There is an advantage to Evan waking up so early...

we get to see amazing sunrises from our balcony every morning:)

We waltzed our way to Vienna

After just an hour and twenty minute flight from Rome, we were in Vienna, Austria, to enjoy the weekend exploring the city, the food, & the culture...not to mention doing some detective work on Josh's ancestral roots.

I had prepared myself for the weather change, by conducting some research on weather.com, so I wasn't too alarmed when we arrived to much cooler weather. Josh and I still have a bit of our 'east coast blood', so upper 50s low 60s doesn't chill us to the bone, and we managed to get some sideways glances since I arrived in shorts, Evan didn't have a jacket on, and the majority of the locals were in winter coats, hats, scarves etc. The lack of heat and humidity was a nice change from Naples for the weekend.

Our hotel was situated right across the street from the Vienna Opera House, a beautiful Baroque style building along "The Ring" boulevard. The Ring Boulevard is 4km long, flanked by tons of trees, and was built to 'form a girdle' around the inner city and to preserve the distinctive architectural style of the buildings that went up 'almost overnight' when Vienna was transformed into a modern European metropolis following 'inspired and revolutionary transformation' instead of slow development or decisions by careful town planners.. We had used points to secure our hotel room and were pleasantly surprised by the suite they bumped us up to, which was actually bigger than our Lake St. condo in Kirkland! It was great to have the extra space with Evan, and we were thankful to have it.

As you can imagine, we spent most days exploring the sites, relaxing in the plentiful, gorgeous parks that dot the city, eating lots of goulash (usually just the meat and paprika sauce--Hungarian style, vs. the goulash we had in Prague that comes w/ dumplings and potatoes in the sauce) and strudel (apple and 'curd' varieties-curd, basically a cottage cheese strudel), drinking Viennese coffee (and some Starbucks since I can't get it in Italy), tasting the local beer, and the "storm"..a popular wine drink that is basically a wine that is unfiltered and still fermenting...it looks to me like a cloudy lemonade and tastes refreshing and sweet. We learned that ordering "Toast" brings you a toasted ham & cheese sandwich--not grilled..just toasted, so the bread is dry but the ham & cheese is all melted..not sure how they toast it, and that chicken cordon blue, a dish appearing on most of the menus we saw, is definitely not as good as the French make it..at least in my opinion.

The most interesting day we had involved us renting a car and heading about 2 hours outside of Vienna to a tiny town called Newmarkt. Many of you know that for the past several years Josh has been doing some online research and detective work to learn more about his ancestors and his Austrian heritage. In fact, about 5 years ago, Josh took his Dad on a trip to Austria where they connected with a girl who Josh had emailed several times, and her family, to 'compare notes' and try to figure out their relation. Josh still isn't 100% sure how he is related to her, but they think they are cousins somehow. Anyways, after on-going research, Josh felt pretty confident that his great grandparents were from this town called Newmarkt. Our plan was to drive to the town, look for a church, and assume that a cemetery would be behind the church. I mean, how many churches and cemeteries could a tiny town like this have. So, as we drove through the hills of the Austrian countryside, we saw Newmarkt in the distance, and sure enough, one steeple set apart from the uniformity of all the other roofs of the houses in town. We headed straight for the church, and at the bottom of the church driveway, we noticed a WWI memorial. We pulled over to have a look and "Franz Plank's" name was inscribed on the monument. We aren't sure of this Plank's relation, but we were feeling pretty good about being in the right spot. (A side note: The Plank name got switched to Blank at Ellis island, so Josh's great grandparents were Planks).

We pulled up to the cemetery and decided to divide up the territory, each skimming the names on the gravestones searching for Anna and Johan Plank. After about 5 minutes, I found an Anna Plank--bullseye..it was so exciting. We stopped, kind of "talked to G-Grandma"..'introduced Evan'..and just kind of pondered the fact that in the whole world, Josh's Internet research led us to this teeny town, and of this whole world, we found this one 6x6 plot of land that we think is his G-Grandma. It was a cool moment. Well, we started kind of wondering where her husband was, as she had her own plot, and there weren't any other Planks around her. She had an inscription on her grave that translated to something like "calm and loving mother", so we at least knew 'this' Anna was a mom, but definitely had lots of questions. We continued walking the graveyard, each covering our parts, and I stumbled across BOTH Anna and Johan Blank--BINGO...now we think THIS is them! So, we had a moment there, again 'talking to GG-Ma and GG-Pa', introducing Evan, and wondering how these Planks might fit together. Maybe the 'single' Anna is the sister of Johan? We walked the rest of the area, seeing if there were any other Planks, but after scouring the cemetery, only these 2 gravestones belonged to Planks. More investigative work was needed!

We decided to go to THE cafe (also the general store, since in a town of 382, how many stores do you need) in the hopes of learning something about the Planks from a local. We ordered coffees and Josh recited his German sentence which he had memorized to the clerk, translated, was basically "my G-Grandparents are from here". We showed the clerk a picture of the headstone, since we had it on our digital camera, he racked his brain, but did not know any Planks. He was born and raised in Newmarkt, as were his parents, and given the small population, if any Planks were still there, he would have known them. He directed us to a neighboring town, two towns away, which has a municipal office containing all the city records on folks in Newmarkt. We decided it was worth a shot to research files there..I mean, when are we going to be in Austria again, but by the time we got to that office, they had closed 10 minutes prior. Oh well, at least Josh has the name of that town, and can try to contact that office on-line.

Before leaving Newmarkt, we bought candles to light on Anna, Johan and the single Anna's grave...not wanting to leave anyone out, said some prayers at their graves, and were back on our way to Vienna. Such a great day, and the story and research continues.

Back in Vienna with one more day to tour, we decided to go to the Schonbrunn castle. Amazing place with grounds that must cover the same amount of acreage as Central Park. Huge gardens, fountains, statues, etc. Such a beautiful place to spend our last day in Vienna.