Happy 4th of July!

It's the 4th, but there are no fireworks here tonight! Imagine that! Today was a really great day.

We went to the conference, saw some good and some awful presentations. Our timeblock had three presentations grouped together, and ours was last. We were actually the very very very last presentation of the entire conference (best for last right? ) The first of the 3 didn't show up.... the second was this woman from the Czech Republic, who was presenting in English, but barely spoke English... her presentation was full of uhhh errr ummm ohh errr. We nodded encouragement, and eventually she started making jokes. It was good. We were up last and gave our presentation well. Just a few slides, no notes, just speaking from what we knew. It's always nice giving a talk when you are really comfortable with the content and know and believe what you are saying. We had about 20 or so people in the room (a big jump from the Czech woman's 4 people (two of which were Romy/me). We got a bunch of questions afterwards, and eventually were kicked out of the room because they had to lock it.

We were told that we were the best presentation of the week that some went to, and that we are on the cutting edge and our research was really valid and on the mark. YES! :) It's always reassuring and exciting to get encouragment like that.

Romy and I left and walked back towards the U1 line, treated ourselves to a Frappucino (yeah I know, it's sick that I had to feed my starbucks addiction all the way in Austria.) When we got back to our neighborhood we are staying in, we stopped in at a grocery store, got a bottle of austrian wine (that was quite tastey), some gouda cheese, and a baggette, and walked back to the courtyard in the hotel and celebrated a good week/good presentation.

The weather changed last night, as a storm rolled in, so it was finally we had a high of 78... it's 70 right now. It's been totally beautiful and perfect today/tonight. Last night was finally a comfortable temperature for sleeping. Thankfully tonight should be too!

After our cheese/bread/wine, we ventured out in to the neighborhood again and had some pizza. Before you harrass me about not eating more German/Austrian food, let me explain something. We had to actively seek out GErman food last night. Every other place is Pizza. In fact, around our underground stop, you can stand in one place and count about 5 italian places. What's up with that? It's crazy. The one thing that is not quite as plentiful is water. I can't seem to drink enough water here, but there are no water fountains, and the bottles of water you can buy are small, or hard to find, or ridiculously large. It's crazy.

Tomorrow is our last day here (we leave Sunday morning). I believe we are going to find a market, go to a palace, and do some shopping. I'm so glad we have had several days here, I feel like we gotten a good overview of the city, found our way around and seen a lot of the main sites. (it would take more than a week to see it all. ) My feet are ready to come home. They are screaming for me to stop walking. I miss my dog Charlie a lot. I see dogs everywhere here (street, subways, restaurants, etc). Chuck would love it, though he'd need some bigtime training to remember that he is a dog and cant hug everyone.