First, I would like to apologize in advance for the length of this blog; Vienna was just SO much fun that it is hard not to include everything.
My concept of time has been completely altered. The weeks are flying by too quickly; sometimes I wish I had a pause button on my life so that I could just stay here a little longer. Unfortunately, such a thing does not exist. So before my life becomes really busy with basically traveling 4 weekends in a row, finals/papers and then somehow managing to explore Prague as much as I can before I am forced to go back home, I will catch everyone up on my life.
A few weekends past, almost my entire program *cough, Alex Horn* traveled by bus to Vienna. The bus ride was around 6 hours, which by now is a piece of cake. But for some odd reason I decided on taking a Tylenol PM to fall asleep on the bus, which wasn't such a good idea because at one of the rest stops we made we stopped at the most bizarre places I have ever been to. EXCALIDUR.
From being woken up from my Tylenol PM coma, I was utterly confused as to where on Earth we were. It was some kind of amusement park with a "convenient" store that had an entire two rooms filled with liquors and beers, another room filled with giant bags of candy and then another room with kids toys, where they sold pregnant barbies... SO please try to picture me, dead tired in my coma state in this ridiculous place... after much debate, I still don't know if we were in the Czech Republic or if we were in Austria. You would think I would be able to tell based on the currency used, right? Nope, you could either use Koruna's (Czech "crowns") or the Euro. Oh, Europe. Anyways, I ended up leaving the store within 5 minutes and decided to sunbath/nap by myself on this man made bridge in the parking lot instead... which I'm sure I ended up looking like the weird one in this bizarre adventure amusement park/rest stop.So onto Vienna.
We arrived in the late afternoon on Friday. Checked into our hotel, I "shared" a room with Celia and our rooms had TVs in them. Heaven on Earth. We listened to the radio in German and then went around the corner to the Centimeter, a local pub, and got Iced Coffee to wake us up before our early evening tour. Their concept of an iced coffee is hot coffee with a extra glass with only ice. It was real interesting, but I needed the energy and didn't want to waste my euros so I drank it all.
On our evening tour we were able to see the Town Hall, the Stephansdom (famous church), the Imperial Parliament and the Hofburg (the historical seat of Habsburg emperors & imperial apartments). After our guided tour we were free to wander around the city ourselves. We walked for a few hours around the city center and then slowly made our way back to find this highly recommended restaurant. After searching for an hour we found the Augustine Wine Cellar where I got the BEST veal wiener schnitzel I will probably ever consume. Just thinking of it makes my mouth water a little. Yum!
(Imperial Parliament)
(The Hofburg)
(Stephansdom)Instead of journeying 45mins back to the hotel after dinner, we decided to kill time while we waited for everyone else to come back into the city center. There is no better way to kill time than to sit in a chic European bar, right? I slowly drank 2 Heineken's, which were 10x more expensive in Austria than in the Czech Republic... Oh how I love the CZ! Once everyone traveled back into town we met up with them and tried to find the "Bermuda Triangle", which we were informed to NOT go there because when tourists tend to go in, they tend to never come back out. Well of course we had to find this place... We found the Bermuda bar, which was pretty cool. Later we found out that we weren't at the true Bermuda Triangle, I guess which was lucky for us.
(Queen Elisabeth's Garden)On Saturday, we did a lot of sight seeing and to be completely honest I cannot remember the names of the places, but I can remember exactly what everything looked like. The city is very heavily stylized in the Renaissance and Baroque periods, which reminds me a lot of Rome. Every building in Vienna is unique, even the more modern buildings. During our guided tour in the morning we found a German Easter market. The market looked a lot like the ones in Prague during Easter time, but it had its own charm to it along with Austrian souvenirs.
During our free time we wandered the city more, but once our feet were too blistered to move, we stopped for lunch at a Chinese Restaurant. I know, awful, who goes to Vienna to get Chinese? Simple answer: Starving students. In the afternoon we went on another tour, but this time to the Belvedere Palace (Schloss Belvedere) it is the former residence of the Prince of Savoy. It was breathtaking...
(Belvedere Palace)Saturday night we went to the pub right by our hotel, The Centimeter. It is by far my FAVORITE place that I have eaten in all of Europe. Three Reasons: 1. If you go with a big group you can order a variety of food... that is served on a SWORD! (that should be reason enough, but...) 2. If you are feeling adventurous you can order 5 Liters of Beer that comes out in this huge test tube looking beer tap, which you pour your drinks yourself. 3. Good company, Good Food and Good Drinks, but in a VERY unique way. After dinner and a few drinks later we went around the corner to a Mexican Restaurant and got Mango Margaritas, a little weird after the heavy meal and beer, but it was still great fun!
(Reason 1)
(Reason 2)
(Reason 1. 2. & 3.)Sunday came too soon. We had to be checked out of the hotel and on the bus by 10:30am... too bad at 2am that morning it was daylights savings and NO ones phone (because we all have the same cheap Vodaphone) automatically changed. That 10:30am departure time became a joke just waiting to happen. After we got going though we stopped at the Hundertwasser House, which is an apartment house designed by Austrian artist Friedenreich Hunderwasser. The house is very original and is one of the most visited buildings.
(Hundertwasser House)On our way back to Prague we stopped one more time, but this time at the Schonbrunn, the Imperial summer residence of the Habsburg Dynasty.
We were able to choose from a variety of things to do, but we only had time for one thing. So we picked touring the inside of the palace instead of going on the Hedge Maze (if I had more time that was going to be my #2 pick). The inside was so beautiful and we were actually able to see the furniture and how the rooms were laid out, which is so rare because most palaces don't hold true to their history.This was our last stop in Vienna, so we all boarded the buses and drove the 6hours back to Prague, but not before stopping at EXCALIDUR. This time around Celia and I bought a huge bag of Gummy Bears, which took us two classes of Globalization to destroy.
My weekend in Vienna was by far my favorite weekend. I love traveling with our entire program because not only do you not have to worry about anything, but you don't have to deal with the stress of planning and organizing. Unfortunately that was our final trip traveling all together, but this weekend I will be going to Krakow, Poland with 1/2 of my program.
This weekend is going to be very interesting... especially after the recent events. On Sunday in Krakow, the President's Funeral will be taking place. So I am very curious to see how everything plans out.
I guess you will have to stay tuned in to find out.
Until next time...
☮
