La granadina It's the spring semester of my junior year, so I am celebrating with un gran viaje filled with classes (unfortunately) and crazy foreign fun.

Once upon a time was Slovakia Fest 2007. It pretty much rocked. Day 1 was a bit disjointed, what with our arriving on different flights, but no worries. By mealtime we were together at last and ate some healthy steak with onions at this rustic little Austrian restaurant in the middle of Vienna. It was a wonderfully tasty beginning to a very carnivorous trip. Our hostel gave us free drink tickets to their basement bar (cool atmosphere, horrible booze, but someone guess why Nick picked this place), so we drank the free stuff and while Hilary went to sleep, the guys and I just chilled the evening away. Day 2 was more eventful, obviously, since we were conscious, and we set off to find our Hil. She had spent the morning with a friend, and insisted said friend (who immediately thereafter lost any and all credibility with any of us) recommended a museum that turned out to be a strange, boring dud. And this after they shot down my graphic design museum suggestion! GD would’ve beaten the Succession any day. But whatever, I will not be bitter. I can’t be, really, because after that we went to the Saturday markets! Dried fruit and flowers and so much flea market craziness, we spent way more time there than necessary. But the best part was when we found a little blonde-haired, blue-eyed, lederhosen-wearing doll with a hole in his stomach: Brint! We obviously bought him on the spot and, not even kidding, carried him with us everywhere for the rest of the trip. Awesome. We lunched on delicious cake and please, let’s pause a moment to remember just how delicious it was. Swan Lake was at the opera house, so luckily there was no dress code (only there might be one now—I don’t think Vienna ever anticipated Nick’s “Legalize Marijuana” t-shirt). Minutes later we excitedly went up to the standing-room-only balcony! Well, maybe just Hilary and I were excited, but the guys were good sports, especially when we got up there and could only find standing space for two—so they pretty much hung around listening to over an hour of Austrian ballet. Hilary and I, however, saw more than half the stage, and seeing shows in opera houses is my new favorite thing to do on vacation. It was beautiful! They just jumped and twirled like they owned the air and everything was so in-synch it was amazing. We left early, though, for the sake of our boys, and figured it was 2€ expertly spent. Dinner rather failed, as Hilary wanted to cook to save money, the chicken still had feathers, and the flavor was bland. And ingredients cost so much we didn’t save anything, so I don’t know why she kept trying to get us to let her do it again. That night being Saturday, we figured we’d head out for the Bermuda Triangle, supposedly the place for Viennese nightlife. Yeah, well, it was lame. Day 3 we overslept (stupid Bermuda Triangle) and found ourselves with time for only one museum. Once again, GD was shot down, and we went to Museum of Fine Arts instead. We had more heaven-in-cake-form for lunches, and headed off in search of the fair. Nick had a crazy obsession with finding this famous Ferris wheel, only it turned out to be one of those huge, slow, tourist ones, of which he disapproved, so we went on the normal one instead. All I can say is Austria obviously has different safety regulations than the United States because this was one shady business. The fair was fun, though, one of those nightmare-ish ones of movies, and I would’ve had a photography field day if my camera took better pictures at night. Our dinner was deliciously huge and unhealthy, so full to the brim, we decided to hang out with our flash-bartending Austrian roommate instead of going out. He showed us his act, which was really cool. It would have been even cooler had there been fire, but the real thing’s on YouTube, should you care to view (search Daniel something). The next morning was the Schönbrunn Palace, such a contrast to the Bourbon pomp of Palacio Real in Madrid. If you’ve seen Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette,” that’s the contrast I’m talking about, because this was the palace where little Antoine grew up! The pious-conservative Austrian line ruled Spain before the overly-gilded French one did, so it was crazy recognizing faces in the family portraits. But thus did the Vienna portion of our travels end too soon, and now I officially need to go back.