Vienna

We arrived in Vienna at 4:45 in the morning. What can we do at 4:45 in the morning? So we got ourselves to our hostel, which was on the other side of the city, and luckily there was a giant couch there so we slept for a while, some people showered, and we got ready to go into the city and see the famous Vienna Boys' Choir perform in the Hofburg Palace, the winter residence of the Habsburgs in Vienna. We waited in line for a while but we were first, so we got the best (free) standing-room places and although you are only able to see the choir if you have an expensive seat in the balcony, we were able to hear them perfectly and they were awesome. Then, we went to the bathroom, which is conveniently located right next to the balcony from which the Boys' Choir sings! So we were able to peek around and see them for a minute, after getting some dirty looks from a woman standing nearby. After we left, we went to explore the Hofburg palace, which houses one of the best treasuries that I have ever seen - jewelry, swords, clothing, and a unicorn horn! We wandered through the rest of the palace grounds, saw the New Palace, which has never been used, and then walked to the Kaisergruft, where all the Habsburgs are buried - well, almost all of them. It was a maze of rooms arranged in order of year of death, and the most recent person (one of the last Habsburgs) was buried there in 2007. It's hard to believe that things are still done that way, but I guess it does exist. After we left, we walked into the Opera building to see what was there, and then we walked back to the Hofburg palace to find a place to sit and have lunch. We were all pretty tired from traveling overnight, although I had gotten some good sleep on the bus - it was surprisingly comfortable. After lunch, we had to go to the Sacher Hotel to get the most famous dessert of Vienna - the original Sacher Torte, basically a fruity chocolate cake. It was pretty good, but wasn't my favorite, although I feel a little bad saying that. The experience was the most fun part, sitting with my friends in a fancy restaurant eating 5 euro cake and drinking espresso. After that, the girls went to the Belvedere Palace and to the art museum there, which houses 3 of the most famous Gusta Klimt works, including The Kiss, Hannah's personal favorite. It was a beautiful museum, not too big and overwhelming like some of the others had been. It was really one of the only art museums that I went to on this trip, mostly because I had just seen all of the famous art in Paris and Madrid and felt that other things were more important to see in these cities. The Kiss was absolutely incredible, and looked like it was made of gold. I wanted to stare at it all day long. After the Belvedere, we tried to go to the cemetery where Mozart is buried, but we ran out of time because we got a little lost and didn't realize that the cemetery closed at 7pm. So we went to dinner at this ridiculous place called Centimeter, where you can order your food by the centimeter and the menu has a ruler. The waiter spoke to us in German for a while even though we obviously only spoke English, and I ended up ordering schnitzel, which was probably an entire chicken. I felt like I was back in the US - huge plate and way too much food, a stark contrast to Spain where everything is small and you eat tapas for dinner with tiny forks. For the evening, Hannah, Liz, and I went to the Prater, which is the amusement park on the outskirts of the city. It was huge and beautiful, and we went on one of the oldest/biggest ferris wheels in the world. It was 8.50 euros, but I think it was worth it for the view of the city, which was absolutely gorgeous. Each car of the ferris wheel was like a little house, and by the time we got up to the top (200 feet), we were pretty scared. It ended up being really fun, and after we got off the ferris wheel, Hannah and Liz went on this spinny ride that I opted out of. Instead, I took pictures while the ride went way too fast and Jump (For My Love) blasted. Hannah and Liz were the only people on the ride, and the person running it didn't even check to see if they had their seatbelts on. Oh how things differ from the US. The boys and Kelly didn't come with us to the Prater because they had actually gone to Bratislava for the night (the capital city of Slovakia, which is about an hour east of Vienna). I wanted to go with them, but I decided not to because I loved Vienna and wanted to see more there and because I was just too tired to stay up all night.

Day 2 of Vienna, we got up early to get to the Schonbrunn Palace, which is one of the 3 biggest in Europe. It was the summer residence of the Habsburgs, and is probably the most beautiful palace I've ever seen. I mean, Versailles was cool, but this place was just so nicely decorated. Everything matched and every room was more gorgeous than the last. I though Versailles was a little too much, but Schonbrunn was perfect. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but I took a lot of the gardens because after we bought our tickets for the guided tour, we got on a horse and carriage for a 30 minute ride through the park! It was great, and was followed by an awesome guided tour through 40 rooms of the palace. After, we went to get some lunch at a Viennes place - Liz and I split bratwurst and we all tried the clear broth soup with pancakes. Interesting stuff. Then, we went up to the Freud museum, which was probably one of my favorite things we saw, considering I'm a psychology major. The museum was in Freud's old apartment/consulting office, and we entered the museum by ringing the doorbell. Then, we were given black 3-ring binders with information about the museum in them, and instructions for where to go. It was a pretty cool exhibit. After that, we went to see the symbol of Vienna (St. Stephan's cathedral) and to get some ice cream - nutella flavored and delicious. After, I dragged my friends to the Steinway store and got to stare at an entire row of Steinway baby grands as well as sit at the grand piano. Pretty much my dream come true, and made my experience in Vienna complete. We went back to the hostel to gather our things and make our way to the bus station and to the final city, Budapest. We had some trouble finding the bus station, but they we saw the bus pass by us so we decided to just follow it. It stopped a few feet in front of us, just on the side of the road, which I'm guessing was their idea of the bus station. Right...so luckily we found it, we were 6 of the 8 people on the bus, and we were on our way to Budapest.

Vienna Pictures