Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Friday, July 2, 2010
Vienna was awesome! We took the night train from
Venice, which was interesting. We had a room to ourselves but people kept walking in all night waking us up. We got a fair amount of sleep and dropped our bags at the hostel before we walked through the city. Emily was only in
Vienna for one day, she flew out early the next morning, so we had to see everything! We walked around the palace, the park surrounding it was busy with lots of kids. I had heard that the opera sold cheap standing room tickets before every show and we were going to try and get them until we saw the line forming 4 hours before they went on sale. The main square was busy, lots of shops snd street vendors. There was a large church, under construction of course, and all the new cadets were lined up outside, waiting to be sworn in. We waited by the clock (see the picture) until noon when all the figures parade across the clock face. We were hoping it would be a little more exciting, but oh well, there was a crowd waiting to see it too
. Ice cream seems to be a big thing here, we see people eating it all day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner...on cones and in cups, and huge sundaes like what we got. After walking near the river we aren't sure where to go next so we brouse postcards. They alwayshave the major sites. We decide to walk to the big colorful house, check in at the hostel, and then go to the ferris wheel. It's a long walk to the colorful social housing roject, but it's pretty cool. Our hostel is really nice, we shower before heading back out. The ferris wheel, The Prater, and the amusement park isn't too exciting...we had pictures more state fair but got more 6 Flags. We decided to catch the train back to the main square and find dinnerthere. We got off near the rive, there were a lot of stands with food there, and got bratwursts of some kind. They were really good and there were a lot of people out, so we people-watched before going to get our fancy ice cream. That really filled us up, so we let it digest as we watched the clown make lame balloon animals.
Emily left early the next morning and I had a hangout day. I ran to some castle I had found on the map, the gardens reminded me of Versailles. Then showered, grabbed a pastry for lunch and wandered around the city. I found a huge fountain and sat to do some travel journal writing. That basically was my day...taking it easy and wandering around. After a dinner of noodles and sushi (seems to be a large asian population here), I met some USA Air Force guys at the hostel bar. I hung out with them and ended up riding with them on the train to Prague the next day.
Vienna was awesome place to visit, very relaxed, awesome hostel, lots of pastries and ice cream. It's a nice town to walk around, lots of green spaces and bikers everywhere!
