Double Vision

Ball der Technik at the Hofburg Palace

Hello everyone. This will be the most seemingly vein post in DV's history. Last night, Sean fulfilled his one required duty as a Fulbrighter - he attended the ball and I went with him. I wish we could have captured all of the culture of the ball in photos and videos but by the time we left, we still hadn't found all of the rooms. In each room, there were different types of dances happening.. your waltz, your traditional Austrian folk, salsa, etc. We just managed to catch the Quadrille!

Anyway, no one believed we could pull this off - fitting in, so-to-speak, since we usually wear running shoes, running pants, etc., but here's the proof. Oh, while there's no video to prove it, we were waltzing with the best of them by the end of the night... oh, and I should specify that our end of the night was very early since I had to work at 8am, but the ball goes from 8pm to 5am! craziness.

Very special thanks to Amanda for helping choose our attire and to Caitlyn for dressing us and doing my hair :D It's just like doing a show.

The before the ball proof (before we destroyed our outfits was the idea):

The walk there in the snow:

The fulbrighters:

Introductory ceremony with Debutantes:
VIDEO:

More of the ball:

European tour site

Just an FYI:

http://www.double-vision.biz/index_europe.html [tour index page - map]
http://www.double-vision.biz/europe_09.html [about the tour]

:)

Kunsthistorisches Museum (Art History Museum)

Yesterday we sampled the great food at the famous Fromme Helene and Dimmel Cafe. Today, we made it through maybe half? of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Maybe not quite half. It's HUGE!

WHile you could take photos everywhere, I had to do so without flash and so none of them really came out. Anyway, here's a few. The Italian Renaissance and Egyptian exhibits were fantastic. The building's architecture more often than not stole the show.

The Opera, Butterflies, Requiem, and Friends!

Well, this weekend has been just crazy!

First, I've gotten the blog working better, so now the images are smaller (you can click to enlarge), the comments work, the archives work, etc.

First, on Friday night, Amanda Sean and I went to our first opera at the Volksoper Wien. We saw Mozart's the Magic Flute.

Later that evening, Anne and Ammon arrived from Cambridge!

The next day there were BLUE SKIES!! (here's a photo to prove it w/ mozart included)

We decided to do something completely unexpected and went to the Butterfly Museum at the Hofburg. This was such a treat. First of all, it was like a sauna. Second, the butterflies were gorgeous and were flying all around us. The cocoons were also super cool.. most of the time my camera was too fogged up to do anything, but here are a few photos.

Awesome metallic cocoons: