Saturday, June 20: Vienna - Austria

Hello all...! My Saturday trip to Vienna was so packed with stuff, I spent a lot of time later trying to figure out where in the world I had actually been. Vienna is so huge! I have pictures, but I think that they’re no good if I can’t remember where I went. It was Violeta’s first time to Vienna too, so she couldn’t remember a lot of stuff as well. So, my DISCLAIMER: some of my pictures might be labeled wrong!

Anyway, the start of my day was pretty hectic. Vio and I woke up late – at 5 AM.. right when we were supposed to have already arrived at the school. We were worried that we would miss the bus, but we mannaged to get out of the door and get her dad to take us fairly fast. We were still 20 minutes late though... thankfully they waited on us, but it was embarassing. I guess we just got in too late the night before.

Because of the hour, everyone was really tired. Plus, the ride to Vienna from Deggendorf was around four hours. So, those of us that didn’t get much sleep during the night decided to get some of it on the bus.

But some of us were awake or only slept for half of the ride, so we had time for fun.

Luckily, Vio and I had thought about our trip the day before, so we had already packed some bread.

This Milch Brot (Milk Bread) ended up being our breakfast, but it was early anyway. About halfway through the trip, we made a stop because bus drivers in this part of the world have manditory breaks of 30 min. for rides like these.

So, we checked out the station and some of us paid for a restroom break. It was only when I stepped outside did I realize how poorly I had prepared for the weather. It was only about 14-15 degrees celsius (cold), and I was wearing kapris... I hadn’t grabbed my sweatshirt. Plus, it was raining... and Vio and I didn’t pack an umbrella. Things were looking really bad for my 4 hour stay in Vienna, but Maddie came to the rescue and let me borrow an extra sweatshirt she had from the other day. Whew...! Still, once we got to Vienna, it was rainy and cold.

We decided to make the best of it though, since we were only going to be in Vienna for a very short time.

Our first stop was Belvedere Palace which had a very nice garden, and a pretty good sized building.

Amanda and Sonja decided this was their palace. It was there that I noticed:

...and learned that Vienna was a great host for tourists from all over.

The statues around this place were interesting, but were only a teaser for all of the art that we would find throughout the city. The back part of the palace had an even larger garden that was nicer.

We hopped back on the bus shortly though and headed to the Maria Theresa Square to have a pep talk from Frau before she set us loose in Vienna.

This was also the site of the natural science museum (Kunsthistorisches).

With Frau’s pep talk, we were off. Although, we could already tell it was going to be a long and rainy day. The first noticable thing we passed was the newer part of the Hofburg Palace at Heldenplatz.

As we were walking towards the shopping area of Vienna, we saw another part of the Hofburg Palace and also the horse drawn carraiges available for the tourists.

Further on, we stopped for a picture in the Inner Courtyard of the palace, near the monument of Emperor Franz I.

On one corner, I saw one of the coolest statues ever.

This one is called Macht zur See, or Power of the Sea. :D

Next, we passed by the imperial library called Prunkskaal:

..with the statue of Saint Joseph II. Unfortunately, we didn’t even try to go in. Instead, we wanted to keep heading to the shopping area.

In the midst of it all, we saw Stephansdom, even though it was under reconstruciton:

We knew that this was one of the only places in Vienna that was free to enter, so we made a note to come back because by that point, we were hungry and wanted to eat.

To solve our hunger problem, we decided to go to a place that Frau Maria recommended, Figlnüller, which was in the side streets:

...where we could order a real Weinerschnitzel. They had a nice seating arrangement just for groups like ours, too.

Also, it was good to get out of the rain. All of our shoes were soaked. When the waiter was ready, we all ordered Weinerschnitzel. Although, by this point I knew better than to buy drinks in restaurants because of the outrageous prices, even by European standards. The street vendors had the large bottles for much cheaper.

The food arrived quickly and was better than expected.

It was so good! I still am not sure what the meat was though.. probably pork. But, with the lemons, it was great!!

After that, we were close to the shops, so we started out with shoes... Addidas, of course. Though, we just wanted to see the designs.

To our surpise, there was free water! What a deal.

There was a good selection at our next shopping spot, s.Oliver, but it was full of European prices.

This little bit of shopping had lead us back to St. Stephan’s Cathedral, or Stephansdom. So, we decided to go inside this time. But, the place was like the other cathedrals, very dim and full of people, so I was hesitant to take any pictures. The ones I did take had no flash, so they didn’t turn out so well. But, here’s a chandelier:

At the end of the vistor part, the front part of the cathedral (the rest was gated off for an actual service in Latin – we weren’t dressed correctly), we could go into a gift shop, so we checked that out. Then, we left – back to the rain of the city where we were walking with 10 people and 2 umbrellas (most of us had hoods though)..

We went to a souvenier shop for flags, postcards, hats, etc...

We went to the H.M. in Vienna... which had more selection than the one in Deggendorf.

And some of us waited outside in a big huddle like losers until we could move on to the sightseeing.

But, since we seemed to be doing a lot of that, we decided to split up into two groups sightseers and shoppers... 2 Germans each + one umbrella! So, my sightseeing group went the other way... and stopped in Coffee Day XD... for something warm.

But, we were back outside soon enough. On our way to somewhere (we were just wandering back to the bus), we paused to see the stables of the Spanish Riding School.

The horses that stay here would only be here for about another month before they were off to a new location, so we were lucky to get a shot.

By this point, the rain was really pouring, so Sarith and Chris wanted to find shelter. So, we dropped them off at the only Starbucks in Vienna / this area of the world where we happened to find all of the other Americans. But Iva, Vio, Sonja and I still wanted to see more, so we went back to the museum district to look for anything kostenlos, even though it was cold and rainy.

Just as we walked into the Sissy Museum (or Maria Theresia)

We knew no admission around here was free, so... we just went on.

... and eventually stopped for a picture near the Kunsthistorisches Museum again.

Here was a cool statue engraved as Ferdinand Raimund:

About this point, we broke out of the conventional market are of Vienna and go to the historical sites and more livable area of the town. But it was still raining... so we randomly stopped here and there.

Like here at the phone booth.

We passed by a little spot of green, the Grete-Rehor Park:

Which was cute, but... kept going!

Finally, we made it to a prize for our eyes:

...Vienna’s Parlament building with the statue of Athena. It was pretty cool to see in person... After that, we just wandered around until we were lost and realized that we needed to get back to the meeting place...! To solve our problem, we ended up asking random locals for Maria Theresia. After talking to an old cart driver and getting faulty directions, a nice lady (with poor German) pointed us on the right path... it was a little worrisome, but we made it back just in time... to stand around and wait again!

Instead of getting on the bus and out of the rain, the plaza was overrun with very slow trucks blasting dance music with people on top... advertising for a local club.

Sadly, we were stuck waiting for a good 45 minutes... so, we found ways to amuse ourselves. For me, I got to notice how many different kinds of tourists there were in Vienna.

I even talked to some Japanese girls who were part of a music tour of Europe! My knowledge of English was really useful. xD I could really get to know a lot of different kinds of people with all of my trips into the cities...!

For the others... they decided to fufill a lifelong dream of street performing...

..haha, or at least posing. They then had Vio, Sonja and I walk by them and drop money into

.. the hat when there were lots of people.. haha. It was amusing enough.. and then the bus arrived! We were all so glad to get out of the rain and into the warmth of a covered area, but... it was short lived when Frau told us that we had one more stop. The general concensus was that they weren’t even going to get out and check it out... but not me! For that, I was rewarded with a nice 5 minute trip to the Shoenbrunn Palace :D (Summer palace of the Hopfburg)

But, soon enough we were on the road again. Since it was a four hour ride, I took my shoes, socks, and sweatshirt off to allow them to dry. My socks and shoes were soaked... but at least I could wring out the socks!! The shoes just had to stay soaked. :P During the ride, some of us slept again, but I stayed awake most of the time and got to see the countryside of Austria...

It’s so amazing how far that stretches! The trip back was still set to be a four hour ride, so... we amused ourselves again. From the strange (peekaboo)

To the more common Either Or (Mad Libs on speed)...

Once we arrived back at the school, Vio’s dad was there to pick us up. On the bus, I had only eaten the last little Milk Bread, so I was happy when it was dinner time. It was something recognizable:

Salami and ham pizza... which they cut in four pieces... and ate with both the fork and knife and hands (eventually...) But, with her 8 year old sister, I never need to worry about European manners.

So yeah... with everything that we did, I didn’t have enough time to identify all of my pictures and figure out where I had actually been. It wasn’t until a couple days later that I actually had all of the pictures labeled well enough to write a blog entry on them... so.. hopefully I can get the others done faster. Vienna is just so big! I’ll have to go back some day.

Sunday is Family Day!