Crown jewels, cafes, and.... a stake dance.

Hello all! First, can I just say that I love chocolate. I am sure that I have mentioned this before, but seriously - it's delectable. Britain and I currently have eight different types of chocolate lying around, and it is delicious! I just finished eating a piece of pear-almond chocolate! It is milk chocolate with pear-almond truffle filling. YUM! It was so good. I have been up to all sorts of things the past few days. On Wednesday we went to see the crown jewels at the Schatzkammer (treasury). Here are some pics!

Crown of the Holy Roman Emperors (1500) each stone represents virtues that the Emperor should posses.

Crown, orb, and scepter used at coronations

Pitcher and basin used for royal baptisms

This was a gift to the Holy Roman Emperor.

Pretty cool huh? Yesterday I had german class, and then master class. I sang Widmung, and it was fun. Then, Emily and I went to this awesome place called the Schottenring Cafe. We hopped on a random Strassenbahn and found this little gem of a place right down the road from my apartment. It is extremely Viennese in feeling and decor, and the food was very authentic as well. There was a pianist playing all sorts of fun music. Emily and I felt very sophisticated as we ate our Wiener Schnizel and Topfenstrudel and listened to music. The cafe was built in 1878, I believe, and it had the character to match its age!

The cafe!

Wiener Schnizel! It was so good! Mind you that this is only half. A whole one would be huge! Emily and I split it because it's kind of expensive.

Today I slept in (yay!), and then had lunch with some people from our group, and two girls that we met at the LDS outreach insitute. We had burritos. It was great to socialize with some of our newfound friends! After lunch, I went to a free organ concert at Peterskirche. It was so beautiful. The music was great, and the church was so pretty! I love how many concerts are given here! You could go to a show or performance of some kind any day, no problem.Again, here are pics.

After the concert, Laura, Emily, and I wandered around for a little while before meeting up with some other people from the group for dinner. We ate at yet another cafe. Hooray! We also got lost for a little while and found some Roman ruins, the Spanish Riding School, and some great museums. After dinner, we went to (dramatic music) a stake dance. It was quite the experience. They definently don't dance the way we do in the US. It was like this bizzare fusion of ballroom and freestyle wierdness. I guess I shouldn't say that it was bizzare. It's just not something I'm used to, I suppose. It really was fun though. We got to talk with some of the people we met at the church institute on Monday night, so that was great. Tomorrow Britain and I are planning to go on a hunt for oversized lockets for our duet, do our second walking tour, and then go ice skating! If you want to see more pictures, check out my facebook. I don't think blogger will let me post any more. Auf wiedersehen!