Two visits long overdue

There are some things in life that I seem to keep postponing. Finishing my universitary education, getting a well-paid job, meeting up with people I like...
It's something of a minor curse.

Last month, I (uncharacteristically) managed to make two overdue visits in 3 weeks! Utterly amazing, I know. (I also finished some other long overdue projects, but that's something else.)

Happy receiver of visit #1: My (youngest) aunt

My aunt has been living in the beautiful city of Passau, just across the Austrian/German border, for the last 8 years or so. We've been talking about me visiting her for about as many years. But my need for a short time out and my inspirational idea to visit her happily coincided, and so I made my way to this prettiest of towns around the second week of May.

For the weekend, my aunt had time to spend with me, so we went on a boat tour on Saturday...

View from our boat towards city hall

Small castle that could be seen during the trip - there was some story about a goat, but I forgot exactly how it went *hangs head shamefully*

The waters of Danube and Inn mixing, right below Passau.

...and for a walk among the treetops on Sunday.



We also visited Schärding, famous (at least here in Austria) for its cheese.

But it should be famous for its cute houses!

I loved this one, even though my aunt didn't...isn't that green-white just gorgeous?

Both Passau and Schärding often suffer from flooding/high tides, since Passau is situated between two rivers, and Schärding is situated along one (big, flat) river. Passau also had several flood marks around town (along the river and on city hall), but this is the one from Schärding, as it was the prettiest.

Lovely door!

The rest of my time (Monday to Wednesday afternoon) I spent simply walking around town, doing a little shopping, eating lovely food, and relaxing by the river.

Passau's Burg (castle/fortress)

Tower of Passau's City Hall

My favourite new place - the Inn embankment...this is looking North.

And looking South(ish)!

Plus some fancy ducks. ;)

The inside of the dome - pretty! This is the main of the five organs which the dome houses.
I got to listen to a concert, which was beautiful...

My aunt is a psychologist, so she managed to break up my problems into manageable pieces with about 3 sentences, and things have been going much better since then. I don't feel so overwhelmed by all the things I need and/or want to do anymore, which is great. I'll just have to keep her advice (and some of the clever things I've read about the impossibility of doing/reading/knowing everything) in mind, and all should be (and stay) well. :)

The house in my aunt's street (Ostuzzi Street), which was built by the architect the street is named after. Looks like shells and glass nuggets and stuff, doesn't it?

Right about the glass, but WRONG about the shells. O_O

Happy receiver of visit #2: My once best friend (and my boyfriend's cousin as well)

There's this girl I once was best friends with. We were really REALLY close for about 3 years, which sadly deteriorated afterwards (due to a somewhat childish boy conflict, and my own later not so childish boyfriend conflicts). After school she moved to Vienna for her studies, and I've only talked to her for about 1 hour total since then (at least it feels that way, maybe I'm wrong - maybe that's just the last five years). I also never visited her in Vienna even once. Strange how things go, eh? Anyway, I first mentioned coming for a visit in September, which (knowing me, knowing my boyfriend) of course didn't happen, but it DID happen near the end of May.

The Secession Building, which I SO love. <3<3<3
The writing says: Each time its art, each art its freedom/Art for the times, freedom for the arts
(it's not that easy to translate, but I think the main point should be clear)

We were able to stay at the place of my boyfriend's cousin, who shares a beautiful flat with his equally beautiful girlfriend. A beautiful couple overall - sadly I've got no pictures of their space, it was really lovely.

We had the Saturday and Sunday to do what we've wanted to do for a long time: Walking around Vienna without anything special that needed to be done. Just walking, looking, maybe checking out some places we'd never seen before. Usually when I got to Vienna, it's always been for a special reason: family get-together's, concerts, informational events - but I'd never been able to just go where the mood takes me. It's what I enjoyed most about my Erasmus stay in London as well - being able to just lazily walk around town instead of always taking the tube, getting a feel for the city.

Museum of Art History (Kunsthistorisches Museum), with lovely dramatic light (I love it when dark clouds and sunsets combine this way)

So, for Saturday, we simply walked around, explored the university (they've got the cutest little courtyard!), took pictures of the city hall, Parliament etc, bought lovely munchies at the Naschmarkt (a market famous for it's cute little restaurants and delicatessen shops). We had dried coconut cubes, wasabi peanuts, dried kiwis, and something else that I don't quite remember. All delicous!
In the evening, we went to a yummy Thai restaurant, tried to get into a salsa club (but the boys weren't dressed nicely enough, at least that's what the doormen claimed - I think the club was just too full), snuck our way into the most stylish bar of the whole inner city (kudos to J's cousin for that!), and finally ended up in an 'in' club where a Russian-style band was just doing their encores. Sadly they simply cleared the dancefloor after that, so we went home. *shrugs*

Fountain between Museum of Art History and Museum of Technics (Technisches Museum Wien)

On Sunday, weather was even lousier that on Saturday. We slept long (since my boyfriend is generally exhausted from his workweek and really needed that sleep), then walked around a bit more, and finally visited the Haus der Musik (House of Music), which was great. There were quite some people, so we didn't get to try everything out, but we nevertheless spent 3-4 hours inside, learning about all kinds of fun things about sound, famous composers etc.
We spent the rest of the evening cuddled up, reading (J) and knitting (me).

Monday was meet-people-day. First we were off to J's uncle, where we surprised his grandmother, whose birthday it was but who didn't know we were coming. Hah! It was nice to see the look on her face when we jumped into the room and handed her the beautiful bunch of flowers we'd bought. :) We got lovely food as well, grilled chicken, yum yum.

Then we were off, going to meet my friend, her husband, and her (yet) unborn little baby. She was the first of my friends to marry, and now she's the first to get a baby as well. It was so lovely to see her! She has the cutest of flats, since she always was into colour coordination and being orderly and stuff (things I only dream about...all the time...), and she makes really great Apfelstrudel. We then went for a walk together to Schloss Schönbrunn, where there is a section of the park where they have several labyrinths - of course we had to take a tour through some of them.

And my boyfriend and I had to let our inner child out at the fantastic playground - he tells me that this is an Archimedian well or something...my research tells me that it uses a principle called Archimedes' screw. :)

When we had to leave, I handed her the thing which I really needed to give her...


...because as soon as I heard she was pregnant, I thought "Must! Knit! Something! Must! Knit! Cute! Babystuffs!"
I think she liked it, though it's hard for me to tell - when you haven't really known someone for a while, it's hard to gauge their reactions. But I was promised pics of baby plus blankie, so I guess it was fine. :)

Well, and then it was back to Graz and prepare for another week of work, hah! :P But I'm sooo happy I managed to make these two trips (and that I managed to finish the blanket on time!).

I've got so many pictures left from Passau, and some from Vienna, which are also quite nice, so maybe I'll show them off later...then again, maybe it's enough. ;) I'm glad I could finally write a post with my own photographs again. :)