Air and Space Museum, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

The last thing on my amazing journey over Christmas was to visit the Udvar-Hazy Center of the Air and Space Museum at Dulles International Airport. The reason because I wished so much to go there was that the Space Shuttle prototype Enterprise is exhibited there. NASA used this shuttle to test whether it is airworthy or not as the shuttle is optimized for space and not air operation.

Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird

Other planes exhibited there are the Concorde, the “Black Bird” and several planes from World War II.

Concorde

New Years Eve

Imagine. You are miles away from home for New Years Eve. And all you hear in the radio is music of Johann Strauß. And you are surrounded by people who truly appreciate this music. Would you be a proud Austrian? I very much was!

In the evening we’ve been to a small concert. It ended with “Vienna, City of My Dreams” and the obligatory “Radetzky March”. What a moment! For midnight, we enjoyed fireworks and we watched a strawberry dropping. People in Pennsylvania are dropping things for New Years Eve. If you look through the entire list, you recognize that this is kind of unique to Pennsylvania.