Kissing Vienna

The scenery during the train ride from Germany to Vienna was spectacular. It was definitely a ride worth taking; looking out the window for hours at the magnificent mountains, gorgeous lakes and luscious greenery, I can easily say that this train ride was the ride of my life.

When we arrived in Vienna we took it easy again that first night, walking into the old city center and mostly getting our bearings. The next day we walked for an astonishing seven hours straight before taking a nap and then walking for another three hours. We started off walking down the street our hostel was on, and I was lucky enough to find a hat for only €9.00 (I have been wanting one forever)! The walk to the old city center was about 20 minutes, but once we got there it was well worth it. We spent hours taking in all the amazing architecture of the hundreds of buildings. Most of them have been turned into government buildings and museums which you can enter for an absurdly large sum of money. We didn’t do any indoor touring on this particular day; the weather was so beautiful we didn’t want to waste it. Instead we wandered aimlessly, taking pictures and drinking ridiculous but necessary amounts of water.

At the Parliament buildings we were approached by a guy dressed in a rather silly costume who was advertising for a Mozart concert later in the evening. We politely declined but decided to ask for directions to the Belvedere Museum (or Castle Belvedere) which Sarah really wanted to see and that we were planning to go to the next day. Oh dear. This guy and his friend fell madly in love, or so they said, with the two of us, and asked us to meet them later that night, at 9 o’clock. They told us not to eat dinner because they were going to take us out for spaghetti and wine. We agreed (why not?) and carried on our way.
We walked through Volksgarten, a very beautiful garden that sits in the middle of the old city. We walked along the water and accidently stumbled upon a fair going on – I can describe it best as a smaller version of the Western Fair; lots of fun little rides that cost an arm and a leg to go on. We carried on and eventually made it back to the city center where we had lunch (pizza and salad), and then carried on to our hostel for a little nap and a shower before our big date that evening.
When we met “Baily” and “Dashy” we were confused to hear that they were planning on taking us back to their house for champagne. Um, no, we never agreed to that. They couldn’t seem to understand why we refused to go back to their house, and after much arguing they got the picture and we started another very long walk to a bar that they promised was a good time. When we arrived at the bar (which was made into a beach, with sand and everything – pretty cool), they went to get the drinks, leaving us chillin on the sand in our beach chairs. Well, they returned with drinks…for themselves. They said that the drinks here were too expensive to buy for us too.

 Sarah and I exchanged glances and telepathically communicated with one another that this was a big waste of time. After about half an hour or sitting there while they drank their drinks, we decided to take off. They couldn’t understand why we were leaving, and kept texting me all evening wanting us to come back: “I was just going to buy you a drink but you left, please come back.” Um, again, no. At this point, though, we were starving. It was about 11 o’clock at night and we hadn’t eaten anything since mid afternoon (as we were promised dinner). We stopped at McDonalds, unfortunately the only place open at that hour, and ate our Royale with cheese while laughing about Pulp Fiction (watch the second scene if you don’t understand that reference) and the unbelievable evening we just had.

The next day was very cloudy and promised rain so we went to the Belvedere Museum, home of the famous painting The Kiss by Gustav Klimt. That particular painting was very beautiful, but that’s about the only thing worth mentioning at that museum. A lot of portraits of people’s faces which, in excess, is not very exciting. After the museum it had started to rain so we did some shopping (I got a full-wrap scarf which I have also wanted for a long time, so the shopping in Vienna was very successful) and then went to see Inception at an English theatre in the city. Loved it, by the way. The next day we were off to Prague, the last stop of our journey.