Vienna, Austria

I don't even know where to begin, it's been one of the best vacations ever. There's going to be a lot of photos because I knew I'd want to remember everything so I wanted photos of every detail so I can look back at them. I totally fell in love with our neighborhood. There was a park 2 minutes away and Westbahnhof train station was awesome with great shops and a huge food court and trains to go wherever we wanted. Our hotel, Mercure hotel, was great too, amazing breakfasts and nice staff. After having a little bit of a bad beginning with our lost luggage and things like that Ken reminded me that everything that starts poorly with us turns out to be the best later which cheered me up a lot. He was right. For some reason every thing amazing with us started really bad, it's always been like that.

I love the coffee cups 

They had water melons at the breakfast, hurray!

We ate so much, haha!

Train by the hotel

Loads of leaves, they were so much fun!

On Monday we first went to Stadthalle where Muse was playing later and got information about Kens press pass and checked out the queue that was there. Then we went shopping and got lots of stuff and saw different things. We went to queue for Muse around four thinking that the doors opened at 19.30, but later figured out that the show started at that time and the doors opened at six. It was a pleasant surprise in one way because it was very cold, but I would have come to queue sooner if I knew that. It didn't matter much anyway, the queue got really long behind us and looked like a really big U so the queue started and ended the same place and of course when they opened the doors everybody in the back just went for it and everybody further back ran for it so we came quite far back which I hated. Me and Ken went in together and saw the support act together. They were called 'Everything Everything', they were nice! When they were done Ken left to go and get ready to photograph Muse.

This lovely message was in one of the cardigans I bought, I love it!

In a shop they had red eggs.. 

Close to Stadthalle, the whole side of the building is stairs!

Muse came on stage 20.50 and were amazing of course, Muse has been my favorite band since I was fifteen so it's always big for me to go see them. The show was in a way very similar and in a way different from what it used to be. It was the same kind of set up with cool things happening on stage, like how typical isn't it that they have a big pyramid on the stage, it was moving and showing videos and stuff. Some of the stuff was exactly the same as the previous tour. Matt had like a new kind of confidence though, he sang several times without his guitar. He was dancing around looking all cool and funny while singing, he even went to down to the crowd touching everybody's hands, I was jealous, he didn't do that any of the million times I've been in the front row! He even kissed a girls hand and was flirting with the camera. It was very different, but very cool! It was amazing seeing Chris sing as well, he performed one of his songs, 'Liquid State', he did a great job. There was footage on the screen of Dom doing crazy kung fu moves and fighting ninjas, it was really funny! I loved the entire show so much. I had a great time.

Ready to see Muse!!

In the queue, Ken just got his press pass!

Matt

Dom

Chris

From further back

Ken got amazing photos of Muse! You can find them here, I'm so proud!

Ken bought us Muse t-shirts at the concert which was awesome, I love mine! We met a friend, Rebecca, at the show briefly before she disappeared in the crowd, It was nice seeing her again! After the concert we went to a place really close to our hotel which is like a fastfood place, but they sold sushi, it was really cheap so I thought it might not be that good, but it was worth a try so I got a little bit and it turned out to be amazing!! We went back the day after and got a whole lot for a fourth of the price we would have payed anywhere else, it was so cool!

Me in my new t-shirt the morning after the show

The sushi takeaway:)

My dream since before I started horse riding at six was always to go to the Spanish Riding school in Vienna and last Tuesday it actually happened we got tickets to see the morning training of the horses and a tour of the stables. It was amazing. The whole old area around the riding school was amazing too. We had to be there at ten o'clock and watched them ride their horses till 12. Then at 2 they started the tour. In between we had a good look around, had some food and coffee and bought souvenirs.

We weren't actually aloud to take photos, but I could't help myself!

Everything was so beautiful! They rode in their uniforms and everything.

Nice lunch in between

These were hanging in the café

I even had Spanish Riding School chocolate!

Coffee at Starbucks and reading the program

Souvenirs

The entrance

 The tour we had was great, we learnt so much about everything. For example:
 - The horses don't use shoes, a few do because they really need it, but then they only have it on their hind legs.

-As you probably know most Lipizzaners are white, but every now and again they turn out dark brown and they say that the riding school need to have at least one brown horse for luck.

- All the stallions are bred within five different bloodlines and are named after it and it's mother so they are all mainly called by girls name.

- They have 70 horses on the stable at all times and 30 on vacation. All the horses get vacation every year so they rotate between which go where.

- It takes between 8 and 12 years to become a rider. You have to be over 170 cm tall and have really long legs to do it.

- They get about 250 applications per year from people who want to do it and from that they pick out 15. Most of those drop out or get kicked out for not being talented enough.

- All the riders get paid from day one.

- Regardless of experience, all the riders start on the same level.

- All the horses only have one rider.

- After many years in training the riders get a young horse to train so the horse have the same rider it's entire life.

- They pick the horses when they are young, they pick the ones that are the most dominant and look the best.

- The horse retires from performing when it's 25 and then goes on to live in a stable somewhere else, they never sell their horses.

- The average horse they have live till they're 36 years old.

- The riding school is not fonded by the government, they get money from tourism and shows.

- They go on tour for one month every year, not any longer.

One of the saddle rooms 

The colour represents what the horse is best at!

The riding hall from the ground

 After the tour, we decided to go on a horse and carriage ride with a tour of Vienna. It was amazing, I was smiling the entire time! It was definitely my highlight of the entire trip! We got to see the oldest fire station in the world, where Mozart held his first concert at six, Viennas oldest school and many other things.

<3

Just perfect

They were searching my pockets for treats, haha!

The catholic church I think

Fountain of marriage

Perfect view

The best sushi! 

After everything we went home, ate sushi, rested for a bit and got ready to go out again on a dinner date our last night in Vienna. We found the perfect little Italian place a few blocks down and had the entire place for ourselves almost the entire time.

Wine <3

The food was absolutely amazing and we paid very little for what we got, it was just perfect!

We were sad the next day as we were leaving that amazing place, we had half a day to spare before leaving for the airport at 3 so we went shopping a little enjoyed our time together.

I got a Vogue, I probably won't understand it all, but I'll enjoy the photos. 

On the bus to the airport.. Not happy!

My favorite chocolate there

Mozart chocolate, haha!

This was at the airport, it was really cool, it looked like it was snowing letter and on the ground it said profound things in different languages.

The flights were nice and it went smoothly, no luggage on the run this time! The whole experience was just amazing and now I have post-vacation depressions because I just want to go back there immediately! Ken speaks German so it was cool hearing it again too. There was so many beautiful things to see, especially the buildings, they were all stunning!

Lots of love xoxo 

Ireland

Dia duit! Conas atá tú?

After having been here in Ireland for over a year you learn a lot. Like they take any day that seems a little special and make it into a holiday so they can go out and drink. I've never been in a country with this many bank holidays. There really is a bar at every single corner and they have no problem bringing their kids around alcohol. 

It is a catholic country and they tend to get married pretty early. Early compared to Norway, that is. In Norway it's more of a choice than a tradition. There are a also many churches here. Not quite as many as there are bars, but I think they are faithful to their religion to make up for how much they drink and swear (I hope they have a sense of humor, then again I'm leaving the country so there's not much they can do if they get offended). They also have their own language, not that many speak it. It sounds like english, but with words you can't understand. It's trippy when they start speaking it because I keep thinking I'm losing my mind and suddenly don't understand english anymore.

Food wise they just seem to make a lot of stew. I'm not quite sure what it's made of and I can never decide if I like it or not. It just tastes good and bad at the same time. I've also been served warm sweet desert. That's certainly something I've never had before. They get payed very little and pay a lot in taxes yet the food is really expensive. I'm never quite sure how they manage to make things work.

They are much more open minded here than in Norway. In Norway it's very important for people to be normal and be accepted socially. Here in Ireland you can see girls with red hair or blue hair and that's just totally normal. You see all kinds of styles fashion wise and you can be a total weirdo and people will still think you're 'sound' and 'class'. They just wanna have a good 'craic'(pronounced crack, means fun). Their colour is green and their drink is Guinness. All bars play U2 all the time even though they always complain about it and they all hate Bono.

They have something called Debs which is like prom where they dress up and go to a booked venue to party and stay out all night to dance and drink. The girls usually buys expensive ball gowns and get their hair and makeup done and the boys wear a tux. We were invited over to a family a few days ago to see their daughter, Karen, go off to her debs. She looked absolutely stunning.

 Karen with her debs date and cake. 

It was really nice, she looked so classy and beautiful. Ken's taken these beautiful photos, as usual he was the photographer and he did a perfect job. 

When it comes to the horses they have a thousand different horse sports. Unlike Norway where we mostly have jumping and dressage Ireland has things like hunting with dogs, eventing, racing, cross country and so on. They have things I've never even heard of and these are major serious sports where in Norway they would be small fun hobbies. When I went to Dublin Horse Show this year I was excited for the dressage as usual, but to my disappointment there were none which is shocking to me. Jumping was the dominating sport in the Horse Show. Eventing is a big sport too where you compete in jumping, dressage and cross country using the same horse. Mandy showed me yesterday that they have an national ploughing championship too. You can read the article here. Wonder how they judge that, haha! 

At the horse show I met Irish Cian O'Connor, the olympic bronze medalist and got his autograph! Here's the proof and a picture of him. I had to put that in there to brag!

Another cute Irish thing is the Claddagh ring. Here's mine:

The Claddagh ring came from Galway and it's meant to show love and friendship the motto is "let love and friendship reign". You can wear it three different ways. If you wear it on the right hand with the heart facing outward like towards your nail it means your heart is free and you're single. If you wear it on the right hand with the heart facing you it means you are 'spoken for', you're in a relationship. If you wear it on the left hand heart facing towards you it means you're married. 

The origin of the ring is unclear, but the myth goes that this guy called Richard Joyes was kidnapped by an Algerian and sold to slavery. He was sold to a wealthy goldsmith who trained him to be a goldsmith too, he was really great at it and was noticed by his master. King William III had just taken over the throne and sent out people to Algeria to free the slaves. When the master heard that Richard had to be released he offered him his daughters hand in hope that he'd stay with them. Richard declined and went back to Galway to begin his new life as an independent jeweler. His most famous creation was the Claddagh ring.

To end this blog I would say I would definitely recommend to go to Ireland. It's always fun and the people are lovely. I've had a wonderful time after I moved here with Ken. The nature is beautiful. I've been living in Dublin and I absolutely love the city, it's great for shopping and there are buskers(street musicians) on every corner. I've been to Cork and Belfast as well and especially Belfast is really great place to go. It's going to be sad to leave soon and I'll be looking forward to come back. 

Sláinte

xoxo