Stage 2: Vienna, Austria
After a very nice bus ride, which included Free WIFI we arrived in Austria. It was noticeably colder than Prague and we again severely underestimated how much warm clothes we would need to bring. It was during this part of the trip that Ryan Mcnallys’ fingers would turn blue … Vienna would be our Valley.
We arrived in Vienna early and immediately met up with Matt N. a friend from school who had agreed to host us for the next three days. After buying our tickets for the U BANN ( the most organized and efficient metro system I have ever ridden) we mad our way to Matt’s place which was about 20 min away. After settling into a room that should never have more than 7 people in it ever. We went off to explore Vienna.
After a few hours of walking in the snow and McNally losing all feeling in his hands we decided that it was time for dinner. We arrived at this restaurant called centimeter which had been highly recommended to us from students past. The restaurant had a whimsical feel to it with odd paintings on the walls and metric rulers everywhere. Now this restaurant was a little out of our way but we HAD to go there to get this legendary sausage/bacon/fries/heart attack dish.
When we arrived we all ordered and finished this dish, which included; a mountain of French fries and three sausages filled with cheese and wrapped in bacon. I felt like I was on Man v Food.
After that meal all 7 of us where in no shape to continue walking.. or sightsee or do any form of physical activity for that matter. So we headed back to Matt’s place were we relaxed and played cards before going out that night.
Vienna Day 2
The next day we got off to a bit of a slower start than normal but we had an amazing breakfast complete with eggs, toast, nuttella and my personal favorite…COLD MILK!?!?!
(the likes of which don’t exist in Spain)
Now our plan for this day was to take a walking tour of Vienna, because up to this point we had done and loved that in every city we went to. Only problem was for some odd reason Vienna did not offer ANY free walking tours, the best we could find was a ‘free self guided tour’ online. So we decided to do this and explore the city on our own.
It was freezing out. Everything in Vienna is to spread out to enjoy in the cold. Ryan’s hands turned blue again. Our ‘walking tour’ was a fail. After a couple of hours of aimlessly wandering and a few good sights later we decided to seek refuge in an American institution…McDonalds
Now for those of you who have never had the pleasure of traveling to Europe and experiencing Euro McDonalds I have this to say to you. We in America are being completely ripped off. Euro McDonalds are 100 times nicer than American ones there menus are more extensive including curly fires and waffle fries and their food just looks better than anything you could order from McDonalds in the states.
But enough about that. After our little McD’s break and some hot chocolate we made our way to the famous Palace which we were sure would not disappoint because 1. It’s a palace 2. We were told it had gardens that were comparable to those in Versailles. We didn’t think this all the way through…
The Palace itself was huge and beautiful but the gardens… well … everything was dead. As it should be in the middle of winter, but it does NOT make for good sightseeing. After that disappointing adventure we decided to make our way back to matt’s but not before stopping at a hill we passed on the way to the palace because Madeline NEEDED to take a picture on the hill and recreate scenes from the sound of music .
For dinner that day we were lucky enough to find a little Euro ALDI were we purchased a ton of food for about 5 euro. We made ourselves some pretty delicious grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner and then got ready to meet up with some U of I friends that were studying abroad in Vienna’s business program.
(which I would like to point out at this time is NOT a real program because 1. They have a total of 16 days of class2. They got 3 credit hours for going skiing for a week)
Vienna Day 3
We woke up to find another miserably cold day in Vienna.. so we again decided to take our time leaving the warmth of Matt’s place. We made another awesome breakfast and then left to meet up with Kelsey, McKenna, Breanne and Estaban fellow Granada U of I’ers.
Since it was so cold again. Surprise. We decided to go to some of Vienna’s famous museums stopping first at a famous chocolate stand. NOM. And then making our way to a music museum
After awhile at museum we made our way to a world market and did a little souvenir shopping in sub zero weather before making our way back to Matt’s for dinner.
The day before we had agreed on having pasta for dinner on this night but again we didn’t think it all the way through, after making about 3 pounds of pasta and burning some garlic bread we realized we had one little problem…
Utensils . Turns out Matt only had 2 plates. 3 forks. 3 spoons. And for some odd reason 4 knifes. There were seven of us…
We ended up enjoying our pasta on napkins, which we felt were a suitable alternative to plates and doing what we could with our silverware situation. Bottom line we were savages it was both hilarious and sad watching us try to eat that pasta. I honestly felt like I was on survivor .
To top of the night we played some cards and got to bed early because we had an early bus to catch to Budapest
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