Wien is Fantastisch!

So we arrived in Vienna at 6am and then went to the hostel we were staying at and took a shower, breakfast, check email, etc. and waited until a decent hour so we could start seeing the city. I instantly liked Vienna better than Prague for some reason. It's just more my preference. John prefers Prague.

We took a horse-drawn carriage ride around the center of town.


Us in the carriage.


Our carriage driver who looked like Hagrid.


The horsie who started trying to bite my boob while this picture was being taken. Yeah, I know horsie, I have a nice rack.


Inside Stephansdom or Stephen's Cathedral.

Then we jumped on the tour bus around the city. At one point, we fell asleep since we were so tired from being up since 6am. Vienna is a beautiful place. There's an eclectic variety of architectural styles. Some strangely modern buildings mixed in with really old buildings.


We stopped at the Hofburg Palace area. This is the front of the Nationalbibliothek, their national library.

We toured the Imperial Palace where the Hapsburgs lived for six centuries. I wasn't very impressed by the Prague Palace, especially after having just been to Versailles last month, but this palace was pretty beautiful. Not quite Versailles, but closer than Prague. Perhaps it's because Marie Antoniette was acutally Austrian. No photos were allowed, and after the incident at Prague Castle, we didn't push the rules. There was a huge collection of silverware and plates and then the Sissi Museum, which was dedicated to the life of the wife of Emperor Franz Josef I. She was severely depressed and sad throughout her life and then was assassinated. It was actually a really interesting exhibit. The palace apartments were also really beautiful. It was sad though, because in Franz Josef's rooms, he had all these paintings and photographs of his family and in Sissi's, she didn't have any. Her husband truly loved her--after hearing she had been assassinated, he said "You will never know how much I loved this woman", but she was too deeply depressed to love him back. :(

After the palace, we sat outside in the courtyard area waiting for the bus and we saw THE CUTEST DOG in the world playing football (soccer) with a group of boys. It was so funny because he was really playing. The dog actually didn't even belong to any of the boys and had just run up and started to chase the ball. His owner dragged him away.


The boys and the dog.


The dog has the ball...


Me and the cutest dog ever.

That night, we went to dinner at Wild (pronounced "Vild" since "W" is "V" in German) for John's 22nd birthday.


John with his birthday dessert.

Afterwards, we went to the bar district called Bermuda Triangle since you drink until you disappear! After a drink, John didn't feel very good so he went back, but I stayed out. It was the first time I went to a bar by myself, but I lucked out because I ended up meeting some people. Two of them spoke Korean so I could communicate even though I don't speak Deutsch (German).


This girl and her friends were dressed in traditional Austrian outfits. They're from the countryside somewhere and are in Vienna for a meeting for some organization or something she said.






On the way home, I had a wienerschnitzel. It wasn't a club dog, but it was pretty good.

The next morning...actually closer to noon, John finally got me up and we went to have lunch at gu which was supposed to be a gluten-free Chinese restaurant. John is allergic to gluten so he can't have wheat, barley, etc. He's the only Australian who doesn't drink beer. BUT...Lonely Planet people once again messed up. Turns out it was "glutenmat"-free, which means free of MSG not gluten.

Then we went to Cafe Sperl which according to the guidebook used to be one of Hitler's regular haunts. We aren't 100% sure since we didn't want to ask the waitress. Austrians are still pretty sensative about the whole Hitler and facism thing.


Hitler was here!


John picking my nose.


Viennese iced coffee. Vietnamese iced coffee is better. I MISS LA!


Me and John with a pony in Stephansplatz. The pony had a sign on him asking for money to help him through the winter. Pony is "pony" in German.


Sigmund Freud Park

Another Lonely Planet mistake. There was a blurb in the guidebook about the Pathologisch-Anatomische Bundesmuseum and it described it as part of "quirky Vienna" and that it's a museum about death that's inside an old insane asylum. I'm thinking it's very Girl, Interrupted Angelina Jolie, so I thought it'd be interesting, but really it was more of a medical museum and just had exhibits on all the different diseases you could die from. Yeah...it was weird. I don't recommend.


The building was cool though.

Then we went to Der Neue Donauturm which is this tower thing kind of like the BT tower in London. We thought we'd have dinner in the revolving restaurant, but we forgot it's Valentine's Day so the restaurant was booked with people who were probably planning to do the cheesy marriage proposal thing. We stepped outside on to the observation deck for like 2 minutes and realized we'd freeze. Anyhow, Manuel, my new friend from the night before, was there to meet us so we left after like 5 minutes.


Freezing.


The view.

Then we went back into the city center to have dinner: me, John, Manuel and the unni from the night before. It was a bit of a language problem since we couldn't all communicate in the same language. Manuel speaks Deutsch, Korean and English. The unni speaks Deutsch and Korean. I speak Korean and English. John speaks English. So we could either speak English and the unni would be left out, or we could speak Korean and John would be left out.


Here's John using a German language book so he could speak to the unni.

We had a drink together and then John and stuck around and had a couple more. Here's an interesting find in Austria.


I think this is an original Banksy! If not an original, it's a damn good copy of one that he's done. For those who don't know, Banksy is a famous British graffiti artist. My brother's a huge fan so I got him the book for Christmas. John and I were wandering around the city and I saw this and was really excited. I looked it up online and Banksy did a similar one to this on another building in Vienna, so I think he did this too.

The next day, we got up and left Vienna. BUT, there's another famous American who came to take my place...Paris Hilton.


Paris Hilton's in town to attend the Austrian Opera Ball on the 15th. I hope you enjoy your trip, Paris. I sure did.

Thanks John for the great trip. And remember, what happens on tour stays on tour. ;)