Venice and Istria

As part of my family's trip over here for graduation, we had decided that we would take a little vacation outside of Vienna as well.  After some discussion with them as well as a few friends, we chose to start with a couple days in Venice followed by a week in Croatia, sticking to Istria this time.  While we did do some sightseeing, the purpose of this trip in our minds was mostly relaxation and some good food and wine.  Check, check, and check.  

We took the night train from Vienna to Venice the day after graduation, arriving early Sunday morning just in time for the thunderstorms to clear and give us a beautiful sunny day.

View from the balcony off of St. Marks.  We also happened to be up here during Sunday mass, so the sounds of the choir were echoing through the upper parts where we were as well.

It certainly wouldn't be a trip with these two without numerous guidebooks and maps, although really it's just something they enjoy rather than any sort of necessity or anything we actually follow.

The Grand Canal

I took this photo while we were wandering around, only later realizing that the flower boxes in this photo are outside the breakfast room at our hotel, and our room is the balcony just past them.

Looking out from the Doge's Palace

Walking across the Bridge of Sighs

We only stayed in Venice for one night, but that gave us two pretty full days to wander around before we got in the car to head to Croatia.

I'm fortunate enough to have a wonderful friend, Jelena, who is from Istria and who I had been home with before.  She is back working there now, so she helped arrange absolutely everything for us as well as give us plenty of suggestions for activities and food each day.  Plus it was an added treat for me to be able to hang out with her some during this trip too.  We rented an apartment near Umag which served as our home base as well as a car to get around, making everything super easy and accessible.

Rovinj

Sunset in Novigrad

As an added bonus, another friend who is still studying at Modul is home for the summer and his family owns a marvelous restaurant in Poreč.  

Luka treated us to a delicious fish lunch before showing us around town a bit.

One of the highlights of Poreč is the Basilica, parts of which date back to the 4th century.  

This tile mosaic floor is part of the original 4th century section.  

Another gorgeous sunny day.

That evening, after visiting with Jelena's parents for a while at their house, we decided to go to Grožnjan to hear some of the live music festival.  This is about 9:30pm and we're still getting the purple sunset all around.

Oddly enough, the band this particular night was playing country music.  So here we are on this hilltop town in Croatia and it sounds a bit like we might be in Nashville instead.  Somehow it works.

The next day we drove down south a bit and took the ferry boat to Brijuni.  While Brijuni is comprised of 14 islands, we just visited the largest one.  The islands have been in the hands of various countries throughout the years, as well as Tito's summer residence, but it is now a national park and resort.

A sort of safari park, home to many animals that were gifts to Tito from around the world.

The water is the most amazing progression of colors, and quite warm.

The view of the sunset over the harbor at dinner that night, back near Umag.

And finally just a lazy beach day.  Honestly if we'd done this the first day we might never have left to see anything else.  All of us would have been very happy to have stayed another week or two and gone swimming every day.

The pool at our rental house, with the sea in the distance.

Finally a proper truffle dinner under the gorgeous ruins to cap everything off!

I really cannot thank this one enough.  We joke how it pays to have friends with masters degrees in tourism, but it really is fantastic to be able to not only see where your good friends come from, but to also share that with my family as well.

Looking through these photos makes me wish the weather would clear up a bit around here, we're stuck in this hot thunderstorm pattern at the moment.  It is probably helping a bit with my productivity I suppose, focusing on finishing up a couple projects and job searching of course! 

Graduation and Other Fun!

Somehow we've reached the last week of July and I haven't posted anything in over a month.  Whoops.  Once the thesis was out of my hands I was happy not to be anywhere near my computer unless absolutely necessary, but now I'm trying to go back and actually create some sort of record of this time.  I'm still working on compiling and going through photos from the past couple weeks of vacation, so in the mean time I thought I'd post just about the first part of the month until graduation!

The end of June I got a wonderful 4 day visit from Ema, which we successfully filled with a nice mix of tourist activities and just hanging out and catching up.  She's now in Amsterdam so hopefully this will be a more frequent occurrence.

Some time in the vineyards of course

Once Ema left it was finally time for my thesis defense presentation, the absolute last box to check before graduation.

My supervisor and second assessor in their prime front row seats.

aaaaaaand done! Masters degree officially completed! 

My new-found free time then allowed for some long overdue museum trips including one to the Albertina.

One of my very favorite holidays is the 4th of July, which of course over here doesn't usually result in much celebration.  This year however, my program manager at school, who is also American, decided to throw a proper 4th of July barbecue!

Our best attempt at s'mores fixings...it was a good first attempt, but we're still awaiting some imported graham crackers to round out the complete experience.

The American delegation!

And of course our favorite internationals got to join in on the fun as well, most of them also decked out in their red, white, and blue.

Gorgeous summer evenings complete with the moon overhead.

The Film Festival and International food stands are back at the Rathaus for the summer, and while we've had some crazy thunderstorms lately, we have been able to get in some good food and movie evenings as well.

Listening to Beethoven's 4th, 5th, and 6th Symphonies.

And then just over 2 weeks ago, my family arrived! Mom, Lexi, and Granny came for graduation and then some relaxing vacation to follow.  Since I've been living in Vienna they've come twice, both times in winter, so they were looking forward to experiencing some of the outdoor activities the warmer weather allows.

Right as the family arrived graduation activities and celebrations began in full swing, starting with the annual Alumni Farewell Dinner at a Heurigen in Grinzing.

The Masters students graduating this semester

Reading the MU Academic Oath

After the ceremony a few of us and our families and close friends had a wonderful dinner at a local Heuriger.  The weather wasn't fantastic, it rained off and on all day, but we had such a great time celebrating together.  There were about 30 of us from all over the world eating, drinking, laughing, and singing for hours, which was a perfect capstone to this chapter. 

I still cannot really believe it's over.  It seems like such a bizarre few months and surely I have more classes or papers or something that should be done in the fall.  I'm in job search mode at the moment, both in Vienna and elsewhere, and I have a few other projects and things which are still in progress to keep me somewhat occupied until I find something more permanent, hopefully soon!