Vienna

Friday: We left for Vienna pretty early to catch an 8:30 AM train. The ride was about 4.5 hours and I actually was able to fall asleep. This was very exciting since it is a rare occurrence that I can sleep in general. Once we got to Vienna, we dropped our stuff off at the hostel and then went to lunch. This hostel was also very hostelish but I knew all of the people in our room so it was fine. Once we dropped our stuff off, we went and had lunch at a restaurant near the hostel before doing some touring. We didn't get anything too exciting for lunch because the menu was in German so we did not really understand and we were in a little bit of a rush. Then we went on a tour of the city with our tour guide who is a professor. We just saw the historic city center, with museums and monuments, and saw the gorgeous buildings all over the city. After the tour we went into St. Stephan's Cathedral and looked around. Then we walked around on our own for a little while and decided to go to a cafe that Zuzana recommended. It was called Cafe Central and if anyone ever goes to Vienna they should go. Their coffee was amazing and they had tons of different cakes, pastries and desserts. I had a chocolate truffle cake that was delicious and the people I was with had strudel and a chocolate nut cake, which were all really good. After this we walked around the city for another couple of hours just to see all of the sights. Once we got tired of walking we stopped at this really cool bar. We sat on couches at a little table and when the waiter found out we were from Miami he asked if one us could please marry him so he could move there. He also started talking about how everyone in Europe loves Obama but that he would have never gotten elected in Europe because people are racist. After the bar we were hungry and got falafel off the street for dinner.

Saturday: On Saturday morning we woke up and just walked around the city. We also got Starbucks! This was expensive but exciting. The weather was really nice and we just sat on a bench for a little while before we had to meet up with the group. Then we went on a tour of Vienna and saw the Town Hall, Parliament and other government buildings. As we were walking we came across an Easter market that was selling tons of crafts and food. So of course once our tour was over we went back there for lunch. I just got a pretzel and then Joanna and I wanted to buy a little piece of cheese but the woman basically gave us a buge wedge, so for the rest of the day we were trying to get people to eat it. Then we passed a candy store and I bought a marzipan strawberry. After lunch we went to the Schonbrunn palace which was the Hapsburgs summer home. It was absolutely huge and was gorgeous. We did a tour of the inside and got audio guides which were cool to listen to and hear the rooms described. There was also a huge garden which was beautiful but things weren't blooming yet so it will be even prettier in the spring and summer. There was a huge hill in the back that we all sat on in the grass and a man on a bicycle yelled at everyone to get off. So we went to the Easter market that was at the castle, had some gelato and went back to the hostel. Then we relaxed for a little while and went to dinner. The place we went for dinner was a really cool Italian place that was kind of like a cafeteria but nice. You would go up to little sections for salad, pasta, pizza etc. and order and they would give you a buzzer to pick it up. The food was really good though and the place was actually pretty nice and not too expensive.

Sunday: Sunday we did a walk through the city and then went to two museums. This would have been really cool but it was really rainy and cold and I was soaking wet a lot of the day so I was kind of grumpy. The first museum was the Belvedere and had the painting "The Kiss" by Klimt which was really pretty. It also had tons of other artists. The second was the Kunst something and had tons of art and then had a huge ancient Egypt exhibit with mummies. The museums were really nice though and the second one the building itself could have been a museum it was so beautiful. After the museums we had an early dinner of more falafel and hummus before going to the train station to head back to Prague.