The next day Carlos, me and another friend headed to Vienna, Austria. The plan was to have the whole afternoon and evening to explore plus most of the next day...of course plans always have a way of changing. We arrived midday and went directly to look for our hostel. There was only a few problems with that...it was almost impossible to find the place. We were lacking some details but figured it wouldn't be that hard since we knew more or less where it was at. WRONG! Luckily we brought some pizza with us (dinner from the night before) so we weren't about to run out of food while we searched for the hostel. It was just confusing because it literally was RIGHT in front of our faces...what we failed to know however was that the name wasn't on a big sign...instead it was a small post-it on the door w/ 3 different names on in...one of which was the hostel name- KOKO.
When we walked inside it looked like an apartment building...ok, so what should we do now. We were very fortunate to have a woman direct us to the bottom floor where the owners were...the ones running the "hostel." As soon as we met the family who ran the place everything went smoothly. The Korean family who ran everything was beyond friendly and the room ended up being quite nice. It was really a 3 bedroom apartment turned into a hostel but since the rooms were huge and well taken care of it was all a great find. And to make it better, the room was for 5 people but we had it all to ourselves!
Ok, enough talking about the hostel...lets move on to ACTUAL Vienna. We set out towards the center and along the way saw tons of cool shops and advertisements. Here are my favorite ones:
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| this could be interesting...tomato & strawberry yogurt |
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| I have no idea what its advertising exactly but its interesting... |
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| I know its just German but I love that it says "die centimeter" |
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| this was just a shoe display |
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| this one just struck me as a bit strange |
When we got towards the center there was a plaza area with creatively made benches. Since I can't read German I'm not sure what the sign says about it but it obviously has something to do with what we saw.
The town was just really neat and only got better the more we explored. We walked by all the touristy places like the cathedral/church, some government building, a huge plaza area (sorry for lack of details, I've obviously have been traveling too much and forgetting everything).
We were a touch in a rush BECAUSE we had an opera to head to! There's a good option for people who don't want to spend a lot of money on seeing the opera and that's what we did. So what is this good and cheap option? Stand the whole time. Now it only cost 3 euros to see the opera which is CHEAP but it does last 3 hrs so you better have some comfortable shoes on. I think the next time I go I'll splurge on the seats (which from what I understand cost upwards of 50euros) so I can sit! Plus then I'd probably feel obligated to dress up and have the "true" opera experience instead of going in jeans and a t-shirt. It really was easy to tell the difference between the "high rollers" and the cheap seat attendants. It was just a funny combo but either way it's well worth it to see (the opera that is).
The opera really was fantastic. The one we saw had 2 separate stories and both were really good although I have to say the second was my favorite. They were both about a spouse cheating on the other, the affair that happened, and what typically pursues when the non-cheating spouse finds out what's going on...or at least typical for an opera (since I suppose not all people kill their spouse for cheating). I suppose a less dramatic opera wouldn't be as entertaining. Anyhow I wanted to take pic during but it's not allowed but I did manage to get some after the show was finished.
After the opera we went to find some food since I was starving! And where did we go? A Mexican restaurant...of course. It was pretty good but I'm still excited for when I get home and can start making my own!
The next day we got up relatively early to go see the palace. We had a little breakfast (salad and toast) in the Korean family's dining room, again, they were super nice, and then headed out. We got to the Palace, stood in line for quite a while to buy the entrances and had to wait around until our time came to visit inside (about 2 hours later). While we were waiting we checked out the gardens around the palace that are HUGE. There is literally a zoo inside the garden grounds...and they have pandas :)
We didn't make it to the zoo NOR did we ever make it inside the palace. Why? Because I lost the tickets somewhere in the gardens. Awesome. Luckily we did get to spend plenty of time hanging out in the gardens, seeing statues, going to the lookout point and eating yummy apple strudel. So not a huge loss, although its pretty obvious that I'm gonna have to go back and visit since I missed out on a few things there...such as the palace.
After the adventures at the palace the day started to turn to chaos... at least for me. We headed into town and I still hadn't drank any water (it was about 2pm) or eaten lunch PLUS it was super hot, so I ended up getting heat exhaustion (at least I'm pretty darn sure). Always a really great thing when you're in a city you don't know and you start getting dizzy and can't even form sentences to tell people what you need. I did get food though and water which helped me to feel better. From all that drama, plus I was still a little dizzy, I decided not to go on the bike ride and Carlos and a friend had been planning. Instead I hung out and wrote some postcards...and maybe bought some pastries.
Now what are our options? That was also a bit tricky to figure out since the "bus station" was actually just a bus stop with some time listings of when the buses come. Nowhere to buy your tickets and nowhere to ask any questions. So we had to make some calls and luckily we have some friends that looked up the info for us. UNFORTUNATELY there were no more buses with seats available. Next option? Train. Ok, that works, now where do we buy our tickets? Oh we have to go to another town to get to the main train station? Alright. Strange that it's not in Vienna but ok. So we headed over there and got our bus tickets for 10pm that night. At that point I guess it was just nice to know that we were getting back to Brno that night and not sleeping in the train station (it was the last train that day and no other buses).
One thing I do have to mention is there was one really positive part to missing our bus. I met this awesome girl, Margareth, who's bus actually never came, grrr, so had to catch a train too (really unfortunate for her was that there was no train until 6pm, big grrr). We ended up hanging out a bit since my friends and I had some time to kill before our train left. Me and her wandered around a bit looking for a place with computers and internet and had a decent amount of time to chat. It turns out she was actually really interesting and was going to be in Budapest the next day. And where was I going the next day? BUDAPEST. So she thought (and I agreed) it'd be great to meet up and hang out since we'd both be there. We ended up exchanging info and made plans to meet again in Budapest.
Anyhow, to finish with the "current" trip, we caught the train, got to Brno, literally had to run to catch the local train up to Carlos' campus and arrived around midnight or a bit later. I ended up staying in that night, it was a bit of a rough day for me, but my friends went out along with all the Erasmus people to the club(s). The next day was set aside for packing, chilling out and catching a bus to Budapest.
I can't WAIT to tell you about Budapest so just hold on tight...
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