Vienna

I have a test in less than 2 hours that I feel completely unprepared for. So study? Nah. I'll blog.

Our first night in Vienna, Dan and I went out and got some kebabs while everyone else settled in. We then went to bed. Whooo hooo party.

The next morning, the whole group went to some sweet arty cafe in the Old Town area for breakfast. The cake and coffee were not especially memorable, and the price was even worse (7.50), but it was still worth it to have a very Viennese coffee morning. They even had the newspapers out and the dudes in ties serving and whatnot. After that, we split up. Dan, Michelle, and I headed to St. Stephens while the girls went out to go see the horses prance around in the Hofburg Palace, the old home of the Hapsburg Dynasty. We saw a sweet view of Vienna (pictures are two posts back in the picture post), and then went down to go see if we could meet up with the girls at the palace. Success. We then went into one of the palace tours, where we saw a whole lot of plates and other silverware (and goldware, I suppose, if that is a word), and saw some other old imperial rooms. They were really, really loaded. It was fairly disgusting.

Dan and I blew through the exhibits, mainly because we were bored and one of the things was this really long exhibit on some old Hapsburg princess who reminded me a lot of Princess Diana. She died young (she was assassinated) and people ascribed far too much meaning to her life post-mortem. Also, she spent a lot of time on her appearance and whined a lot about how hard it was to be a princess. Actually, she was exactly like Princess Diana. Anyways, Dan and I went out and explored for a bit, and the girls finally came out of the museum about half an hour after we were done. After that, we played around in a park in the Hofburg. Tons and tons of leaves were on the ground, so it was war. Good times, good times.

After eating delicious hot dogs, brats, and kebabs, we headed to the Belvedere Gardens, where we looked at some pretty flora and whatnot. Any time we can get some stuff like that, we take it, because Rome has very little green. Sadly, it is November, and a lot of plants were dead. Still, it was all right. After we split up at the Gardens, we got lost as a group. It took us a good hour to all meet up, and from there we decided to go to the Opera, because we weren't sure how far ahead of time we had to get there to get the cheap standing room only seats.

Luckily, we arrived early enough. There was already a pretty big line when we got there, about an hour before the tickets went on sale around 6:20 (they should have gone on sale at 6, but it is a government-run Opera house). We ended up getting 2 euro balcony tickets to the show, Tosca. What a steal. And by steal, I kind of mean it: the whole thing is totally subsidized, so my cheap opera experience came on the backs of the Austrian taxpayer. Hooray!

Between getting our tickets and going to the show, we ate at the Mozart cafe, one of the two swankiest cafes in Vienna (that and the Sacher cafe, as in Sacher torte). The cakes there were pretty expensive, and I paid five euro for an apple strudel with hot vanilla creme sauce, but it was totally worth it. We were the only people anywhere near our age in there, and a lot of people were dressy. We were not.

Speaking of being underdressed, we went from there to the Opera house. Some people were really, really dressy. We were chilling in jeans and polar fleece. We didn't quite fit in, but we had a blast with it. I mean, what do you expect if you sell 2 euro tickets to the Opera? The building was ornate, and seeing the building made it worth the price of admission. Our view was pretty much entirely obstructed, so we amused ourselves with the actual dialogue of the opera in English translation (hilariously corny), and trying to see if we could catch any Italian phrases we understood (not really). We left after the first act.

From there, a group of nine went out to ride the famous Vienna ferris wheel. No success there; the famous old one was not up and running. Fortunately, at the base of the old wheel is a really creepy, 1960s type old amusement park. Being that it was November at night and freezing, the place was a ghost town. Totally, totally creepy. There was another ferris wheel (smaller but faster), and we rode that (check the pictures... I think there are some). We went from there to the Bermuda Triangle, a bar area that was not so cool, so we headed back to the hostel. From there, we went out to a really late dinner. Dan and I tried Weiner schnitzel (sp?) for the first time there. I figured it was appropriate (Wien = Vienna). I ended up having some for lunch the next day, too.

The next morning, we went to another swanky cafe and got more expensive cake (see the food porn pictures... they are amazing). I paid over 6 dollars for a piece of cake. Oh God. But it was delicious. From that cafe, we went to Starbucks, where a lot of people got their American coffee fix. From there we broke up with the understanding that we would meet at 6:15 at the hostel, because our train home was taking off at 7:35 (we double-checked this time). My rest of the day was pretty much exploration. Michelle, Teresa, and I went through a beautiful park on the East side of the city to some incredibly weird but awesome house that was built without straight lines or flat areas. Yeah. It's way cooler in person than in theory. It's all painted up and everything... wow, my descriptions are worthless, but check the pictures. That might help.

After that, we split up. I was all alone for the rest of my time in Vienna, which was actually really nice after a lot of hustle and bustle. I rode the loop tram around the city once, which provided some cool peoplewatching opportunities. Then I got off, and let myself get lost a little bit. Fun fun, but really cold too. Eventually, I wound up at a Metro stop, so I went back to the hostel.

After everyone got back on time, we set out for the train station. Not as much worry as the last time, for sure. We got there with plenty of time to spare, and got on our train and in our seats. The setup was nice for a night train: 4 to a compartment, with two drop down beds on each side. For the first 2-3 hours of the train ride, we thought that maybe there was not going to be anybody else in our compartment (we had two full compartments, and Dan, Emma, and I were in another), but some chatty African dude jumped on. He had been everywhere travelling as a computer dude for Microsoft. He has Nigerian, Austrian, and American citizenship. Crazy stuff. I slept reasonably well on the train, all things considered. I probably woke up only two or three times. At about 8:50, there was a knock on our door: "Jamie, Dan, we're at Termini". Home sweet home.