Sunday 6/12

Took it easy after the Czech ride. Watched Aladin in the hotel with some of the Vienna crew. Actually did get out on a bike to take some pics of Horn:

Saturday 6/11

This was the day of the big ride to the Czech border. Only 10 out of the +20 people in our group went. We left at about 9:30 and hit the hardest and steepest hill almost immediately. It was about 30 minutes of decent and was absolutely miserable. Pretty soon we hit our first break-point in Pernegg and stopped at a small church:

We continued on to our next point, a town called Geras. This was what we were riding through:

And here’s the crew in Geras, with Tate utilizing the mirror:

Kept riding and hit a town called Drosendorph. This was the final stop before reaching the Czech border. And then, 35 km later, we crossed the border and stopped to eat and “get baptized” according to Tate:

So that meant we were halfway. Still had to make it back to Horn. All the downhills we hit on the way to Czech became uphills. It was brutal, but it paid off in the end, riding the victory trail down that first terrible hill. Legs were dead, still are 2 days later, but the trip was amazing.

Thursday 6/9, Friday 6/10

Our crew took a train from Vienna to the countryside, a place called Horn, for the weekend. We got there and got bikes almost immediately. We rode about 45 minutes to a monastery, and spent about 2 hours exploring the grounds. A group of about 5 of us ended up just climbing cherry trees for most of the time. Got to eat these bad boys:

Then we stopped in the monastery’s church, which was beautiful:

On Friday we took a ride to this giant tower overlooking the Austrian countryside. Here’s the tower and the view, as well some peeps in bike gear:

Also...

This is getting longer so check out older posts to catch up from the beginning.

Also, our group has a page on Posterous. We update photos frequently. Check it out here:
http://viennastudio.posterous.com/

Saturday 4

Ahh, that is today.

Well, I updated my blog.

I went to the market and bought cheese and bread and lots of beer.

It's way too hot to do much else. Tonight we're going out for Kate's birthday. She's a gal in my group.

Here's some pictures taken throughout the trip:

My professor here, Tate:

Thur. 2, Fri. 3

During the day we went to a furniture museum. Got to see a sweet Marcel Breuer exhibit. There were sweet chairs, like this one: Hey Parvina!

Then that night we went to see the Vienna Philharmonic perform an outdoor concert in the gardens of Schonbrunn Palace. 

Friday- We went an visited Type Jockeys, a graphic design firm. They do really incredible design, AND they make and sell fonts for the design world. Check them here(seriously): http://www.typejockeys.com/

Then we met this artist Cristoph Katzler. We went to his apartment and he showed us a lot of his projects. He studied as an industrial designer, but does incredible stuff like this light box, which I could have stared into for days. The box is only about 1x1x1. It's made of reflective materials, and when you flick a switch, pressure varies, causing the material to deform and create infinite shapes. Here's a few:

Last night, we went to see an Italian opera "Rigoletto". We saw it in the Theatre an der Wien, which is a beautiful, historic space. It served as the premier for Beethoven's 2nd, 3rd, 5th, and 6th concertos, so yea, it's pretty crazy to sit down and watch an opera there.

After the opera, we went out as a group to drink and ended up in some underground club with sweet lights and Austrian dance music.

Wed. 1

Okeeee so Wednesday we went and visited a graphic designer/artist/everything fellow named Nikolaus Eberstaller. We took a bus out of Vienna to his studio in the countryside.

This is him on the right:

He designed a beautiful wine label for a vineyard down the road soooooooooo we went there. We got a tour of the vineyard and had a wine tasting at the end. Needless to say, twas awesome. At the end of the day, we went to his family's restaurant for a traditional dinner buffet. I love buffets.