Jeff’s Blog

So today’s my sixteenth birthday. Unfortunately, I had to get up early this morning to go in and make up a test I missed during the Austria trip, and I had to write another essay after school for LA next year. But other than that, it was a great birthday! And of course, here’s what I got:

• Digital Camera (Although I got this early for Austria)
• DS Game
• New keyboard and mouse! (Pictured below, click on the images for the full sizes)

Laptop Stand

New Mouse

New Keyboard

Full Desktop Setup

Yesterday, the band, orchestra, choir and chaperons all got back from Austria. We left last Thursday for DIA, and after one 10-hour flight and another 45-minute one, followed by a long bus ride, we arrived at the Prinz Eugen Hotel in Vienna. We took a bus tour of the city, ate dinner at a nice restaurant and then went to see the Vienna Mozart Orchestra in concert. Unfortunately, everyone was so tired from being up almost 30 hours straight that no one could stay awake during the concert.

After sleeping well that night, we got up the next morning and spent some time on the streets of Vienna, via the subway. The public transportation system in Austria is pretty much perfect. You buy a ticket, and once you validate it it’s good for two hours. During this time period, you can ride any of the city’s public transportation (busses, street cars, subways) in any direction as much as you like!

When our time there ran out, we went to a senior center (which was really nice, and funded by the state) to play a concert for the residents. We played well, and were even invited to stay for coffee and cake! That night, we ate at a restaurant similar to Gordon Biersch in America. We had a sort of hamburger with no bun on a plate, and then went to the amusement park to ride a huge ferris wheel and ride a few of the rides. We went on bumper cars.

The next morning, we went on another tour of Vienna, this time focusing on famous classical music composers of the city. The most notable, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, appeared everywhere in both Vienna and Salzburg. As part of the tour, we went into the Mozarthouse Vienna. This was the building where Mozart actually lived, worked and taught private lessons. From there, it was off to the castle of Empress Maria Theresia where we had a tour of the amazing building. The choir sang a few songs outside of the palace, but it was too rainy for the band or orchestra. Because of the extra time this allowed, we went to an Easter market that was set up in the courtyard. Dinner that night was in traditional Austrian style with a buffet of various delicious meats. We stopped on the way back to the hotel at a beautiful overlook of Vienna, which looked amazing at night.

The next morning was Easter Monday. We attended a Catholic mass at the Melk Abbey, a truly magnificent church. Choir and orchestra played some music along with the massive pipe organ. After the service, we toured the massive building complex and then boarded the buses again. After driving on the Autobahn for a while, we stopped at a rest stop and my friends and I ate Winerschnitzel. It is an amazingly delicious food. We then got back on the road for another few hours and finally arrived in Salzburg.

We checked in to our hotel, which was considerably more… cozy than the one in the huge city of Vienna. That night we went to Sport-Oase Salzburg, which was a very American-feeling bowling alley and mini-golf place. We had spaghetti and ice cream for dinner, and then bowled a few games. We got back to the Turnerwirt Hotel and slept.

The next day, we had a walking tour of the old town of Salzburg. It was a lot different than Vienna. We saw the huge Hohensalzburg Fortress from the 11th century, and then went to a local mall to shop. It was a lot like an American mall, though, except with much better food. We then had wings and ribs at the Fürsberg Restaurant.

The last day of our trip consisted of visiting a salt mine that had been in operation from 500 BC to 1982 AD. It was a lot more interesting than it sounds, though, especially with what I’ve learned in my world history class at school. Later that day, we went to a music school for 11-14 year olds and gave a concert, then had time to socialize with the students. This basically ended up with us sitting there eating food awkwardly and being made fun of in German by the students. Luckily, we went to the Mozart Dinner Concert that night and had a several-course candlelight dinner with live Mozart music in a restaurant that had been serving since 800 AD.

The next morning, our trip home began at 3:20am (Austria Time) and lasted until about 3:30pm (Denver Time, which is 10:30pm Austria Time). We had two bus rides and one very, very long plane ride.

Overall, the trip was spectacular. It was great time with friends, and we got to see a lot of very cool things while we were there. Seeing the way of life in Europe was one of the coolest cultural experiences. I’d like to go back to Europe someday and see a different part, like France or Spain.

Today is my birthday! I am now fifteen. Today we left the hotel and went to the Astronaut Hall of Fame, part of the Kennedy Space Center. There wasn’t a ton to do there, so we left for the main Kennedy Space Center. While there, we saw another IMAX and went inside the scale model of the space shuttle.

By this time, it was getting to be almost 2:00pm, so we left for the airport for a four hour flight. We got to our home airport, and my grandpa picked us up. We stopped for dinner on the way home, and when we got home I had a surprise cake waiting for me! It was nice to actually celebrate on my birthday.

We spent a lot of today in the ocean, too. We started out in the morning walking along it, and then we left to go eat lunch at Sonny’s again. After that, we went and played a game of minigolf, then went back to the ocean and rode some waves for a few hours. For dinner, we ate at Captain J’s, which had an incredibly long wait, but the food was incredible. After dinner, we played more minigolf. The place had two courses, and if you came back in the same day it was a lot cheaper, so we did. When we were done there, we went back to the hotel restaurant for dessert.

We spent the majority of today at the beach. In the morning, we went down to the water and just walked along the edge. There were strange things washing up on the shore, which we later discovered were baby jellyfish. That got boring, so we went to eat lunch at Steak and Shake, and then bought some rash guards, shirts and boards with which to ride the waves.

Now prepared, we went back to the beach and spent quite a while there, riding the waves in and enjoying ourselves. There were flags up on the lifeguard stand warning us of jellyfish, manta rays and riptides, but we were unaffected. A girl told us that the small jellyfish can’t sting you, which may or may not be true, but they didn’t either way.

That night, we ate dinner at the Sunset Cafe, and my blackened fresh-caught salmon was pretty good. There was a really good band there also, with a guitarist, a drummer, and a great keyboardist playing piano and bass, and soloing well on both of them.

This morning, my brother and I tried to ride the boat to Downtown Disney, but it didn’t run until 11am, and because we had reservations at the House of Blues at that very time, we took the bus instead. We got there just in time for our reservation. Of course, we were basically the only people there. I had a shrimp po’ boy, which was actually very good, and then bought a shirt.

After that, we left for Kennedy Space Center. We went on the NASA up-close tour, and drove really close to the launch pads, and right next to one of the crawlers that takes the shuttles out to the pads. Unfortunately, it was pretty rainy so we couldn’t see too far, but we got to see a lot of cool things nonetheless. When we got back from the tour, we saw a full-scale model of an Apollo rocket, which was gigantic. We also watched an IMAX film about the Apollo missions and future moon exploration.

When we were done there, we drove to Cocoa Beach and ate at Sonny’s Barbecue. We went there a few years ago, too. We got to the hotel (just across the street) and walked on the beach. The water was cold, but it was awesome to be at the ocean.

Today, we went to Animal Kingdom and MGM Studios to go back and ride our favorite rides. We started out at Animal Kingdom, where we got a FastPass for Expedition Everest, their new roller coaster. While we were waiting for our FastPass time to come, we rode the Primeval Whirl again, and saw the Lion King show. That show is always incredible, with great singing and dancing. After that, we saw the Flights of Wonder show, which had a slight touch of humor and trained flying birds.

When we rode Expedition Everest, we went once in the normal line. We got to ride in the front, which was really incredible. It was a lot more intense than any other place because you could see everything in front of you, but nothing behind you on the backwards parts. We also rode one time with our FastPass.

Then, we headed straight over to MGM Studios and rode Tower of Terror. We rode Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster three times, seeing as that was our favorite ride. Then, the park closed so we went to Downtown Disney. Disney set this place up so people would spend more money there instead of going into Orlando, but it was actually pretty cool. We rode the free boat right from our hotel in Port Orleans Riverside, and we ate at “Cap’n Jack’s,” which wasn’t that great, but it sufficed. Then, we went over to the Ghiradelli shop and had ice cream. That was great. The boats didn’t run that late, so we had to ride the bus home.

Today, we made a return trip to the Magic Kingdom. This was our first full day there. We started out by riding the Jungle Cruise (by FastPass), which was a medium length boat ride with nonstop puns and humor. After that, we went over to the Tiki Room, which is an attraction with a small plot and singing birds. It was nice to get out of the heat, and the music was good too.

Then, we rode the Walt Disney Railroad, a train offering transportation around the Magic Kingdom. We got off by Tomorrowland and rode Space Mountain again, then headed over to Big Thunder Mountain to ride that again.

That night, we watched the fireworks show again, this time from the intended viewing side. It was a lot more impressive when you could hear the music and see the fireworks launched from where they were supposed to be coming from. We finished off the night with another ride of Space Mountain (they closed it right after we got on) and then sundaes and soda in the hotel restaurant.

Today we went to the MGM Studios park. We saw the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Show, which demonstrated special effects and stunts, showing how they were done, and the MGM Backlot Tour, which demonstrated some effects and also showed you around some old props and costumes from movies. Then, we rode Tower of Terror - random drops and rises in thirteen stories of elevator shaft based on an old Hollywood hotel from a Twilight Zone episode - three times. We then rode Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster three times. It started out very fast - zero to sixty in 2.8 seconds - and then had several intense upside-down maneuvers. We ended the day with the fireworks and water show Fantasmic. It was cool; they projected images onto a screen created by spraying water into the air.

We spent all of today at Epcot. We rode Mission: Space, an excellent simulator of a trip to Mars and Spaceship Earth, which tells about communication in a slow trip around the inside of the Epcot ball. We also went to an area know as “The Land” and rode a boat ride that showed us Disney’s greenhouses where they grow expirimental plants and fish through genetic engineering. When we were eating afterward, a nice man came up to us and gave us two FastPass tickets to Test Track, Epcot’s roller co aster. My dad and I went, and it was a long wait, even with the FastPass, and we were behind a family of astounding body odor. The roller coaster was fun, but not quite as exciting as Expedition Everest. After that we waited an hour for the airplane simulator, Soarin’, which was an incredible motion simulator that lifted you off of the ground and swung you in front of a giant IMAX screen and blew scents at you. After that, we rode Test Track again as a family, and that night, we watched a great fireworks show, Reflections of Earth.