Adventures in Meow-Meow Land

While living in Vienna, I took several trips to a place called Meow-Meow Land. It's a magical place where anything can happen. On my first trip there, I met a beautiful young lady and fell in love. She is the Princess of the Meow-Meows. Luckily, I knew how to speak the Meow-Meow language so our relationship took off quite quickly.

Together, we journeyed to Meow-Meow Land, often stumbling upon bad guys and meanies around every bend. We chased them away and fought them off as best we could. Occasionally, I would turn into Princess Meow-Meow's faithful steed and take her far off into Meow-Meow Land's beautiful countryside.

One of our many adventures in Meow-Meow Land

Princess Meow-Meow stole my heart away. She is so adventurous, energetic and beautiful. She also has quite the amazing imagination.

I even think that she liked me back just a little bit. We had quite the amazing relationship.

I'm going to miss seeing this pretty Princess in Meow-Meow Land. I haven't been back there since I returned home from Vienna. Maybe, someday, I'll be able to walk the streets and hills of Meow-Meow Land with my little Princess.

Milano

Milan was so very interesting from the very beginning. We spent quite a long time bonding with each other in the metro as we waited for our passes to come. It was a great time, I thought. Anyone that knows me knows that I just love hanging out. I don't have to be doing anything to be satisfied with life. 

After we finally received our passes, we made our long journey to the hostel. This hostel was rumored to be on the grounds of a mental institution and the patients would just wander around the halls at night. It actually wasn't that far from the true either. The place we stayed in served as a shelter for people trying to get their lives back together–a starting point to get going again. Some seemed a little crazy, but luckily, we weren't bothered by them our two nights there.

The BYU train

 Waiting for our rooms

I just had some of the best times of my life here in Milan with some of my favorite people. But before I jump into that, a tragic tale must be told.

So, once upon a time there was a young man. Handsome. Witty. Delightful smile with a smolder to woo. He was confronted with two decisions.

Ferrari...

...or Lamborghini.

Either one could carry his one true love with him anywhere across the world. Either one was beautiful, fast and gloriously loud. Alas, he could only choose one in which he himself could drive around Milan. Our protagonist had never been faced with such a hard decision.

Luckily, the decision was made for him. 145 Euro for 20 minutes. Our hero walked around, admired and then left for some gelato. As it turns out, it wasn't so tragic after all. Gelato heals all woes.

Now, back to the good times in Milan. I spent the day with five lovely people.

left to right :: Kiely, Becca, Adriana, Jarom, Andrea

It was so much fun running around with these five. We had wonderful times taking pictures, gossiping, trying to go to soccer games and eating gelato (of course!). Some of my favorite shots are with the first three beautiful girls (Thanks Andrea for taking the pics!).

They were crazy! I don't know how they did it in skirts and dresses, but they did. So. Much. Fun.

We also went to the Milano Duomo. It was enormous and gorgeous. We even went on top and walked around the rooftop. It was amazing.

By far the craziest thing that happened was near the end of our day. There were tons of people walking around in soccer jerseys. We quickly learned that Milan was playing Barcelona that evening. We wanted to go see it. So we headed in to direction of the stadium and suddenly found ourselves on a bus. This bus wasn't like the other buses I'm used to. There were wire grids running across most of the windows. Everyone was wearing red, yellow and blue. We realized that we were on the enemies bus–Barcelona's bus. So, for the bus ride, we were totally Barcelona fans!

After a rowdy, rambunctious ride, we ended up at the stadium.

The place was enormous. We tried to get tickets with Becca's impeccably honed flirting skills. It got us pretty far into the event, but sadly never scored us any tickets. We headed back to the city, reminiscing on the events that had just transpired. Laughing. It was an amazing day. 

Wachau

The best part about doing a study abroad in Vienna is that I get to stay with the most amazing Viennese family ever. Not only are they awesome, but they also know of cool places outside of Vienna and they take us there on little excursions.

Sunday afternoon, we headed to a place called Wachau. There used to be a huge castle, Dürnstein Castle, that stood there. It is now mostly ruins as it was almost entirely destroyed by the Swedish Empire in the mid-17th century. This castle is where King Richard I "Lionheart" of England was held prisoner in 1192.

This has a large part in the Robin Hood legend that many of us heard as children. King Richard was captured during the Crusades. His brother John assumes the throne and taxes and terrorizes the people. Robin Hood comes in and steals from the rich to give to the poor and strongly opposes John and awaits the return of the good King Richard. Pretty cool stuff.

Now if I were to be imprisoned somewhere, Dürnstein Castle would be at the top of my list. I mean, look at this!

I know, right? This place was beautiful and it was an amazing day. This place was meant to have some legends attached to it.

No spot in the ruins is off limits. You can go anywhere and climb on anything you want. They have basically left it as it is with no safety railings or fenced off areas. The only thing they have is a small sign.

Down below the castle is a small town that is encompassed by the castle walls.

Thanks to my amazing host family for taking me and my roommate there. It was so much fun. They are such an adorable little family.

Living on the edge...

Sometimes, I like to live my life on the edge. Every once in a while, I need a surge of adrenaline. This would be a lot easier if I had a fast car, like my friend Richie. But I don't have a fast car. So, instead, I do this.

This is my gas gauge. Sometimes, when my gas light comes on, I like to see how long I can go before I actually have to fill up. So far, I haven't run out of gas. Each time I get close to being empty, I try and go a little farther than I did the last time. I just hope I don't actually run out of gas one of these days. That wouldn't be fun. Maybe I should stop this activity.