We went to Vienna, Austria this past weekend. It had some of the most beautiful architecture I have ever seen and we had a blast! When we first arrived, we checked into our hostel and were immediately impressed with the fact that we had beds. I'm not joking. It was bliss laying on those things compared to the cots that we sleep on in our flat. We set out to scavenge for food and found a really great Austrian restaurant with excellent veggie chili. I also tried peach wine for the first time and it was to die for. Later, we walked down Vienna's very cosmopolitan shopping district to their capital buildings, which were very ornate and elegant. I did my research before we went out that night and Lonely Planet told me that Flex was the best place to dance in the city. Well, maybe it was to the locals, but it definitely wasn't what we were used to. It was grungy, dark and no one was dancing. When I almost fell on a guy in a wheelchair in the middle of the dance floor, we took that as our cue to leave.
The next day we got up and walked to a local brewery for lunch and I had the most unhealthy meal of my life; which consisted of spinach gnocchi baked with 34 pounds of cream and cheese. It was delicious nonetheless. Next, we came across a harvest festival by the Hofburg palace, with all the best food and drink from the region on display. We visited the city hall and St. Stephan's Cathedral as well. After that we stumbled upon a playground on our way to the Schönbrunn Palace, which may have been one of the best parts of the trip! An hour later, we made it to the actual palace and it was massive and wonderful, with more land than we could imagine. The palace had many acres of manicured gardens, a maze, a huge statue of Neptune, a huge Romanesque restaurant, plus much more. We attempted to visit a graveyard with 2.5 million people buried in it but by the time we got there, it was closed. By this point we were starving and it was getting close to ten o'clock, so we checked to see if the Austrian restaurant near our hostel was open. As we were looking at the menu, the sweetest-looking Austrian grandma came out to greet us. "Are you hungry?" she asked and we eagerly nodded our heads. "Okay, I feed you. Come in!" It was an amazing experience because she was so kind and sat down and talked to us about how she and her husband have had the restaurant for 24 years and they had thank you notes from people all over the world completely covering their walls. The lentil cream soup and the Vienna-friend mushrooms were delicious, but it was her adorable personality that made the experience memorable. After din-din, we went to the colorful benches in the Museums Quarter where all the youth in the city hung out. It was just our luck that homeless drug-addicts deigned to talk to us! An angry African had some choice words for Yanni because people in Africa spoke English and French, something completely in a Mid-West college kid's control. A Turk born in Macedonia gave great insight into my personality by how I write my name, "You are sometimes positive and sometimes negative," all while inching closer and closer into my personal bubble. The best one would have to be the drunk/high man who was trying to woo Kayla with his amazing pick-up lines ("Do you have wings?") and convincing her that they could make a long-distance relationship work. She politely informed him that she had a boyfriend, but he wouldn't her leave without giving her his email, Bustacrymes@gmail.com, and his Myspace URL. A true Casanova! We made a quick getaway and the rest of our night consisted of unsuccessfully trying to find a decent place to dance and our night ended with falafel and meeting the rest of our group in Mcdonalds.
Sunday, the bus took us back to Prague and I must say that it felt great to be back in a city that is so comfortable to me now. Home sweet home.
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