vienna

SB Part 2A: Vienna

After giving ourselves a few days to do laundry and re-group, Sam and I packed our suitcases once again for Vienna and Prague. When we were planning our spring break originally, our first plan was to visit about 5 countries back-to-back and give ourselves 1-2 days in each place. Luckily, we changed our mind to only visit 2 cities and stay long enough to actually experience each place.
We began our trip by flying into Vienna, Austria. We arrived there late Saturday night, and my first shock was that everything was in German. I knew ahead of time that this would be the case, but everywhere else I've traveled consisted of either French, Spanish, or English- the first two being ones I could at least get myself around in. German is a whole other story. I had no idea what any signs read or what anyone was saying. So getting from the bus station to our hostel (which ended up being in an alley off of another alley off of another street that wasn't labeled) in the dark was pretty hard. We ended up just getting a cab (our first and only cop-out of the trip) and found our hostel that way. We stayed at the Wombat hostel and it was really cool. Actually, all the hostels we have stayed at were really cool. I think Sam looked them up in the Lonely Planet first though, so it wasn't just a coincidence that they all have been fun.
The next morning we got up really early in order to go see the Vienna Boy's Choir at the mass in the Royal Chapel. Our first shock that morning was the weather. It was really sunny and actually warm- unlike Ireland which can get sunny but is still whoa freezing. Map in hand, Sam and I ventured out once again into the streets of Vienna, this time actually being successful in orientating ourselves in German. The Hofburg Palace housed the Royal Chapel, and both of them were stunning, especially contrasted against the bright blue sky. Everything pretty much in Vienna was huge, white, and gorgeous. Anyway, following a very long and complicatedly disorganized ticket buying procedure, we enter into the Chapel and were escorted by young guys who looked like they had all just hit puberty (our theory was that they used to be members of the Boys Choir and then got kicked out because their voices changed and were demoted to ushers) to our seats and waited for mass to begin. I had never been to a mass before, but hearing it all in German was really weird but interesting. I couldn't help but remember the scene in While You Were Sleeping where the grandma says that she likes mass better in Latin because you can't understand what they are saying. This was exactly what the mass in Vienna was like. Intermittently between segments of mass was the Boys Choir. They sat above the audience/church goers and sang for a few minutes off an on throughout the hour. There was something about sitting in that Chapel and listening to their amazing voices but I definitely got chills every time they sang. There was this one little Asian boy who was brilliant. He was obviously the star of the Choir and sang independently multiple times. Not going to lie- he was amazing:


After mass, we took some pictures outside of the palace and met Mozart (who, by the way, was exploited like whoa not only by really cool gold statue people but also by chocolate makers. Mozart chocolate was sold everywhere-I'm sure Mozart would be proud). Then, Sam and I wandered into the middle of the most shopping-intense street I'd ever seen. Back-to-back were stores like Gucci, Prada, Tiffanys, Lacoste, Chanel, etc. Also, everyone smoked. Everyone. There is a smoking ban in Ireland where you can only smoke outdoors, but the weather outside is such crap that you don't really see that much of it. Not the case in Vienna. Sitting outside (or inside) as far as the eye can see are people smoking. I think if I were to have studied in Vienna I would have picked it up, so I think my lungs are probably pretty happy I chose Ireland instead.
We stopped at this red-umbrellaed sidewalk cafe for breakfast. Sam and I had heard about this chocolate cake called sachertorte, which was this famous layered cake with apricot jam in the middle which was big in Vienna. We both got coffee and split a piece of the cake and took off our coats and just relaxed in the sun in the middle of Vienna. Not going to lie but I was really happy that morning.
After the cafe, Sam and I wandered around some more and toured the different sights in city center. We saw St. Stephen's Cathedral (right), which is supposed to be one of the biggest landmarks of Vienna and has been under continual construction since 1147. Kind of like NC State campus. Sure enough, there was work being done on it when we were there. The inside was just as beautiful as the out, and it was cool because mass was going on there as well so we watched that for a bit and then headed on to more touristic goodness. With no real agenda, we took pictures along the way as we picked out stuff on the map to see and as we passed buildings along the way. Along with huge and beautiful white buildings were huge numbers of Asian tourists (as opposed to huge groups of Italian tourists in Prague). The city center was super crowded in front of the Albertina (left), which was a museum I would have liked to have gone into but it was closed both days we were there. We looked around for a while, and then ended up in a massive park in front of another large glass-enclosed greenhouse. I was amazed by the number of people just hanging out in the huge green field. I think what was so different from America was the number of completely grown adults (both men and women in very nice clothing I might add), who were just relaxing or playing around with their kids. I'm used to parks back home which are filled with stay-at-home moms, and even they don't look that relaxed because they are yelling at someone to stop jumping off something or to stop throwing something at someone. This park was just completely relaxed, and since it was Europe, no one was working overtime on weekends and everyone was just hanging out. Some guy had his guitar and was jamming with one of his friends near us, where we had set up camp just laying in the grass in the sun for a few hours.

Once the sun went down and it got colder, we picked back up and headed back into the city. We passed by several street entertainers- artists, break-dancers, and more painted individuals ranging from ghosts to old-fashioned travelers. According to our Vienna map, the best ice cream was at a place called Zanoni & Zanoni. Since our breakfast consisted of cake and coffee, we decided to hit up the dairy section of the food pyramid and make an ice cream lunch visit. The map was not lying- and that ice cream was amazing (we would proceed to eat there every day until we left for Prague). A few more hours of wandering and then we had dinner at a traditional Austrian restaurant and ordered the only logical option: wienerschnitzel. I had heard the name many times, but had no idea what it actually was until that night. Turns out wienerschnitzel is just pretty much breaded and fried pork, which kind of tasted like Chinese food, but it was whoa good. We also ordered the local beer (Stiegl) and sausages. It was a huge meal, but wasn't that expensive because it wasn't Ireland and food wasn't taxed like crazy.
Oh, and there was this dog in the restaurant who I think belonged to the owner and who just like hung out and ate scraps. This is completely unrelated to anything, but I just remembered it and thought it was funny because if it were America, that restaurant would have been shut down so fast. Turns out Austria isn't a stickler on things like dogs roaming freely in restaurants.
That night we hung out at the bar at the hostel and met some more cool people, one guy from England who had been all over traveling and this one guy from Iceland who had sweet dreads. Actually, he was also cool because he was from Iceland. No one is ever from Iceland.
The next day we did some more sightseeing and did a little H&M visiting since we were in the EU again and were back to Euros. We went to see Mozart's house (I'm not sure if he is actually from Austria but he definitely lived there at one point) and then saw the Museumsquartier, which was a big area of museums and cafes and shops.

We cut our sightseeing a little early in order to meet up with a girl from Vienna who let us stay with her that night. She was a recent graduate of Meredith back home and was living in Vienna and working at an elementary school there. Her flat was beautiful and we had a really fun time hanging out with her and one of her friends. We ended up going out to a bar that night which was supposedly an 'Irish Pub' but there was really nothing Irish about it. Sam asked the bartender what, other than the fact that they sold Jameson Whiskey, made their bar Irish. The bartender answered her by saying 'Well, we sell Guinness too.'

Sam, Carolyn, and me: