Some of you may be wondering what our room looks like. We decided to stay in Vienna in a hostel called Hostel Ruthensteiner, which is a very cool place. The rooms are well-kept, showers are hot and food is good. But, well, our room is a bit small:

We have 3 beds in our room

As you can see, there's no bathroom in our room. Our toilet is right next to our room and the shower is a few steps further than that. Believe it or not, it's really not been a problem to share a toilet and bathroom with others on the floor. I think near us there are 2 toilets and 2 showers. Last night, my shower was not hot. Tonight, it was. The room took me a little bit to get used to. I mean, my past gig paid for me to stay in high-end Marriotts and Ritz-Carltons. But this place is charming, and I expect we will stay here every year.

Two more students arrived last night, and since John got them from the airport, we all went to dinner. This was his meal:

The platter took up half the table

Ribs, potatoes and some sauces. I had mashed potatoes and apple strudel with whipped cream. Yes, that was my meal - enough mashed potatoes for everyone at the table (I ate half) and a nice-sized serving of apple strudel that could've used ice cream instead of whipped cream (I didn't share). 

Today's lunch:

Crepes with fruit inside

We walked around today in the rain, so our plans to eat at the Naschmarkt were put on hold until tomorrow. Instead, we found a place that served a lot of different crepes - savory and sweet. Sweet won out, of course.

And for dinner, we went to a little Turkish restaurant near our hostel, and I had the chicken schnitzel with fries. Very tasty. But I needed something more, and I found it:

Heaven does come in the form of chocolate

This little gem here is called a kugel, which means ball in German. But this is no ordinary ball. It is basically a cream puff with chocolate mousse and chocolate sauce on the outside of it. We leave Monday. They're open tomorrow. I'm going back one more time to get one of these in white chocolate.

Now that I've sated the foodies who read this blog, I can continue. We went on a walking tour of Vienna today, where John showed us the Jesuit church, the oldest restaurant in Vienna, where Mozart and Saliere had their big argument, and the main downtown area of Vienna. He also got the kids on the metro and didn't lose a single one. This is no small feat when you have 11 people, especially when two went running this morning and the second one that finished running thought the first one arrived before her but didn't, so we were all thrown into a small panic, only to realize she'd gotten slightly lost but figured it out. Phew. In the afternoon, we went to the art museum and stared at pictures created by Broegel (sp), Rubens and Rembrandt. I gotta say, I don't much care for Rembrandt.

More pictures of the church and maybe the art museum if they turned out tomorrow! Right now this chickie's got to get to bed.