Meag: Any day that starts with dessert for breakfast is bound to be a good day. Today was no exception. We started the day with coffee and cake at Café Schwarzenberg, and hung out here for a while people watching and chatting. It was lovely.

S: The place was so beautiful I felt totally under dressed! Men in suits and giant chandeliers and white gloved waiters and stuff. My body was super confused about the cake for breakfast thing… Not that I haven’t done that before but today was particularly rich. Though you will not hear a single complaint from me when someone is on board with dessert for breakfast.

M: Savanna has spent the past week absolutely freezing, despite being a born and raised Yukoner. It was high time that she got a jacket, so today we were on a mission. And we did it!

Sav: It is much colder here than expected and my not-waterproof-sheet jacket was good in theory… Bad in practice. We did find a great replacement though! We went to the main shopping street in Vienna and before long we had found a grey wool jacket that will do just the trick. It is not waterproof… But my future functional umbrella will take care of that (RIP 3€ P.O.S.).

Next I wanted to check out the inside of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, so we trained over there to take a gander. It was beautiful but in a completely different way than other churches we’ve seen. Most of them have been guilded in gold and busy and extravagant, but St. Stephens was quite different. It still had its fair share of opulence but the stone was all dark grey and deep tones, with miniature versions of itself all over the columns, which made for an incredibly striking site. I’m really glad we went inside.

M: After much googling and hmmm-ing and hawing, we got tickets to see a performance at the Wiener Musikverein. Before the orchestra even came on stage, it was impressive. This place was covered in gold, sculptures and paintings. They played Mozart, and there was the occasional opera singer too. One in particular hit some notes that would put Mariah Carey to shame! (S: I kept looking over at meag in total disbelief… she didn’t sound human.) Even though I was miles away from this skill-level, the performance brought me back to my days in high school band and how much fun it all was. Every now and then Savanna would lean over and say something like, “Is he just smacking a whisk?!” I loved the whole thing.

S: It was wonderful to see and hear! I explained to Meaghan that since I have zero musical talent and an apparent inability to distinguish some sounds (like whisks versus percussion instruments), the most impressive part for me was the visual of the performance. I could tell musically it was beautiful but they were all moving so quickly and changing song direction and the conductor was so animated! I loved seeing him make a hand movement and then subsequently understanding that that corresponded to a slowing down or speeding up of the song. Sometimes he would just punch the air towards someone and they’d get louder! For someone who has zero musical talent, it was really fun to watch. Also they were all in period costume which was hilarious.

M: It was a great way to spend our last night in Wien.

S&M

S: ps mamma Meaghan killed another bug for me today in the hostel after a lot of cowering on my part and foot hopping on her part. If you’ve ever watched that video of an emu playing fetch that’s very similar to Meaghan trying to kill bugs. True friendship right here folks.