9am Thursday morning and took the public transport to our hotel. The public transportation was much like Zurich's. They had trains and trams that ran on the street. We stayed at the Intercontinental which was right downtown. We found a steal of a deal on Hotwire paying a 3 star price for a 5 star hotel, which made it even better!  I highly recommend going to Hotwire and using the "mystery hotels" and then looking at http://www.betterbidding.com/. This website can usually uncover the "mystery" part of it by the location, star level, amenities, and previous users to just tell you which hotel it will be.  Great deals!

After a little nap at the hotel we headed downtown to explore. First stop, St. Stephen's Cathedral.

We were planning on doing the sightseeing bus on Friday, but we walked right into a Vienna Sightseeing Tours bus (which is a hop on hop off bus) as it was about to begin a new tour, so we decided why not do it now and figure out the lay of the land. We bought the 24 hour pass so we could spread out the 3 different hour tours. Well once we hopped on, we didn't hop off. We did the first tour of the central downtown area then got off and walked around a little bit but it was chilly out so we decided to do a second tour out to Shoenbrunn Palace. We forgot to take a picture though.


We were hungry for lunch after the tour so what a better place than McDonalds right?



And then the rain came. And it came hard! So what else to do than find a pub. We just walked into a random place that had a lot of people inside. So Vienna has not put the no smoking law into place. Boy did we smell of smoke when we walked out of there!

Day 2
We got a little bit of a late start on the town because our hotel had a awesome gym. It was in the hotel but outside people had memberships. Since we don't belong to a gym in Zurich, we were excited to exercise in a gym with real machine instead of over our coffee table in the family room. Then we did the last loop of the bus tour to the Belvedere Castle since our 24 hours were almost up.

Then onto what I came to Vienna for.... The Sachertorte. The Sacher hotel is a famous for their chocolate cake called the Sacher Torte. It is only made in Vienna and Salzburg and can only be bought in Austria.




Yummm


I love the European lifestyle of stopping at least once or twice at a coffee house in the middle of the day!

We saw a bunch of bike racks that said free bike tours so we decided to check it out. Highly recommended! I think a lot of cities have these now. You use a credit card to make a deposit then your first hour of riding is free, then 1 euro an hour after that. How much better can you get? There were a lot of stands all over downtown and you can return the bikes to any stand!



The main driving street in Vienna. The street are beautiful and all lined with big trees!

Then onto the wine district!



That is one big mug of wine!
mmmmmm a great dinner of homemade cheeses!


Biggest sausage I have ever seen.

The weather was not so nice.  It was very windy so we took the public transport to the Belvedere Castle which is a Baroque castle built by Prince Eugene(who ever that is). It has beautiful gardens but we didn't stay out long to enjoy them since it was so cold. We did take the tour of the main house. I was a little disappointed because I thought it was going to be a home tour with the old furniture which I love, but it was more like an art gallery. I think I remember Zann saying "this is lame".



So we took a little stroll around the town instead of more castle touring before stopping for another coffee and chocolate truffle cake!


We enjoyed a nice glass of wine at the hotel then headed our for our last dinner. The hotel concierge recommended Purstner because it had traditional Austrian food with big portions that were reasonable.

Well boy was he right. I think we ate 1/4 of our food. Zann got his favorite wienerschnitzel and I got kaesespaetzle. Kaesespatzle is like my favorite alper macaroni but with spaetzle instead of noodles.

Well looking back on this trip it seems that I wrote mostly about what we ate.  Its true, that's pretty much what this trip was. By the way, our last meal was at TGI Fridays for our American food fix of Nachos.  So hope you enjoyed our food blog :) The weather was not cooperating, so we didn't walk long between stops inside. But overall a great trip!