22nd January- I made a couple friends last night! Abby, who is from Taiwan, and I went to Schloss Schonbrunn. They had a really good tour of the palace; the audio guide included some excerpts from various royal family member’s diaries, which I thought was pretty cool.

Schonbrunn was home to Austria’s most famous empress, Elizabeth, better know as Sisi. Except I guess she didn’t really like it there because apparently she travelled a lot. Anyway, she married into the Austrian royal family- husband was in love with her, not so sure she was in love with him- hated her stepmother and often skipped meals in order to keep her slim figure. Which sounds unhealthy to me, but there you go.

The gardens were absolutely beautiful, despite it being winter. There was a massive monument to Maria Therese (another empress) and her husband at the other end. Well, it probably isn’t a monument, but it’s now a cafe and their names are written in large gold letters so I don’t know what else to call it. Also saw the very pretty fountain there; based off Greek mythology, you can see Poseidon and Achilles’ mother in there along with a bunch of nymphs. It was cool to see.

Later that night Abby and I, along with the two other friends I made last night, Emily and William (who are from Jersey, a Channel island. It’s awesome that I’ve met someone from a Channel island), went to the opera. I know what you’re thinking, ‘ooh la la’, but before you get ahead of yourselves you should know that the ticket cost me 3 euro. But we were pretty happy with ourselves, being cultured and all. Although we did feel spectacularly undressed. We saw an opera called ‘Rigoletto’. The singers were fantastic, and the sets were amazing. We couldn’t see very well (surprise surprise, 3 euro tickets) but for what we paid it was well worth it. Really happy I got to do this.