Finishing up the major sights

Today is our last day in Vienna for a while, so we took it relatively easy and hit the remaining major sights that we had on our list. We headed out of town to Grinzing, famous for its plethora of wine taverns, where we strolled around the city and had a very traditional Austrian lunch. In the afternoon, we continued up the hill to Wienerwald, the forests of Vienna. Contrary to how it sounds, it is not a theme park filled with hot dogs, sadly. But the views were magnificent, and an added bonus...far from all the crowds. This evening's entertainment has been people watching, as tonight is the Vienna Opera Ball, the culminating event to Ball Season here in Vienna. The high society folks are out in force, dressed to the nines. The Opera Ball is a white tie event where all the men are in tuxes with white ties and tails, and the women are all in gorgeous floor length ball gowns. Ticket prices start at about $1,500 per person, so you can imagine the types about town tonight. Good people watching. Tomorrow we are off to Prague!

Things we've had just about enough of

Walking and art museums. We've been walking several miles a day, just getting to places and then walking the palace grounds and museum floors. Frankly, our feet kind of hurt. And as beautiful as the museums are, we think we've seen just about enough art. Whew, does Vienna have a lot! Today's itinerary: Schokocroissant breakfast, House of Music museum, Subway lunch, Belvedere art museum, Österreicher im MAK dinner, Salonorchester "Alt Wien" concert. Highlights from the day... The Belvedere was built by Prince Eugene of Savoy and is most famous today for housing the two most famous Gustav Klimts, "The Kiss" and "Country Garden with Sunflowers". We have prints of both of these at home, so it was a thrill to see the originals up close in person, as well as stroll the magnificent palace grounds (where Carrie is pictured). The Österreicher at the MAK museum was recently featured in the New York Times and pointed out to us by our friend Brian Forster, so we managed to sneak in to the posh and ultra-happening dinner spot without a reservation, yum! And finally, to finish our day, we got great tickets to a Strauss and Mozart chamber music concert, complete with operatic soloists and ballet waltzers. Quite the quintessential Vienna experience.

Schönbrunn Palace

Today's excursion was to the Schönbrunn Palace, the summer residence of the imperial family back in the day of Franz Joseph. Today, the grounds are a magnificent public park and the whole estate is a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site. We got to tour the beautifully preserved imperial apartments, and stroll the gardens up to the Glorietta. There's a labyrinth that we were excited to see, but is unfortunately closed in the winter. To fill out our day, we cruised the trendy shopping mile of the Mariahilfer Strasse and hit up the Bermuda Triangle district of bars and clubs after dinner.

When in Wien, eat their schnitzel

Wiener schnitzel (from German Wiener Schnitzel, meaning Viennese cutlet) is a traditional Austrian dish and popular part of Viennese and Austrian cuisine, consisting of a thin slice of veal coated in breadcrumbs and fried. We're on a mission to experience all of the amazing food that Vienna has to offer. Yesterday we hit up the hot dog vendors for the quintessential street experience for lunch, followed by wiener schnitzel and beer for dinner at a brew pub. Doesn't get any more traditional than that!

Kasekrainers!!!

Over the years, John has heard many stories about Carrie's time in Austria, and kasekrainers were one of the top things that we were looking forward to on this trip. Manhattan hot dog stands ain't got nothin' on these Austrian delights. These are, in short, hot dogs perfected. Take a freshly baked french roll, drill a hole in the middle and fill with ketchup and mustard. Then, take a bratwurst infused with cheese, grill to perfection, and then stuff into the roll. All the delicious goodness of street vendor hot dogs, with none of the inconvenient drippiness. Yum!

Early to jet lag, early to rise

With a pretty extreme case of jetlag, we were both up pretty early this morning (after going to bed at 6pm, haha). The first thing we did was find a bakery to grab a couple schokocroissants (chocolate filled croissants), and stroll through the Naschmarkt (open air produce/farmer's market). One, because the pastries are delicious, and two, because those are the only things open at 6am. Afterwards, we spent some time on the Hofburg Imperial Palace grounds, where we visited the Museum of Natural History, and the Albertina Museum, which was showing a special exhibition on modern art progressing from Monet to Picasso.

We've arrived!

After a 10 hour flight to Amsterdam, a quick connection, then a 90 minute flight into a very windy Vienna, we have arrived! We were able to catch some sleep on the plane, so it almost feels like we're on local time. The hotel is beautiful, it feels like we're staying in a palace. Our room has high ceilings, a beautiful chandelier, and two balconies that overlook the Kärntner Straße pedestrian mall. Serendipitously, it is also less than half a block from the school that Carrie studied at when she was here in college. More posts and pictures to come later...

And we're off!

It's an overcast day at SFO, but at least the torrential rains have
ceased for the day for us to get an on time departure. The picture is
of out baby blue KLM Boeing 777 that will whisk us away to Amsterdam,
final destination: Vienna.

European Babymoon

Tomorrow we jump on a plane to fly to Europe, where we'll be spending two weeks in Austria and the Czech Republic. Carrie had spent a semester studying abroad in Vienna and has always wanted to go back, so John surprised her with a babymoon for her 30th birthday! This is our itinerary:

- Saturday 01/26/08: Travel from San Francisco to Vienna, via Amsterdam on KLM
- Sunday 01/27/08: Arrive in Vienna, stay at the Ambassador Hotel
- Friday 02/01/08: Travel to Prague, stay at the Hotel Josef
- Monday 02/04/08: Travel to Salzburg, stay at the Hotel Wolf-Dietrich
- Thursday 02/07/08: Travel to Vienna, stay at the Hotel Sacher Wien
- Saturday 02/09/08: Travel from Vienna to San Francisco, via Amsterdam on KLM

We're very excited about the trip and will be blogging our way through Europe as internet access allows.

Forster and Kate come visit

Our good friends Brian and Kate came out to California to visit last week, flying on a promotional airfare from Virgin America. John didn't get MLK day off, but it worked out for Brian and Kate because they were able to use the holiday as a travel day and spend some time away from the NYC cold weather. Was great to see our friends, we spent a day wine tasting (picture here at Testarossa), went to see the Wings/Sharks game, and spent some time sightseeing up in San Francisco.

Amanda and Dan get married in Austin

We just got back from a fun filled weekend down in Austin, Texas, to see our friend Amanda get married. A good sized crew from the Bay Area travelled down for the event. The wedding was beautiful, the reception was an awesome party...we would expect nothing less from Amanda. We also got a chance to have some fun in and around the Austin area. 6th street, the UT campus, Jimmy John's, the Oasis at Lake Travis... Good times! Pictures from the weekend are posted up at Picasa.

It's a Girl!

Today was Carrie's four-month ultrasound, and thankfully the baby cooperated with the machine. Check out the video for a clip from the ultrasound, the pink or blue check is at 1:30. We are very excited for baby "Cortana". We hear the four nieces are thinking about what they're going to pass down. John is starting to shop for shotguns. Ultrasound pictures are posted up at Picasa.

Fischer Kehua Backcountry Freestyle Powder Skis

Details: 177cm, radii 20.0, sidecut 127/92/115mm, cut inlay base, sandwich construction, twin twip
Average retail price: $750
Conditions: Heavenly (Lake Tahoe), 20-30F, sunny, 20 inches of fresh powder in 24 hours.
Terrain: Expert out of bounds deep powder stash, groomed intermediate trails, advanced moguls with moderate powder coverage and ice interspersed, uneven chop on intermediate transitional merges
Review: As with many of the freestyle skis, this one's graphics were clean, but kind of boring. Obviously inspired by Pacific island culture, the tattoo art feels a little out of place on a ski, but whatever. I found it especially curious that it's such a *white* ski, which makes it very difficult to find in powder if you ever lose it. Performance-wise, these skis are a ton of fun, and were surprisingly much more versatile than I expected. They did a very good job at floating on top of the powder, but were also extremely stable at speed on conduroy, responsive and quick in the mogul fields, and calmly predictable through uneven chop. The only place they may have slightly faltered was in the really deep, heavy powder, where they produce a "bounce" effect. As the skis float you over the snow, they kind of bounce you out, forcing you into a turn, or a weird seasick feeling if you want to straightline. This is probably a good thing when carving long lines of s-turns, but is pretty brutal on the quads if you don't to turn as much, or want to try and stop for a break. Overall powder performance not quite as good as the Volkl Gotomas.
Score (scale of 1-3): 3 - Loved them, really versatile, would probably prefer to buy the Gotomas instead though.

Skiing in Tahoe

Is it coincidence, or an indicator of great power? Both last season and this season, the first time that John went up to Tahoe, he was met with an epic snowstorm. The entire Wei family congregated in Tahoe this holiday season for a few days of skiing which happened to coincide with over 20" of fresh powder...the first major snowstorm this season. We all had a great time either skiing Heavenly and carving first tracks, or cruising through Heavenly Village and checking out the great shopping.

A bun in the oven

Somebody mentioned the other day that John had a twinkle in his eye. lol. Our big announcement for the year is that Carrie's pregnant! The bundle of joy is due on June 18, 2008. That's a Gemini, year of the Rat, for those who are counting. Twins do run in the family, but the ultrasound is only showing one for now. :) We find out pink or blue next month, and we'll keep everybody posted on progress here.

Sloane playing soccer

As many people close to us know, sometimes this blog is just a forum for John to show off us sick photography skillz. Occasionally, this also intersects with an actual event or purpose for the pictures. A couple weeks back, our niece Sloane had a playoff game for her soccer team, and we were there to watch the game, cheer her on, and get some great pictures. Sloane is the goalie and had a bunch of really great stops. The full photo album is here: Sloane Playoff Soccer

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is John's favorite holiday of the year, and this year we had a little party at the house, decorated, and gave out lots of candy. We are slowly establishing ourselves as the "cool" house to trick-or-treat at. This is the third year that we've given out full size candy (not the "fun size")...peanut M&Ms, Fun Dip, Starburst and Nerds. We also setup the projector to display out the front window, which brought a lot of visitors to figure out how it was working. As per tradition for our holiday party, we had "scary spaghetti" and then some awesome chocolate fondue for dessert. Carrie's dressed as a bunny, John (if it's not obvious) is dressed as a guy riding on Frankenstein's shoulders.

Scuba Diving in Cozumel

Still catching up on blog posts. Back in October, we had a chance to getaway to Cozumel, Mexico, to do some relaxing and scuba diving. Cozumel is perhaps North America's most famous dive spot, home to the world's second largest reef system (next to the Great Barrier Reef). They have some unique wildlife, but are most known for their coral formations, many of which are like tunnels that you can swim through. Our good friends Julie and Pete met us there for the week, and all had a great time diving and soaking up the pleasures at the fancy all-inclusive resort. Check out the entire photo album here: Cozumel Pics

John's First Published Photograph

If you're at Border's or Barnes and Noble this month, look in the Lifestyle section of the magazine rack for a copy of eldr magazine. John has a photo of his friend, Peter Chang, published on the contributors page (page 8). This marks John first photograph ever published and credited, in a major (relatively) publication nevertheless! The magazine itself is a little bizarre (Celebrate Aging!), but the honor is nonetheless exciting. Peter and John were both on the last trip to China, and the picture is one that John took of Peter at an old fort along the Great Wall. Peter is a professional photographer, whose work is featured in this month's issue of eldr, and asked John for the original image to use as his profile picture.

John's Birthday Tailgate

We have season tickets for the 49ers, so we spend many of our fall Sundays at Candlestick Park. John's birthday fell on a home game this year, so Carrie threw a huge birthday tailgate to celebrate. Was great to hang out with a bunch of our friends, and there was a ridiculous amount of delicious food. The game kind of fell flat, but at least the 49ers stayed close for the entire game!