74. Painted

Last week a few of us went to Innsbruck, Austria.  I want to live there.  Every house and building is picture perfect.  The residents are not afraid to use color.  

This building was right by our hotel.  I fell in love with it.

Notice how no two buildings have the same color on this street.

They also aren't afraid of window boxes.  In fact, they love them.  I want one.

This is the main street in Innsbruck, doesn't it have personality??

Looking down the River Inn (the other direction than the photo above).  Everything in this town is set against the most amazing mountain backdrops (in every direction).  Like I said, I want to live here.

64. Flutterbies

On Monday we went to the Imperial Butterfly House for photo class.

It was pretty warm so I had to wait for the fog to clear off my lens.  It reminded me of how my glasses fog up whenever I open the dishwasher.  I also I had to remove several jackets and a scarf so I could breathe (it was cold outside), and my hair I had blowdryed straight one hour earlier was no longer straight.

Once the fog cleared I could tell that the flowers were fake.  That was disappointing.  Well not all of them were fake, but a lot of them.  They have to keep the butterflies fed I guess.

I wandered around the greenhouse looking for colorful butterflies.

I found a few.

Those two in the last photo are the same butterfly species. I still think the camo aspect of the whole butterfly thing is one of the most impressive things in nature.

63. Farbe

The only thing that unites my photos today is that they are all colorful (kinda-i might be pushing it).  

First photo: a street in Prague.  Yeah, a street, like what cars drive on.  Grass grows up through the cobblestones making the road look so much cuter than plain old asphalt.  

Second Photo: We found a mini flea market as we were wandering around.  All the booths had the cutest toys!  I had a hard time not taking everything home to my niece and nephews.  I took a picture of the pencil things because I think it would be a fun way to store school supplies in a kid's room (in the far distant future).

We also travelled to the Lennon wall on Saturday.  Under Soviet rule this wall was quite a political thing.  Every so often the graffiti and political messages would be painted over, resulting in a lot a lot of paint layers.  Now it is perfectly legal to graffiti the wall, so we all left a little note.

Considering that it is called the Lennon wall, we couldn't help but stage one of these:

Last photo: near the wall we found a fence with thousands of locks on it.  We found out that people that are in love come and place a lock on the fence and throw the key into the river behind it.  I thought it was kind of a cute idea.

60. Bussing

On Wednesday we took a weekend trip to Prague. SUCH a beautiful city. SOOO many stories to tell. Here are a few photos from the bus ride. Jana (1st picture) and I messed around with f-stop and shutter speed trying to get the yellow Austrian fields blurred as we drove along. I started getting the hang of it. The entire bus ride was beautiful. I want to go camping in the woods here. When we got to Prague (at 9:30 at night) we had an interesting experience. Hopefully I get around to sharing that later.

58. Signage

I know signage sounds like a made up word, but it is actually used in the retail industry quite legitimately.  

On Monday we spent photo class time wandering around Albertinaplatz, and among the hundreds of horrible photos I took, a theme revealed itself--signs.  Green signs.

I'm sure all of you know this, but all restrooms on this continent are labeled with a 'WC.'  This, of course, stands for water closet, but Jessica thinks it is more appropriate to call it a waste closet.  She's probably right.  I think we should just stick with the little bathroom people, but whatever.

Along with taking pictures of signs, I followed this couple around the park trying to get a shot of their adorableness:

Unfortunately, the bush thought that it deserved more of the frame than the old couple.

And then there is the last photo, this one is just for fun.  We were walking down the street when a guy asked Maria if she would take a picture.  She said sure and put her hand out to take the camera from him.  Instead of handing it to her, he gave it to a friend of his and stood beside her ready to pose.  We all then realized what was going on, and started laughing pretty hard.  Maria is gorgeous, so it's understandable, but it was still pretty funny.  Here they are post-photo introducing themselves to one another.

  Sorry I am such a lame photographer.  This city really is marvelous, even if I am unable to capture it on film.

55. Naschtmarkt

In the first district, where we have school, there is this amazing street market.  It is easily the largest in Vienna, and everything looks so interesting there.  In photo class we walked over and tried to see what we could capture on film.  This day I decided that I could never be a photographer, I just don't have what it takes.  However, it was a fun assignment anyway.  The colors were amazing, and I had such a hard time not buying every pastry I saw.  The good news was I handled a few conversations auf Deutsch rather well.  That was exciting.

At the nicer end of the market there are several cafes.  Cafes are a big deal around here.  Like a really big deal.  I'm a fan of them myself.  In this photo I can see at least five different cafes.

This photo below is probably my favorite of the whole day.  I just love how vibrant those peppers look.  I want to eat them right now.

Und heir ist frische Erdbeer.

Like I said in the last post, I LOVE orchids, and they are ALL OVER this town.  There are flower shops all over, and the Viennese always take flowers home for the weekends.  They are all GORGEOUS, and pretty cheap.  I wish this flower thing would catch on in the states.  I think Holland or Denmark is the largest flower exporter in the world, which might explain why they can sell flowers cheaper here.  Anyway, I'm a a big fan.  Unfortunately I couldn't come up with a photo of the Orchids I was really happy with, but this one will have to do.

This was probably my second favorite photo of the day.  This barrel smelled TERRIBLE, especially since it was right next to a barrel of sauerkraut.  I honestly don't know why I like this photo so much.  I promise most of the food here looks a lot better than this.

Whew!  Five photos a day is a lot!!

39. Loves

However, just because I love my macbook that doesn't mean I'm investing in an iPad.

21. Homegrown

My mom plants daffodils. That's her thing. I wish I had taken these earlier in the day with better lighting. They really were lovely.

I love spring.

19. Doodle

I was SOOO excited when these arrived.  I have a slight obsession with writing utensils, especially colored ones.

Thank you jetpens.com.

12. Yellow

Recently I duscussed my love/hate relationship with the color blue.  My relationship with yellow is ALL love, even on beasts like this:

Speaking of yellow, I am LOVING this spring sunshine thing.

10. Blue

I have a love/hate relationship with the color blue. Hate blue weddings.  Love blue skies.  Hate blue dresses.  Love blue ties.

After taking 17 pictures of my recycling bin, I think blue is a good color choice for it.

The whole rhyming thing above was unintentional.