Doing As the Viennese Do

I'm back! I just returned from a weekend in Vienna (or Wien, as the Viennese call it) with my friends. Our flight left at 6:15 am, which means that I have been up since 3:30, so don't mind if this post seems a bit scatterbrained. My original plan was to go back to my host family's home when I got back to Copenhagen this morning, but in my sleepy state, I misread the bus schedule. Turns out, when I got to the train station near my house, I would have had to wait another hour for a bus home and would have had about 10 minutes to shower and leave again in order to make it in time to class. So I hopped right back onto a train going into the city, and here I am! Also, I was looking back at some old posts and realized that I use parentheses after every other word, so I am going to make a conscious effort to reduce my overactive parenthesis-usage.

Anyways, Vienna. In a nutshell, it is the most beautiful city I have been to! Absolutely gorgeous. I'll get to that in a little bit though. This was my first trip completely on my own, with just my friends, a map, and some money (or in Kelly's case, a credit card that refused to work) to get through the weekend -which means no chaperones, and no DIS dinners. As usual, the trip started off on a comical note. Our seating was random on the plane, so I was hoping I would have a good seat buddy since I would probably get to know them pretty well, considering the size of the plane. I lucked out! They were quiet, respected their space, and never had to get up to go to the bathroom. When I got to my seat, which was basically in the cockpit (2A, one of the first one's out!) my new friend was already there. She was a little old lady from Vienna and was so nice...although a little peculiar. She had a huge bag filled with a plant that she got in the city. She was afraid it was going to tip over on the flight if she put it in the overhead storage and there apparently was not enough room to put it near her feet on the floor. Since the flight wasn't full, the flight attendant found an extra seat that she could sit in, which means that yes, I sat next to a plant (buckled in the seatbelt and everything). I assured the worried owner that I would look out for it and make sure it didn't fall over during the flight. I must have left a good first impression or something, because she also left her purse on the seat next to me for the entire ride while she sat at the very back of the plane. This definitely wasn't an accident either -she came back right before takeoff to turn off her phone! I found this pretty funny considering I watch over my purse like a hawk...pickpocketers have a lot of clever little tricks. I learned that in trafficking class. You're probably wondering why I am ranting on about this random woman on a plane. Well, once we got off the plane, she came up to us and asked us if we knew how to get to the hostel. Kelly's immediate instinct was "trafficker!" but I told her later about our earlier meeting and she soon found out for herself that she really was just trying to help. We ran into her again at the train station and on the train, where she sat down next to us (again, she hung up her coat and bags in the front of the train before taking her seat) and we got talking. We found out that she had come to Copenhagen to see the opera, which she goes to almost every night in Vienna. Since music is such an important part of the culture there, she suggested which shows we should see and told us in extensive detail everything we needed to know. She was not completely sure what opera was playing over the weekend (shocker!), so she looked through every newspaper on the train to find out. When she couldn't find it this way, she took out her phone and called the opera house! After we got off the train, we came to the conclusion that we probably had just spent the past hour with an ex-Opera star or some Austrian celebrity. Paragraph parenthesis count: 5

I was hoping to get this post up before class, but that didn't really work out so I'm finally getting around to finishing it now, two days later (study break!). Our flight didn't land until close to 11:00 pm, so it was pretty late by the time we started looking for our hostel and let's just say Vienna's beauty wasn't exactly my first impression of the city. The street our hostel was on was pretty much desolate and it was located a block away from a strip club and across the street from a munitions store. I'm not one to judge a book by its cover, but I was totally judging. I should really start taking a picture of all of the hostels we stay at for reference.
Fortunately, the next day proved me wrong. Not only was it 70 degrees and sunny (I even got some color on my face!) but the city was bustling and just amazing! My pictures really do not do it justice. We basically spent the whole day walking and sightseeing. We started out at the museum quarter and worked our way through Hofburg, which has this gorgeous imperial palace, the National Library and the Spanish Riding School, among a bunch of other gorgeous (I'm running out of adjectives!) buildings that I don't know the purpose of. We tried to find the entrance to the main portion of the library, but could only seem to find the area for research, which we were not allowed into. I'm not sure how you could ever get any research done there though because it is so big that I doubt you would be able to actually find the book you were looking for, and it is so pretty that while searching for your book, you would probably stop to examine every wall and ceiling, and then proceed to stare out the window for 10 minutes. The biggest letdown of the day was probably not being able to see one of the horse shows at the riding school. The shows are only on Sundays and are pretty expensive, so most people go to watch a practice session, which are only on Tuesdays. There was a little video clip of part of the show playing outside of the school though, which did not fail to remind us of what we were missing out on. Parenthesis count: 2!

The majority of the sights to see are in Vienna's historical district. If you walk through it, you are bound to walk through a handful of parks along the way. There are open green spaces basically everywhere you turn, and I think that is what makes Vienna so beautiful (not to mention, the extremely elaborate and exquisite buildings). After lunch, we headed over to Wiener Prater Park, which is a small amusement park in the city known for its famous Ferris wheel, the Wiener Riesenrad. We were planning on riding it and getting a good view of the city, but were crushed when we found out that the student discount was 1 euro off of the original price, not 1 euro. Bummer. Instead, we indulged in some over-priced gelato.

On Saturday night, we decided to follow the advice of our friend from the flight over and went to the opera house! We figured we would enjoy a ballet much more than an opera. Plus, one of my friends already had to sit through a two hour opera with her host family, so the decision was pretty easy for her. We got there two hours ahead of show time like we were instructed to, in order to ensure that the standing room would not sell out. I'm really glad we got to see the ballet -it was really good, even though my feet weren't too happy with me. We left feeling very cultured, but our newfound Viennese-ness was pretty much shot five minutes later when we got Chinese food on the street for dinner.

The next day was a lot more relaxing, since we saw most of what we had wanted to on the first day. We climbed up to the top of St. Stephen's cathedral, which had a great view of the entire city (and made up for not riding the Ferris wheel).

We spent the majority of the day though at Schönbrunn Palace, which was the summer residence of the Habsburg dynasty and where Maria Theresa grew up (apparently Hofburg was their preferred winter residence). If that’s the case, I'd be curious to see what their summer and spring sites of residence were because you wouldn't believe the size of this thing! It was so gargantuan and perfect that certain parts of it actually looked fake! I was already in shock looking at the front but when we walked around to the "backyard," my jaw literally just dropped. There are more gardens and a huge hill with the Gloriette on top, which was built as a symbol of Habsburg power. It was a little windy, but we spent a good amount of time there, laying on the hill and enjoying the view. There was also a little market at the palace that sold all sorts of food and crafts, including these really pretty Easter eggs that looked too nice to touch (but I did anyways). We also saw the Belvedere Castle later on in the day, which was just as gorgeous as all of the others.

That night, we tried Sachertorte, which is a chocolate cake that Austria is known for. Surprisingly, it was not really my cup of tea. It was a little dry and just didn't do the trick for me. Those Danish pastries just hold a special place in my heart. I ate the whole thing anyways though -there isn't exactly such a thing as a bad piece of cake!

We stumbled across plane tickets to Vienna pretty randomly and it certainly wasn't on any of our lists of must-see places to go to heading into this study abroad experience (it really should have been). It was an awesome trip and I am so glad we went! I'll probably be MIA on this blog for a few weeks now though because we have a two week travel break starting next week. I'm heading to Spain on Saturday and then I'll be seeing my family the following week. I am SO excited!  Hope all is well back home and you are enjoying the 80 degree weather. If it were raining right now, I think we'd officially be having a hurricane in Copenhagen. Also, quick side note...I'm actually starting to feel like  a Copenhagen-er (even though everyone else can probably peg me for an American from a mile away). I've even started to recognize some of the regulars on the morning commute -I've seen Sudoku Man and Joe Pesci's Danish twin multiple times. It really is amazing how quickly this semester is flying by!