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Today marks my one week anniversary of being in Vienna. The good news is, I still love it and I haven't felt an ounce of homesickness (no offense). I love you guys, but this is a good place for me to be right now. The last couple of days we have been exploring, making new friends, and falling in love with this city more and more.

The BIGGEST news is that we finally met Liesel on Tuesday night. She is, as expected, very lovely and kind and practical. She loves flowers, her children, bridge, opera and "biological" apples (see below).

This is one of Liesel's apples. They are really old and wrinkly but they are organic, so she eats them. Becca and I tried one at lunch today with Norbert. It wasn't as bad as it looks but I'd never choose it.

Yesterday morning we toured a violin maker's shop. Her name is Henriette Lersch, and she's famous from the I'm a Mormon campaign (click the link to watch her video). She is very cool and very talented and if you are in the market for a new violin, she sells her's for around €12,000. So if you want me to pick one up for you just say the word. But really, she works mostly with professional musicians and she does more repair work than building right now. In my next life I'd like to be her apprentice.

After visiting her shop, we did a walking tour around Stephansdom for one of our classes. The tour took us in and around Stephansdom (a cathedral near our school and right at the heart of the city). We learned a lot and saw a lot. And laughed a lot, as is the case most of the time around here.

Inside Stephandom. It is huge and gorgeous and cold.

The walking tour also took us to the oldest church in Vienna (built in the 11th century), and we passed the Spanish Riding School where the horses just happened to be returning to their stables.

Here's the oldest church in Vienna

A sweet shop we passed by. Look at the little marzipan hedgehogs.

Spanish Riding School Horse. Local celebrity crossing the street.

After our tour, I'm pretty sure my feet were frost bitten, so we hopped on a train and just rode to where it took us. It was very nice and relaxing and just what we needed to recharge. We wandered until it was time for Institute. Becca and I were there a little bit early, so we made some new friends, and then we had class. They have one class taught in English, which is a Book of Mormon class. It was really great. A nice senior missionary couple teaches it and I met a girl who joined the Church in August. She was really great. There was also a girl visiting from London who we made friends with. After classes, they serve dinner and it's only one euro, so you better believe we stayed. I love the Church. You can walk into a strange building in a foreign country and emerge two hours later with a handful of new friends. It's amazing.

This morning Becca and I met one of our new friends, Sion (pronounced Shawn), for breakfast at the Naschmarkt before class. She's the girl from London and she was returning today, so we wanted to see her one more time.

After classes, Becca and I returned home to drop off our stuff and go to the Belvedere. Norbert was home, so we had lunch with him and then he pointed us in the direction of the museum. It took a long time to get there, but it was worth it. The building was the summer home of the Hofburgs, and it is stunning. Not to mention the art inside. The whole ground floor was filled with gorgeous impressionist stuff that I loved. And upstairs they have a big Gustav Klimpt exhibit because it's the 150th anniversary of his birth. All of the art was contextualized in the art history of Vienna, which I really loved.

One of my favorites from the Belvedere, Der Philharmoniker by Max Oppenheimer

The view of Vienna from the upper Belvedere is quite nice. You can see the spire of Stephansdom, which is pictured below.