Vienna

I went to Vienna last week to see Seth who is taking a tour through Europe. I took the train from Prague to Vienna which was about 34 euros-- not bad but I could've gotten cheaper going with Student Agency bus.. but whatever.. it was an experience. The trains are really nice.. one of them where I had to change had special glass cabins with energy sockets for everyone! I thought I stumbled upon first class.. but all the cabins were like that! Badass!

I got to Vienna around 7 pm.. and headed to the hostel I was staying at- Vienna City Hostel- cheapest one I could find- 19 dollars a night. Seth and the whole gang were at the Mozart concert until 10 and were going to be dropped off at their hotel after which was in butt-fuckin nowhere! Their hotel was nowhere near the city... it actually had its special train that went out that way that stopped running at midnight. They were just gonna hang out at the hotel so they asked me to just come out there.. and spend the night there. Ok fine-- I wanna see my Seth! What a fiasco it was just to get out there!

So I ask the front desk how to get there.. and he was like.. why the hell do you wanna go out there? There's absolutely nothing to do there! I explained the situation to him and learned I had to take the bus to the train station and find the train that goes to Baden. He told me to get off at Vosendorf SCS. Well I get to the station-- and there are no freakin signs of Baden. I had no idea where to go.. asked some people that gave me a run around.. finally found a guy that worked there and he physically took me to the correct platform. aww how nice! So I take the train.. and get off at Vosendorf and see that yea.. there is absolutely nothing out there.. call Seth and my phone minutes run out.. shit!

I pop into a small little bar at the station and ask for directions and this older drunk guy comes up to me and informs me that I got off at the wrong stop-- there are apparently 2 stations named Vosendorf and the SCS part of it was kind of important. I need to go to the next station which was about a 15 minute walk into pure darkness-- umm hell no. It was already 1130 and I was afraid there was not going to be another train going out there.. but he walked me to the station map and saw that the next train was going to come a half hour later.. fuck!

So he asks me if I want a drink.. and I refuse.. and he kept prying and saying no... you have 30 minutes-- you can't wait out here by yourself.. come inside.. we'll buy you a drink! I said.. ok I'll take some water just so I could appease him... and he said-- NO! We dont have water here! No.. so I was like fine.. I'll take a beer. Man the day had been shitty already.. I might as well get a free beer out of this. So he makes me take his arm and walks me back to the bar-- really cute-- super small. Gets me the beer and him and his friend are just mesmerized by me. Maybe I was the only brown person they had seen. Well anyways.. I talked some broken English with them.. they were actually really sweet and nice.. and I finished my beer and didn't want to miss the last train so I headed out. I gave them all high-fives and the guy grabbed me and made me hug him.. uggh.. This shit has to happen to me!

Finally got the hotel.. find my way inside-- with NO LIGHTS and see this handsomely dressed man in black with a tie come up to me and ask if I was Sapna. I was like.. yea... umm? who are you? He says he's the manager.. lol I was like .. ya ok.. But I see Seth and he introduces me to Chad-- his friend on the trip (not the manager lol). Just had a lot of beer with them.. Saw Katrina from AZ and they made 2 Aussie friends- Lauren and Chad, and New Yorker friend Lisa. It was just really nice to see all them and they were all soo friendly! Nothing major happened.. just caught up on things and drank heavily.

The next morning.. Seth was going to spend the whole day with me while the rest of the tour group went on some tours of the city. We finally make it into the actual center of Vienna and ohh my.. soo beautfiul!! The main cathedral was right in the city center and we just roamed around for a long time.




















Stumbled upon many fountains and cool buildings.





















Found the main government buildings and just walked around all that.

The group still had another small tour later in the day- schnapps tasting- yuum.. but Lisa and Seth weren't going to go on it. So we decided to go to the Belvedere which was a museum that was featuring Gustav Klimt's: The Kiss- which I snuck a picture of.. oops!


Some amazing paintings inside and beautiful architecture of the whole building. The outside gardens were also amazing. The place was just massive with an upper and lower palace. We just went to the upper one and were just soo tired from walking-- we couldn't be bothered to go down to the lower one.








We left and decided it was time to drink! Found a lively bar called 1516 and sat outside- and what did we find?-- they had 7 different flavors of Schnapps! So while the tour group was doing the tasting.. we decided- we should do a tasting of our own! The mayhem began...






All were pretty disgusting.. even the pear/pear apple/ some sweet one (they said was for chicks)-- the only one that was really good was the cherry one which was the only one dark in color. We liked it so much that we took several of those.. so you can imagine that we were prettty hammered at this point.. what with like 10 shots under our belt-- granted it was a 2 hour period maybe-- the others from the group joined us and took another cherry shot with us. We decided it was club time!


We were directed to this club that had a substantial cover-- but decided it was worth it and went it.. Had a great time with the group! Just danced and drank and danced some more. There was a lot of eye candy too!


It was coming up on 1am and the only option to get home was to take a taxi. I was really sad because this was meaning that we had to part ways. The whole tour was moving on to Munich the next day. I was soo sad I couldn't go with them! They were so fun.. and soo welcoming! We promised we would meet up again-- possibly in Amsterdam! (which didn't happen)


I had booked an extra night in Vienna thinking that I could do some more sightseeing when everyone left. This was a great idea.. because then I went to the main palace the next day. I walked along and saw the Palm House and some amazing gardens. Then I continued along this long green path.. and stumbled upon many statues and side gardens.








I finally came up to an opening and looked up and over-- and there was a massive open garden that just took my breath away. I literally gasped. The gardens stretched out to this big gate on the far side and on my left was the main palace. I climbed up the stairs and took this picture. The picture just doesn't do it any justice-- you have to see it yourself!

I just walked around after that taking it all in.. stepped inside and was highly considering taking the tour, but decided against it cuz I was soo tired and hungry! I went back into the center found an Italian place and finally had some pizza-- really good stuff too! Drank a beer and ate a whole pizza by myself on the streets of Vienna-- that was great!

Shopped at H&M and decided to head home cuz it started to rain. It was probably only around 7 when I got home and just slept the entire night!! It was worth it.. I finally got to catch up-- the bed was comfy.. no one was in the room.. it was great!

Next day took the train back home-- ended up getting off at the wrong station!! How does this happen to me?!? But got back onto another train and made it back to Prague and checked into Chili Hostel-- right next to The Globe cafe-- which is one of my favorites in Prague.

Aww-- Seth: I miss you!! And all of your friends too!!