So, on Thursday we had classes and lunch on campus. After lunch I bought plane tickets for the third travel weekend to go to Ireland with Ann and Phil. After that I packed and called a cab. It turned out that to get to the airport there were two options: 1) Take the bus to the metro, the metro to Termini station, and the train to Fuimucino Airport. This costs 14,40. Or 2) take a cab, which costs 88 for 6-8 people. There were seven of us trying to get on this flight, and with the use of arithmetic we figured out that 88/7 is 12,50ish, which is less than 14,40. So that worked out well.
The flight was fine, and we had no problem finding Florian, our Austrian friend, at the Vienna airport. He drove me and Alex and our friend Devon, who was staying in the same hostel as us, to our hostel. After we got settled in we hung out with the UD boys who had been on our flight. We went to the bar in our hostel and had green beer because it was St Patrick’s day. When they closed we went around the corner to a restaurant/bar that was still opened. There was a man there who asked us about our trip and then wrote a poem for it. I took pictures with my Polaroid, which fascinated everyone there.
The next day was rainy and cold, but we set out anyway. We saw St. Stephan’s Cathedral, the Belvadere (palace/museum), and went to das Haus der Musik (a sound/music museum). It was fun. That night Florian picked me and Alex up from our hostel and we took the metro and tram to his dorm where we drank and chatted with his friends. Then two of his friends and we went to this club called Prater Dome. It is the biggest club in Vienna. It has three clubs inside it. One plays kind of country/ho-down type music, which was odd. One plays hip-hop, and the biggest one plays techno/house. That one is already the size of a really large club. It has a massive dance floor, seating and bars along the sides, and a balcony above. It was pretty cool.
On Saturday, Florian picked us up at 10am and took us sight-seeing. We saw the parliament building and a bunch of other things in Vienna. We got sausages at the train station and then went out to the huge Hapsburg palace that begins with the letter S… That was very cool. We took a tour. After that Florian took us to his farm. It is so pretty! His parents are adorable. His mother kept feeding us delicious food. We got to meet his niece and nephews who were super cute and loud. We also got to meet the cows and see them getting milked, which was awesome. We also saw the stills and such for the most (a kind of wine-like drink) and schnapps. We got to taste the schnapps. Florian said he was apricot, but we could not taste that at all. Apparently there is an art to schnapps tasting. Florian is taking a class about it. We went to Mass Saturday night. The church was beautiful and cold. It was very confusing because they sat and stood and knelt in weird places.
That night we went to this big 4H party in the country. Apparently there were around 10,000 people there, but I would have pegged it at more like 5,000. Either way, it was an awfully big party. It was a lot of 16-22 year old kids, with a smattering of old people. Everyone was very, very drunk. Also a lot of people were wearing lederhosen, so that was very funny. I had my Polaroid camera with me, and some drunk kid who looked about as hipstery as you can get saw me taking pictures. He asked if I could take his picture, he even offered to pay me for it. I took his picture, and not his money, and he got really excited. He had never seen such a think before. I was very proud to have taken this hipster’s first Polaroid.
On Sunday we went to the airport and came to Berlin, where we are now. Our hostel is lovely, and Berlin seems lovely too, from what we have seen. We had Vietnamese food for dinner, in order to have the true German experience.
In a little while, after we bother to get dressed, we will head out to the Alexanderplatz Starbucks to meet up with an alternative walking tour of the city. Apparently they will show us cool graffiti and bizarre shops and local art and such. It sounds like a lot of fun. At some point we will also go to the zoo, even though the polar bear died the other day.
Schönbrunn Palace? That is a sad story about the polar bear.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's the one.
ReplyDeleteI hate PETA. Doesn't it make more sense that his mother rejected him because he was sickly and he died of his congenital heart condition?
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I am really intrigued about your Berlin impression because it never appealed to me but now I am wondering why I was being so negative.