By the way, the title of this blog post (in English) is: Eating, Touring, Other Adventures, and More Eating in Vienna. I can't guarantee the accuracy of this because I translated using some website. Like I said, my knowledge of German is zero.
Anyway, Jason and I had the brilliant idea while booking flights that it would be wise to choose a 6:50 a.m. flight to Vienna. This way, we figured, we would have the entire day there to travel and do touristy stuff. Naturally, we hadn't considered that in order to get to Gatwick Airport cost-efficiently, we would have to leave our dorm at 4 am. I set my alarm for 3:30. This afforded me a whopping two and a half hours of sleep. Needless to say, I was in a very pleasant condition when I met Jason in the lobby of the dorm. He, on the other hand, was overwhelmed with excitement about traveling (which I was annoyed to to no end, thanks to my extremely charming disposition). We were supposed to get the bus at 4:15 but the bus sign said it didn't come until 4:30 and we needed to make a train, so we took a cab to Victoria station where we boarded the bus for Gatwick. (side note: London Gatwick Airport is literally a shopping mall. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen. SO many shops. In an airport!) The entire plane ride I grasped what it felt like to be narcoleptic. I have little to no recollection of the plane ride, except that it was delayed a little bit. I couldn't keep my eyes open for the life of me and have never in my life slept that well in any moving vehicle. It was outstanding.
When we arrived in Vienna, we boarded a bus to Westbanhof (our stop) and headed to Hostel Ruthensteiner, where we were staying. The hostel was kind of off the beaten path but it was nice and also clean (two things that are definitely beneficial when dealing with hostels). We were both tired, but decided that in order to make the most of our time in Vienna, we should head out for the day and nap later, once the museums and other tourist attractions were closed. But first, we needed food. We took the U-Bahn (their equivalent of London's Tube) to Stephansplatz, which is more in the center of the city. There, we meandered aimlessly until I was both starving and freezing, at which point we walked into the first place we could find (a place called Chattanooga Cafe and Grill). We both ordered Wiener Schnitzel and were caught offguard when a) they allowed smoking in the restaurant, and b) a man brought a full-size labrador and fed it off of his plate without anyone else batting an eye, but the food was good so we didn't complain. From there, we made our way over to the Hofburg Palace, which was the winter residence of the Habsburg dynasty, which was the big royal family in Austria. They had an exhibition of all of the silver and cutlery of the imperial family, and they also had the royal apartments on display. The most interesting thing, I thought, was this huge exhibit on Sisi, which is what they call the Empress of Austria who was Franz Joseph's wife. Keep in mind, I knew about as much about Austrian history coming into this trip as I did about the German language in general (aka NOTHING), so it was interesting that they made her out to be this big mythical character and I had never eevn heard her name. Anyway, they had all sorts of stuff about her life and death (which occurred in Geneva, when this guy who was supposed to get killed didn't end up in Geneva so his murderer decided to kill Sisi instead) and it was cool to learn about. By the time we were done at the palace, it was closing so we went and took a nap. Later, we went for dinner at a place called Centimeter which served Austrian food. We had goulasch and potato fritters and also some brown bread. It was really good, except for that we came out smelling like an old, dirty ashtray (yay for smoking indoors!!...oh wait....)
The next morning we got up and went to Schonbrun Palace, the Hasburg summer palace. (conveniently located about 7 minutes from the winter palace!) Here, we took a grand tour of the palace, which reminded me a lot of Versailles in France. Personally, I thought the funniest thing here was overlooking the kindermuseum (children's museum) and watch children dressed up in medieval costumes walk up to a "queen", bow, and give her giant gift bags. hilarious. After Schonbrun, I satisfied my ongoing craving for potato wedges (hallelujah!) at a stand outside the palace, and then Jason and I walked around Judenplatz (the Jewish area) and some other areas of the city. We ended up at the Haus der Musik, a really interesting music museum that chronicled everything about music from Mozart, to how the brain interprets sound, to the Vienna Philharmonic. They had this really cool installment that allowed you to hear how deaf Beethoven was at various stages of his career, which I thought was really interesting. Then, we wandered around downtown Vienna some more before ending up at the Mozarthaus, an old residence of Mozart that has now been turned into a museum. Here, we saw all sorts of cool Mozart stuff, plus a guy with the biggest zit I've ever seen (the size of a silver dollar I shit you not). Overall, the museum really made me want to listen to classical music and watch Amadeus. Maybe that was the point.
By the end of Mozarthaus it was already close to dinnertime, so we headed back to the hostel before departing to Seven Stern, a brewery and pub with more Austrian food that was delicious. We got more Goulasch and also some gnocchi with cheese and bacon and onions that was so amazing. We debated going out but realized we needed to be up by 8 the next morning and maybe that wasn't the wisest idea. The plane ride home was fairly uneventful, with the exception of a child who spent the entire descent into London WAILING, "WHAT'S HAPPENING TO MY EARSSS?????!!!!!!!!" An enjoyable experience for all (but seriously, Jason and I could not stop laughing).
What I found most interesting about Vienna was how different the culture was. A lot of the pictures I took there were of funny signs or things that I thought were comical and different about their culture. They DID, however, have Walking With Dinosaurs: The Live [Austrian] Experience. Whattttup Livenation.
This afternoon, after getting back, Sarah, Keetin, and I went to an antique mall set up in the town center down the street. I got a cool tin for Jason, but there was loads of cool other stuff that I admired but didn't purchase. Tonight for Valentine's Day dinner Jason and I went to an Argentinean steakhouse by the South Kensington tube stop called El Gaucho. It was so delicious and we had a great time together (not to mention an amazing meal). Also, I was only 50p off when guessing the check. Always exciting.
Oh well, it's nearing 2am here so I'm gonna hit the hay. Long day of classes tomorrow (WOO! not)
Auf Wiedersehn!
No comments:
Post a Comment