Paris

The city of lights was our final stop on our Europe trip.

Paris did not disappoint.

Although it was a little rough finding our cute little Airbnb apartment.

I think that's the worst part about traveling- the chase to finding your hotel.

I booked the location because it was a 10 minute walk to the Eiffel! So our first stop was the tower of course.

It was gorgeous!

It was the coolest thing to actually BE there!

We opted to take the stairs up the tower since the elevator line was way wayyy long, plus it's about half the price to walk, and it wasn't too bad.

We made it too the second tier, since you have to pay more to go to the tippy top... although I wish we would have. I ate one of the best macaroons on top(so much better in France), we walked around and took in all the views and soon made our way back down.

It was hard to do Paris in a day and a half, so we tried our best to visit all the landmarks.

Champs Elysees & Arc de Triomphe was next on the list.

Luckily everything in Paris is pretty close together. So we walked and walked and walked.

I didn't mind it though since Aar and I caught glimpses of city life, stopped by small candy shops and relaxed in the cutest cafes.

No, that is not a parking lot behind me, those are crazy Parisian drivers.

The Champs Elysees leads right up to the arc. The street was beautiful, wide and full of cafes and shopping. Wish Aaron could have lasted a bit longer, but we did make a stop at Gap. Poor kid absolutely hates shopping and would actually wait outside the shops for me.

At night we checked our iPhones and every day we were in Paris, we walked 10 miles! 

It didn't even phase me though since I loved it so much. 

So I dragged Aaron out to see the Eiffel Tower at night. 

And am so glad I did. 

Every hour on the hour, the tower sparkles for 5 minutes straight. 

I think it stops everyone in their tracks. 

We slept soundly and even slept in a bit before we went to visit the France Stock Exchange in the morning. 

Since it was Saturday, it wasn't open, but this was the next best thing.

We cabbed up to Sacre Couer afterwards.

The weather was sunny and cool.

We visited on the perfect afternoon, a big street festival was going on that only happens once a year.

All sorts of cheese, candy, meat and drink stands were stationed around the Cathedral.

Speaking of Cathedrals....

We visited so many throughout our trip. 

They all had tall stone pillars, pretty paintings and colorful stain glass windows. 

Each was unique and pretty. 

However.... in none of them I felt the spirit.  

I am so grateful for dedicated buildings of worship in our church. 

I am so grateful for the gift of the Holy Ghost.

I am so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

The Louvre was next on the list. We nixed going inside, but had to snap a few pics of the famous glass pyramid. 

And then ate at the cutest cafe on a little side street. 

With the best bread. 

The best crepes were street crepes! We got a nutella crepe just outside of the Eiffel Tower. It was warm and sugary.

I have decided everything is better in France.

Thank you Paris! We loved you!

Viennese Dinner

One of our trip highlights was definitely dinner in a Vienna palace.

The whole thing was unreal!

We raced back from Slovakia just in time to join the group for dinner.

It started out with individual horse carriages awaiting us at our hotel(bad picture, but it's all we have...)

We hopped in and enjoyed the ride(wish it wasn't raining though so the top could be down).

Word to the wise- go to the bathroom before you jump in a carriage riding on cobblestone streets.

When we arrived to the palace, we were greeted with a red carpet. We followed it up the stairs where immediately we were startled by medieval trumpet players who started to play for us, and were announced into the dinner. It was literally something out of a movie/the Bachelor.

^Unreal!

Drinks were waiting and we walked into a gorgeous circular room with a giant chandelier, beautiful painted ceiling, and decked out tables.

The Mozart children's choir came and sang for us. Still can't get over their cute wigs.

We had professional dancers.

And danced the night away ourselves.

Ate thee best dessert I've ever had.

It was the best end to Austria.

I wanted to pinch myself... the whole night was just a dream.

Aaron and I kept saying... this is basically as good as it's gonna get.

It's all downhill from here.

The selfies in the background hahaha!

Slovakia

On one of our tours through Vienna, our guide mentioned Bratislava- the capital of Slovakia is only a 50 minute car ride, and 75 minute boat ride from Vienna. 

It got me thinking, and before we knew it, we were in a taxi on the way to Slovakia on our free day.

... It didn't hurt that Aaron wanted to visit as many stock exchanges as possible :)

Our taxi driver spoke very very limited English, and we both had trouble communicating. Finally, about 10 minutes into our trip, the driver mentioned he only speaks German, a little bit of English and Spanish. 

Aaron lit up and immediately spoke to him in Spanish. 

All was good. Except I had no clue what was going on....

They laughed how they had such a hard time communicating. Ever since then, Aaron always mentioned to people that he spoke Spanish just in case. 

Our first adventure was hunting down the stock exchange. 

After a Diet Coke stop at McDee's, and gelato of course.

Speaking of gelato... YUM! 1 euro per cone, and the little shops were everywhere
.... I loved it! 

Loved it so much I had not one, not two, but 3+ cones that day!

[kiwi & lemon, Red Bull, mango & strawberry, hazelnut & chocolate]

I don't have the best patience when it comes to looking for a building or address in a foreign country for 20 minutes plus. 

We thought we knew where to go for the stock exchange and got lost on the way. It's not in the huge building next door like you'd expect...

Finally we stopped at a bank and asked, and luckily we were so close. 

When we made it, we weren't quite sure since there was a restaurant menu right in front. After a minute of Google translating, we realized we were there. 

Hello Slovakian stock exchange!

On our journey, we ran into some Senior missionaries. We chatted for a bit, and they were so happy we stopped to say hi. 

They had a young convert with them, and she was so confused how we recognized/knew them. It's a small world in the church, plus wearing a tag helps ;)

The narrow streets continued the European charm with cobblestones, street side restaurants and brightly colored buildings lining our paths. 

Possibly the best meal/snack we had was in Bratislava. We stopped at a random food stand at the street below for some street meat. 

I was sketched out by the meat that looked like it'd been sitting out for at least a week. And the fact that they were warming our food up in a microwave. 

Glad I took the chance cause it was delicious! Only 3 euros and we didn't even get sick. 

I'd call that a success. 

You can't tell from the picture, but the UFO was a little creepy. 

If you look hard enough, you can tell that there are some missing windows and the metal was rusting everywhere. And it's basically the centerpiece of the city... yikes! Was expecting a bit more from the UFO really. 

We hopped back on the boat up the river to head back to Vienna. The Twin City Liner was so fun to ride up the river. I caught great views of tiny towns, castles and of course the leaves changing as we jetted back up to Vienna. 

Loved that we checked another country off on our list. 

Thanks Slovakia! 

Hungary

My house in Budapest
My hidden treasure chest,
Golden grand piano
My beautiful Castillo
Ooooooo

That song was stuck in my head the whole day we were in Budapest. Like who goes to Hungary?!

Budapest is about a 3 hour drive from Vienna, so we hopped on a bus with our tour group and took a day trip to Budapest. 

As we crossed the Austrian/Hungary border it was so sad to see tents and tents and tents full of Syrian refugees. Very sad situation. 

It's so crazy that in just a 3 hour drive, we were in another country with a completely new language. I love that about Europe. 

Although the sky was gray, Budapest was gorgeous. The architecture there may have been my favorite. 

Our first stop was this gorgeous lookout point. 

It was thee coolest. I sat there and thought... I'm in Hungary! 

Seriously though, from the parliament building, to the castles, to the churches to the buildings lining the streets Budapest was so pretty! 

Hungarian history is a bit sad though. Basically the whole city has been torn apart between invasions and wars, and none of the buildings are originals, they have all been rebuilt. 

Our tour guide said at the moment they are free. Made me a little sad that she said "at the moment". So grateful for America! 

We visited a famous cathedral.

And the cathedral had the coolest stone grounds. 

And of course more beautiful views. 

After checking out the cathedral, we drove around the city past all the famous sites, before we stopped for lunch at the Spoon- which was on a boat!

The restaurant was gorgeous and the Hungarian food was very tasty. We had quinoa salad,and rabbit.  

Aar and I raced from lunch to enjoy the little free time we had before trekking back to Vienna. 

He had a goal to visit all the stock exchanges in each country. 

Hello Budapest Stock Exchange!

Walking to the stock exchange, the weather warmed up and the street views were incredible!

 Is this real life?!

I had to do a little shopping, and luckily discovered my favorite clothing store in Europe- Pull and Bear. Please come to the U.S! 

We raced back to the bus after the shopping trip and headed back to Vienna.

Hope to be back to explore Budapest more one day! 

Fall weekends

Aaron and I finally had a free weekend to ourselves since August! Every weekend since then we have either been traveling or down in Provo remodeling our house.

It was so nice to sleep in and take it easy.

I was dying to go to the Original Pancake House for breakfast, but Aaron had other plans... homemade breakfast!

He made pancakes, eggs, sausage and hashbrowns... it was yummy and he just loves breakfast food.

Silly kid wanted eggs and bacon so bad when we were in France, so we ended up having breakfast at McDonald's one morning.

The weather has still been beautiful so we enjoyed breakfast on our small deck, with leaves falling in our food most of the time.

This week we went to not one but two Real Salt Lake games.

Safe to say I'm still not a huge soccer fan, but it's always fun to get out and get into a stadium atmosphere.

With a free Saturday here, we were finally able to use our Park City ropes course passes!

 I was feeling good and was gonna do the high course with Aar, but chickened out last minute and did the intermediate course, and convinced Aar to do that with me too. Poor kid wanted to do the high course so bad.

Can you tell he was a little bummed? 

Haha he's a trooper. 

Vienna

Vienna was definitely different from Salzburg. After we hopped off the train, we were in big city territory. It is the capital of Austria after all, and home to almost 2 million people.

Even though we were in a big city, the streets were fairly clean and seemed safe. We hopped on a bus with our tour group and headed to the Hotel Imperial. The hotel was gorgeous.. and yet again a place we would never book on our own.

The lobby had stunning green a gold marble floors, giant chandeliers and beautiful art hanging from all the walls.

We were spoiled.

And that was just the beginning.

Our room had not one but two balconies with pretty views of the city, a giant bed, and a chocolate cake waiting for us.... can life get any better??

We had been wanting to go on the Wiener Riesenrad.... or in English the Viennese Ferris Wheel. So we headed over to Prater  Park to see the city views.

It was a pretty clear day, and there is always something to look at from spires, to domes, to the river. We were a little disappointed though that we only got to go around once.

We ate dinner at the park, and then ventured onto Oktoberfest next door. It was a pretty cool sight to see, a majority of people there were dressed up in dirndls and traditional outfits. We walked around for a bit, tried something from one of the bakery set ups, and then took a cab back to the hotel, where we zonked out.

In the morning we headed to the famous Hofburg Summer Palace.

Fun Fact: The Austrian royal family enjoyed their summers there until 1918 when the monarchy was destroyed. Since the upkeep was expensive, they have separated a wing of the palace to apartments for normal people(to help pay for the upkeep of the palace), and still rent out the apartments to this day!

....Talk about a view to wake up to! The same guy that designed the gardens at Versaille, also designed these gardens.

 Aaron and I nerded out with our earpieces and were at the heels of our tour guide. There is something about being in the actual places that makes history much more interesting.

We walked through the elaborate rooms, gold leafed ceilings and grand hallways while we learned about the Hofburg family.

While at the palace, we also learned how to make apple streudel- a very common dessert in Austria. We sat in the cutest cafe with brick walls and small little tables and drank hot chocolate, and ate our own streudel while we watched the pros stretch out the dough and wrap it all up to bake. We loved it and were so impressed.

We got back and ventured out to visit the Naschmarkt. It's Vienna's open air market with spices, fruits, meats, veggies, baked goods and yummy restaurants.

Most of the restaurants had outdoor seating, and I loved that each chair had a blanket to cozy up to.

We ate a traditional Viennese food, and Aaron loved the steak.

Afterwards we visited the shopping center by the Opera house, and peeked into Zara, H&M and tourist stores.

And then we ate at Vienna's oldest restaurant- the Griechenbeisl est. 1447!

It was along the cutest cobblestone road and sooo charming.

I think Aaron ordered about 5 orange juices. And of course we had apple streudel for dessert!