Fleshing out the story

I've decided to take the evening off, relax, and plan for the next segment of my trip. But of course, the internet must take precedence. I shall attempt to now flesh out some of the stuff I didn't mention in my first post.

Apr. 14
So on the first night I arrived in Vienna I had to go find a place to eat. Now, most of you know that I despise eating alone. I'm terrible at finding restaurants. It gets even worse while on international trips. I keep procrastinating on finding places to eat and end up walking and walking and walking until desperation forces me to either a street meat stall or to cave and go into a restaurant.

Well, this happened here in Vienna. I found this nice "local" shopping district - a huge long street full of stores and once in awhile a restaurant. I'd peek at their menus (most of which weren't in English) and then continue on. Fast forward to 2 hours later where I'm on the point of collapse from low blood sugars - I find this cute little cafe and force myself to step inside.

I immediately panic when the owner starts talking to me German. I stutter over telling him (in German) that I can't speak German. Then I discover that he speaks English. Fluently. Anyhoo, I see that he has daily specials so I try to order Tuesday's special. Two problems: a) I accidentally say "Thursday" because my German is reeeeally rusty and b) due to the time change, it's actually Wednesday. Doh.

Anyways, I ordered the special - now I remember what I hate about European restaurants. you get squat for your meal! I ordered a bowl of spaghetti and it cost me nearly 9 euros for a plate of spaghetti noodles covered in butter and sprinkled with cheese. Where's the meat? Where's the spices?! Doh! Oh well, at least my impending collapse was averted.

Also, most of you know how much I love seeing elderly people (lovingly nicknamed "pets") - well, I find EAstern European pets to be even more cute!!! The little old ladies all wear checkered head scarves that make me think of Hungarian matrons. However, there's also something more sad and pathetic looking about a Eastern European pet begging for money. :(

(Umm, weird - some guy just came bounding through the computer room to use the washroom here, but he didn't bother closing the door the entire way. Awkward! LOL, and now it sounds like he broke the flush handle.)

Apr. 15
After my meeting I ventured out for authentic sightseeing. When I happened across the St. Stephansdom church, that's when it finally hit me that I was back in Europe! (Granted, last trip I was sick and tired of churches by the end of it, but I guess having nearly a year away from them renewed my interested.)

As mentioned, I spent most of this night wasting time until the ballet started. After the ballet I was hungry (since I had been in line from 6PM and then in the theatre, and I didn't know I wouldn't have had time to eat before then, so I didn't eat) so I stopped by a street meat stall and had my first Viennese schnitzel. It's sad to admit, but that was the best schnitzel I've had. yeah it was deepfried and the equivalent of a hamburger, but honestly, I don't get what all the hooplah is over schnitzel - if you've eaten it in Canada, you've eaten it everywhere in my opinion.

Amusing anecdote: I am soooo lower class. Before the ballet started I had to use the washroom. Bathrooms with attendants disturb me. I'm also a cheap bastard, so I managed to dodge out of the bathroom while she was cleaning another stall so I wouldn't have to leave her a tip. (When I went to the opera again later for the opera itself, I was in the nosebleed section and there was no attendant in that one. Phew, I was back in my own economic range!)

I also did my good deed and helped a girl from Malta find the hotel (she was staying in the same one as me) - she was in Vienna for a meeting on Human Rights.

Apr. 16
On thise day I slept in and missed most of the morning. :( I really wanted to go on a tour of the UN buildings but I missed the first tour and therefore ended up rearranging my whole schedule to see them.

I ended up going back to the area around the opera house. I tried schnitzel again at Mama's schnitzel House. Hmm. Somehow I doubt that was the best choice of places. Oh well. They fed me a lot and that's all I cared about at that point.

After the UN tour I got lost looking for the DOW museum. As mentioned previously, I accidentally went into the DOM museum instead. So sad! The DOW is only open on weekdays, so I missed my chance to learn about Austrian resistance to nayism and socialism. :( And the DOM museum was full of religious relics and all in German. Oh well, at least I recogniyed some of the concepts from my trips last year and therefore I wasn't totally confused! And they also had free washrooms. That's always a bonus.

Speaking of washrooms, I refused to pay to go in for giggles, but near the opera house there's a pay toilet called the Opera Toilet - the big sell is that they play classical music inside.

I ended up going to the "train station" to scope out the area near my hostel so I wouldn't be overwhelmed the next day. And I put train station in quotations because there wasn't a train in sight. I have no idea why I
was convinced this was the train station, but I found out later that nope - it has NOTHING to do with trains. More time wasted.

I did however find Statdpark, a well known park in Vienna. It's rather small, but very very pretty, and it's fill with statues of famous musicians and composers. I ended up sitting there for a bit to relax.

By now I felt like I could retire to my hotel room without feeling like the day was a total waste. I did try going to Pratern, a local themepark. It was amusing - it felt like a carnival out of the 1950s. Plus it has a really famous ferris wheel (famous from a Austrian movie). It takes 20 minutes for 1 rotation of the wheel, but I wasn't willing to pay 10 euros for the ride!

Apr. 17
The first thing that amused me this day was seeing a guy in the u-bahn pimping out the German version of the Watchtower. The Watchtower! In Deutsch! How AWESOME! The rest of the day felt like I was stuck in one u-bahn or another. Seriously. Everytime I got on a metro, it broke down. I was stuck at Kagran station for 30-40 minutes!

I transferred my belongings to my hostel and you guys got your first internet update.

I ended up going to the Nashmarkt - it's a local farmers market and on Saturdays it also has a big flea market. For the most part, the food area was just like a regular North American market. Just more crowded. The snack stalls did have a lot of pastries and non-North American goods though. And I found there were a lot of Middle-Eastern snacks like donairs, kebabs, falafel etc. As for the flea market. Ugh. Can we say tacky? For those of you who will get the reference, I think I found Rosemary's long lost illegimate children. CREEPy!

I ended up meeting my former boss at her hotel so we could do lunch and go to an art museum together. First off, her hotel. Oh my gosh. Fancy schmancy! Again, I felt soooo lower class walking in there. I honestly felt like they were watching me to make sure I didn't steal the silverware or something. (Okay, slight exagerration, but I felt like they should be watching me.) To give you an idea of the price of this hotel, for .33L of coke (stupid Europe likes bottles in the siye of .33L) it cost 5.50 Euros. That's just for a freaking POP!!!!

Anyways, Jenny and I had a long lunch and chit chatted about everything and anything. We ended up going to the Belvedere museum (we were going to take a tram, but couldn't find the right one, so I got us there via map instead. Can we talk about the pressure of trying not to get one of the top hepatologists in the world lost?!)

The Belvedere was beautiful - unfortunately I didn't know that there was a huge set of gardens, so I had us walking on the opposite side of the wall they were on. Oh well - I got to see them on the walk back. Jenny was able to explain the significance of some of the paintings, so it was very handy.

Afterwards we walked back to her hotel and she mentioned that the opera playing that night had a very famous singer - one of the top 5 female singers in the world. Since Jenny is an opera buff, I decided to try to get standing room tickets again.

Oh my gosh, the line for the opera was even longer than for the ballet! (Even though it was at the same location.) I ended up chatting with an Indian medical student (he was involved in liver transplants or something like that).

Unfortunatley I didn't get as good of a seat this time - I was stuck in the nosebleeds. I can't believe how poorly the opera house was built! If you were on either side of the balcony (where I was), you could literally only see half the stage. And this damned opera seemed to be sung on the half of the stage I couldn't see. I can't help but wonder how much the tickets cost for the people sitting in front of me, because it seemed like they had as bad, or worse views that I did if they remained seated. Of course, for the lady directly in front of me, that didn't seem to be a problem for her. She kept standing up, leaning forward, blocking the view of the cold couple beside her, whipping out her opera glasses, etc. And at one particularly poignant song, she was cheering wildly and gave no less than 5 "bravos" to the male lead.

While at the opera I ended up chatting with a Japanese tourist. She was supposed to have left earlier in the day, but due to the volcano, her flight kept getting pushed back, so she extended her vacation until Wednesday. Ouch!

I ended up staggering back to my hostel at around 10:30 PM. Sooo tired. I seem to have 3 brayilian roommates, a Korean, and I don't know who else. I had a Serbian dude sleeping above me last night, but he left today.

Apr. 18
The first thing I did this morning was go to the train station to check out how to buy my ticket to Bratislava. yikes! Talk about crowds! Thankfully the train staff were out in force and one fellow helped explain to me that I needed to go to a different train station and showed me how to get there. (It turns out that I could have bought my ticket at that station - but I'd have to go to a different one tomorrow to depart.)

Anyways, to get to the other station (Sudanbohf), I had to take the regular metro system, and an S-bahn train, the equivalent of a GO train. Oh my gosh. I used a similar system in Paris with little difficulty. This time though I was so confused! I couldn't figure out which train I needed to go on, which platform I was even on, etc! Thankfully there was a bilingual guy there who was able to help me. I got to Sudanbohf, bought my ticket and came back. (Of course I ran into similar problems trying to get back and I hopped on the train that I *thought* would get me back, but I wasn't sure if my transit pass was valid, so I was sweating through the two train stops, worried that someone would check my ticket and fine me.)

Oh, I should also mention that I thought this expedition would be a short one, so I hurried off without eating. By noon I arrived at the Schonbrunn Palace and still had an empty stomach. I was starting to feel ill I was so hungry. When I arrived at the palace, I walked around the neighborhood outside trying to find a street meat stall or corner store or SOMETHING but it was all closed for Sunday!!! And then I kept having to dodge city workers who were cleaning up after the Vienna marathon that was also going on. I ended up giving up and going into the palace gardens.

The gardens were so pretty - but they ain't got nothing on Versailles! (Of course, they were also still in the process of budding/blooming so it's not a totally fair comparison.) I then went to find the ticket booth so I could actually go into the palace itself - and then heavenly choirs started to sing and a beam of light fell upon a food stand inside the info centre! Oh heavenly Lord, I thank thee for this bounty. Of course I got charged up the ass, but I was too hungry to argue for the sandwich.

After inhaling my "meal" I signed up for a guided tour of the Imperial apartments. (Of course I didn't realize there was a non-guided option available until later. Whoops!) The tour was very interesting and amusing. E.g. I learned about one Austrian lord's attempts to create and implement a "re-usable" coffin - apparently it wasn't well received by his subjects.

After Schonbrunn (I wish I had had more time for the gardens and maybe the greenhouses, but my train expedition in the morning wasted so much time!) I went back downtown to go to the Imperial Apartments and Sisi Museum. Then I had MORE issues in that I kept tripping over the damned marathon! The easiest access to the museums were blocked by barricades and it took me about 20 minutes to get to the entrance.

I really enjoyed the Imperial Apartments and Sisi Museum. However, the first part of the museum is dedicated to the imperial silverware, china, etc. Now, you may remember that I am not a fan of looking at pottery. I don't care if it's gilded or made of solid moonbeams. A pot is a pot is a pot. I was ready to gnaw my arm off looking at all the cutlery, porcelain, etc. I had an audioguide and I kept skipping through most of the explanations. (Except for the one section on napkin folding - that was kind of cool and nifty to learn!)

After the cutlery crap I went into the Sisi museum which was also kind of cool. Princess Sisi (actually Elisabeth) is Austria's poster-child. And apparently her popularity didn't blossom until after her death. The exhibition was the closest I've found to a North American style museum in all my travels. I was amayed (and at times bored) by the wealth of information the audioguides provided.

Finally I got to see the Imperial Apartments. Essentially it was a repeat of what I saw at Schonbrunn earlier in the morning, but it was still nifty to see.

By this time I was getting hungry again. I ended up wimping out and going to the same restaurant that Jenny and I had gone to the day before. While digging through my purse though, I started laughing. The entire time I was wandering around, wasting away from hunger, I forgot that I had a small bag of dried fruit Jenny had given me the day before! Whoops!

Anyways, I think this will conclude the Vienna portion of my trip. I'm going to do my best to get up on time tomorrow and head to Bratislava. After 1 day there I'll (try) to head to Budapest.

Cheerio!
Mau