On Thursday morning we were planning on driving straight to Vienna, but after seeing the castles and pretty drive along the river the night before we decided to drive back along in the daylight and stop at Castle Aggstein. I am so glad we did this, the castle was one of my favorite things. It is maintained in a sort of crumbling state, and I love castle ruins. It is also built up on the top of one of the hills and right into a rock. We had so much fun exploring the castle ruins.
Friday was the day of Thomas and Nicole’s wedding. They had the ceremony in the late morning, and then we all headed up to the reception which took place at a ski resort in the mountains. It was such a beautiful area, and I loved the hotel where the reception was. It was so fun and had so much character. I loved that for the couple’s first dance they did the Viennese waltz. It was so fun to see how our wedding traditions differ.
When our good family friend, Thomas, got engaged last year, my family knew we had to fly out for the wedding to celebrate with him and his new wife, Nicole. Thomas and Nicole are from Germany, and we thought we would add of few more countries into our trip as well… 🙂 I went to Italy and Switzerland with Rachel, then to Germany for the wedding and to Austria, Czech Republic and Hungary with more of the family. Paris wasn’t on the planned agenda, but I couldn’t go back to Europe and not go to Paris, so I left a day before Rachel and spent one very quick, long and exhausting but great day in Paris before flying to meet her in Milan. My flight to Paris landed at 9:00am and the plan was to have slept the whole way from Seattle to Paris, one reason I intentionally got a direct flight, but I ended up not being able to sleep at all. That was fun. By the time I made it through customs, took the RER from the airport to my hotel and dropped off my luggage it was almost noon. I could feel my precious time ticking away standing in line at the airport. I didn’t make any really solid plans for my time there, I just wanted to be able to wander around the streets, enjoying being in my favorite city in the world! It felt so surreal being back for the first time in 14 years. I have missed it so much!
Becky Jael 