♫ I'll Dance with You in Vienna ♫

♫ I'll be wearing a river's disguise..., ...oh my love. Oh my love... take this waltz, take this waltz, it's yours now, it's all that there is ♫ (Leonard Cohen)

4:50 PM Vienna

Oh Vienna. The most grand and beautiful city, filled with gardens, music, apfelstrudel, coffee, and dudes on the street dressed up as Mozart selling you concert tickets for "half price". We arrived two days ago on a train from Salzburg and we're actually staying at the same branch of youth hostel that we stayed with in Munich (Wombats - they're in Berlin, Budapest, Munich and Vienna - we highly recommend them!). We have our own room and bathroom this time, so it doesn't feel any different than a hotel. It's very warm here (highs of about 80) compared to how the rest of our trip has been and there is no AC in the majority of places to stay on a budget. This hostel is really nice, though, because it has big windows that we can open and they even put a floor fan in the room.

We are awestruck with Vienna - we think that each city we've seen had just gotten progressively more beautiful. Chicago is so beautiful because they really do a good job with the landscaping, the flowers, the gardens in and around Millennium Park and so on. Vienna is similar, but every building is just how you would expect a grand European building to look and the rose gardens (Volksgartin) near the city center are just unbelievable! I've never seen so many roses in my life! When you walked along the path, the breeze just wafts their sweet scent towards you. Naturally, we're both allergic to something in the air here, but it hasn't been too bad since leaving Salzburg.

Take this Waltz :) The very first thing we see when we step out of the train station... is a group of people waltzing... under a large purple cow.

Beautiful roses in Volksgartin!

Awesome treble clef garden leading up to the huge statue of Mozart

Just so you can see the size of these bushes!

Andy prancing around the garden :P

The city hall shows its pride! Along with the rest of the city (buses, various buildings, all sporting the rainbow for pride week this week)

There's always something happening in Vienna - just in our two and a half days of being here, we've seen a Turkish protest/rally in a main square, a huge vegan festival with tons of vegan foods to buy, a festival all about riding bikes and so on. This city really feels so alive - or at least more so than the other cities. When we first got here, I commented on their gay culture and how there are rainbow flags everywhere and how there seemed to be a large gay population (think Miami beach, Europe style... and with no beach...). Vienna is known for its gay tolerance, but I think I noticed it more so right now because gay pride week starts tomorrow! We're just missing it! I expect a lot of people traveled into the city for that. 

Last night a man dressed in old Mozart-like clothing sold us some concert tickets. Tourists fall for this crap all the time - you see the prices to the opera being like $100+ euros and this friendly fellow comes along and it like for 30 euros you can see a show in the theater that Mozart performed in! The show was pretty decent, actually, we recognized a lot of the tunes. It was held in this tiny little theater, and music was performed by 5 violinists, a cello player, flutist, and pianist. There was one opera singer and two ballet dancers. It certainly wasn't top notch but it wasn't bad either. All the performers were so young, I thought maybe they were still students. Anyway, if you're in Vienna, and don't think you can afford the opera - you probably can. They don't advertise this well (for obvious reasons) but you can buy standing tickets for as little as 3 euros. You can also get seated tickets the day of the show for really good deals (if there are any left, but you could get lucky). Lastly the nosebleeds go for about 20-40 euros and honestly... that's close to what we paid for this dinky little show... I would rather have a nosebleed seat at the real Vienna Opera House. All well... live and travel and learn ;) I know all this because we dropped by the opera house today in hopes of a guided tour. Unfortunately they weren't running them today because they were using it all day for an opera of sorts :( I got some shots of right inside the doors though, it's beautiful!

Our little theater for our show! Lol...

Yesterday we followed our map and did a little history walk that took us to all the main sites. Their city hall (see above with the rainbow flag) looks like a giant gothic cathedral and their gothic cathedrals look like gothic cathedrals! Along the way, we stumbled into an old book store owned by this nice woman who just seems to sit in stacks of books and smoke. Nevertheless, after 45 minutes of sifting through the piles, Andy found a history book that he's excited to read on the plane home - and being me and having lost my ipod in Munich - I bought the new Dan Brown novel :P

The bookstore! It was called Shakespeare and Co

This is Cordon Bleu mit Schweinefleish (Pork Cordon Bleu) - it looks like schnizle, tastes like cordon bleu... just... so... good. No wonder I think I may even have GAINED weight in Europe. Oops ;)

Today we went to Naschmarkt which is a large market (still nothing like La Boqueria in Barcelona) which is maybe half cafes and places to eat, and half fresh foods, herbs/spices, exotic teas and so on. I wanted to get Andrew some tea, but our German is so bad, that when I say exotic... I think these teas had some pretty weird stuff in them so I didn't risk it :P We ate at "Asia Time" because we had had quite a lot of local food, and we haven't had Chinese or any East Asian food in ages. Andy got sushi, sushimi, tempura salmon and rice all in one plate for 12 euros. The quality wasn't as high as we thought Japanese should be (my chicken was kinda funky), but I guess that's how they keep the price down. I tried my very first sushi roll. I've always had this hypothesis that I didn't like sushi (without ever trying) and today my hypothesis was confirmed. To me, it tasted like I had that nasty fish market smell in my mouth. Andy's had a lot of sushi and thought the one I was trying tasted pretty good - I guess I just don't like it! Ick. 

Tempura salmon? Pretty damn good :P

I feel like this entire post is about food... because tonight we went to dinner with Dr. Pop and her husband, Andre, in the Museum Quarter. I'm kicking myself because I forgot the name of the place already, but it was extremely hard to find and very delicious! We had a really good time talking with them about their travels and experiences in Europe, as well as what growing up in Communist Romania was like. They are very interesting people - our dinner was fantastic :) 

I'm sad tonight because I'm procrastinating packing up all our things and getting ready to get up at 5 AM to leave for the states :( I'm on the fence about checking a bag... because we're not positive we need to (actually we're pretty sure we could get away without checking) but we're worried about getting to the airport and having difficulties. Polish Air is so annoying with weight restrictions on carry ons. Also, I got Mom a souvenir that could possibly raise suspicions in security and I don't want to have to toss it :P The guy who sold it to me recommended that we check it. (Don't worry Mom, you'll love it, if it makes it home!) I managed to fly with it to Switzerland, but I expect security to get into the states is tougher. 

We've had such an adventure that's it's hard to want to go home, you don't want the adventure to end. I hope that who ever reads this blog gets inspired to pursue their own adventures! Traveling really isn't very hard, yes the initial plane ticket is very expensive, but if you can afford that, the rest of Europe is very affordable for almost anyone. I'll post again when I'm back in the states (I want to keep this blog/url for future adventures!) but until than, So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehend, Good bye.