Wien

I arrived in Vienna from London mid-afternoon on Saturday. As I walked into the arrival hall, I was pleasantly surprised to see people waiting with their dogs for their loved ones to leave the airport. And not just little yippie dogs; it was all sorts. Also realized straight away that I know next to no German. Commence the smile and nod that was used through most of my trip to Europe.

I took a bus into central Vienna without a plan or a place to stay (sorry mom!) I stopped by a hostel that I had written down, but they were full. They called another one down the road that had availability, so me and my backpack walked down to the Westend City Hostel. This was only the second hostel I'd ever stayed in – Julie and I spent a memorable night (or was it 2?) in a hostel in Harlem a few years back. I met some of my roommates for the night, and then headed solo into the city. Once I got off the ultra-touristy shopping street Mariahilfer and into the center of Vienna, I saw why everyone calls Vienna so beautiful. Gorgeous buildings everywhere. Every corner you turn, here's another grand building.

National Library

I stumbled into the summer Film Festival, where they show cultural movies every night for 2 months during the summer. I watched the Zurich Opera House performance of Carmen on a ginormous screen, drinking a beer after having some kind of cheese schnitzel. Fun fact that I didn't put together until reading my guidebook for the trip: Wiener schnitzel? Schnitzel from Vienna.

Film Festival in Rathausplatz

On Sunday, I woke up late (LOVE hostel time, no alarms unless you've got a train or plane to catch), had some breakfast at the hostel, and set out to explore the city with my new buddy Garron from Oregon. First stop was Stephansplatz, where we stopped into Stephansdom and walked up the many, many stairs to the top of the tower. Nice views of the city from the top. Vienna is a sprawling city.



I read in a newspaper that Austria has seen only a 2% decline in newspaper distribution, compared to something like 30% in the US. I read this fact as I sipped a coffee in a cafe in Vienna – cafe culture RULES.

Statue in the Habsburg Palace

I was also on a mission to see the Danube. I'm glad I had a buddy this day, because the body of water on my map turned out to be a canal, and I would have been sorely disappointed if I thought that was the Danube. We took the Ubahn to the river, and we were all over the boats once we got there. All the paddleboats were rented, so I lounged and drank my Erdinger while Garron rowed us around a little island in the river. I saw my first-ever nude beach as we went around the other side of the island. I enjoyed my awkward shirt and shorts tanlines from 2 hours in the boat in full sun, thankyouverymuch.

Swan on the Danube

Sunday night a group from the hostel went to a pub somewhere and had a few beers. This is where I fell absolutely in love with the hostel culture – meeting a bunch of travellers around my age from all over the world, trading stories from home and stories from travelling. I'll probably never meet a lot of these people again, but it's such a wonderful experience.

Beautiful views from a break on the grass

Monday was a travel day. After stopping for some apfel strudel and snacks for the train, I got hopelessly lost trying to find the correct train station to get a train to Prague. Once I was on my way, it was a nice 4.5 hour ride to Prague through the countryside. I wish I could say I enjoyed all of the views, but I slept for a good part of the ride.

One thousands apologies to the city of Vienna. My German is so terrible that I spelled your fair city's name as Wine when I first posted this. It is also so terrible that I thought Einbahn was some important place with arrows pointing one way all over the city for it.