Vienna: The old Roman fortress

Hey, so now onto Vienna. The old Roman fortress, where Marcus Aurelius wrote Meditations and spent a lot of time there during the Germanic wars, it's where he died in both real life, and Gladiator, and of course the home of General Maximus. WOW! I was in love before I got there. Today though it's the home of way too many palace looking buildings, a lot of churches and really good coffee shops.

So let's start with leaving Salzburg. I was sad to leave... my heart is in Salzburg, it was just so beautiful. Of course I was excited to see Vienna, I mean come on, it's where Marcus Aurelius died! But as always I'm ready for a new adventure. We got our stuff from our hostels and went to the train station. The amount of people going to Vienna was insane... it was so packed! We couldn't sit all together, Cait and Monica got seats in one of the compartments, but I went a few carriages down, and just got a seat. I wrote the whole way, I had 3 hours, and a lot of writing to do, so I welcomed this opportunity. Apparently during the ride, Monica came looking for me, because the compartment had a seat opened, but she couldn't find me... my head bent over my journal that it was really impossible, and she might have not gone down far enough. Oh well. I sat next to a really nice guy, he slept the whole way. So we get into Vienna three hours later, it's like 9:00pm, so still kinda early.

Now our directions tell us to get on a bus or train, but looking at the map it doesn't seem that far away, so we decided to walk. We are all tough, and have been sitting for three hours so we went for it. We asked directions, and if I had to do it again, I would have gone the other way. We found the street, well Monica and Cait had the maps, and I just follow. So we did find it, it took awhile, but it was fine. Our hostel, oh boy, it was behind a bar, and run by a woman. The woman was really nice, but it was behind a bar. I really think there was one room... I'm not really sure though. We got beds, I took the top bunk, Monica got the bottom, and Cait took the bottom bunk of another bunk bed. The woman told us we were sharing the room with some Italians, but we didn't see them that night... we soon found out why. Now, we had decided on the way that we needed something to drink, so we dropped our stuff and went out. We found a cafe not far from our hostel, and had a nice drink. I believe I had hot chocolate. It was a nice little place, and opened late... sweet.

So we went back to the hostel, and by now it was like after midnight, so we used our own entrance into the hostel. It's the next door, but um yeah. We went in, walked through a hallway, and then back outside where there was this door. We couldn't get it opened! We stood there for like 10 minutes trying to open this bloody door! I still don't know how to open it, but it wouldn't open. Finally it did, and we went inside before something jumped us or something. Lol. Oh well. We went to bed, ready to start exploring the next morning.

The next morning, Cait went to the embassy to try and fix her lack of passport problem, and Monica and I went down to the historical part of Vienna. Now let's talk about Cait for a moment. She's traveling around Europe, with her passport in Italy. Not that much of a problem since she is taking trains, but she had the plan to fly home. Well you need a passport to do that, so she thought she could get a temp one, or something that says, yes I have one, but I'm an idiot and I left it at home. We didn't see Cait until like 3pm, and she did have a fun time. She ended up with nothing, no one thought her situation was that much of an emergency and she just ended up taking a train from Vienna to Sienna. So that was solved, but what a problem! Note to self, never, ever leave without a passport.

But to Monica and myself, we first went in search of in search of food. We walked down to the historical part of the city, which was really down the road. Our hostel might be sketchy, but it was down the road from where we spent all our time. It could have been worse. So we are walking down the road, and in front of us is this really old, palace looking building. Monica points it out and says that it is the Hofburg Palace. I ohh and awe, and yeah it wasn't. It took up a block, but it wasn't. But that's Vienna, all these buildings look at palaces. Now granted they were all owned by the Hofburgs, so she wasn't wrong, but it wasn't the palace. That is inside the Ring. The building we saw was the Natural History Museum, and it's part of Museum Quarter. It's right outside the ring, and nice. We went back later for a better look. The Ring though is niiiicccceeee. You go through big arch gates things, and in there is also the Apartments for the Royal Family, and as soon as you pass through the gates is the Hofburg Palace. It takes up like two blocks. It's huge and impressive. In front of the Palace are two statues, they are facing each other, kinda like in battle. I think we figured out that they were father and son... so not in battle. Cool statues though. I like the Hofburg Palace a lot... wouldn't want to clean it, but it's nice. We continued on though, inside the ring, and as soon as got inside, there was some Roman ruins. They were below the ground, so we looked down into them. I didn't see the sign at first, but I thought to myself, "Um looks old... I'm in Europe, looks Roman!" I was excited, and then Monica pointed out the sign.

So we found a cool place to eat, I got tea and a pastry. On this trip I learned to drink tea without milk. I don't mind it, but I prefer it with milk. If it was without sugar, well then that would be a problem. But I just get black tea, and it's good. It's much hotter that way, cause no milk to cool it down a little, but oh well. It was good. After that, we did some exploring of Vienna, saw St. Peters, St. Stephens, a busy street- Graben, and other stuff. We had plans to be at the clock by noon, there is a little show at the clock at noon, just like in Munich, but we hoped that this one actually worked. So we just explored until noon, and then went to see it. The show was cool, a few minutes later noon, there was bells, and for each hour is a different character from history, and they all come out, one at a time. I have videos of this on webshots. The first one is Marcus Aurelius, 11 is some Hasburgs, and 12 is Mozart. But the others... well we have no idea. Well we think Marie Antoinette is one of them. But who knows. It goes in order of history.

So after the show, we continued walking, and went back near the Hofburg Palace to see Museum Quarter, when we saw some military people out. That morning, we saw some stuff, and I thought something was going on, and here it was. It was weird, cars were going by, some with flags on the antennas, and this one guy saluted to some, but not all. The band played when the cars went by. I don't know what it was. There was no pattern. But it was cool to walk, and then the group paraded over close to the Palace, did a few things, and the show was over. They got in buses and went home. It was weird.

We then went for a snack/lunch at this Cafe that was recommended in Monica's Europe book. Some famous author went there a few times, and it said it has good food. So we went... and oh boy. We walked in, and I wondered if we got transported somewhere. It was beautiful! It was like a formal dining hall! I felt rather silly in jeans, but um we got a table, and just stared. Of course on the wall right near us was FRANZ JOSEPH! That dude is everywhere! He and his wife Sissy. I have to wikipedia Franz Joseph, just to find out what he did other than built the city of Vienna. Anyway, so it was nice. I got a salad, and yeah bad choice. I guess I got an everything salad, so it had cucumbers, tomatoes, corn and potatoes. Now separately it's all good, but together? Potatoes in a salad? The dressing was weird too, but I devoured it all, mostly. That cafe was amazing though, it was just so well decorated, and expensive looking. The prices were pretty good, but wow!

So it was nearing 3pm, and we had plans to go to an organ concert at St. Peters. We had hoped to meet up with Cait by now, because she knew she would love the concert. We went though, and we get to the church and there is Cait! She had seen the sign for the concert too, before she got something to eat, and had come back for it. Great minds think alike! Well the concert was short, and really nice. Inside St. Peters is just amazing! It's really beautiful. I actually fell asleep during the concert, I do admit to that. In my dreams I heard the organ going, so I didn't miss it. But I was tired from traveling, and yeah right asleep.

Now that we were all reunited, we went to the Cathedral, and that was awesome. Cathedrals look like museums though, really it's so beautiful, and everything is so well done, but it's a little too much for a church. I like St. Peters, it's not overdone, but it still looks really nice. The Cathedral was really dark, but I took a few pictures because it was cool to see.

After that Cait went back to St. Peters to attend Mass, and Monica and I walked around looking for a good place, well okay a cafe to just sit for a few hours and have some fun. It wasn't until almost time to meet back up with Cait that we found one. It was off the main street, and when we went it was really smokey, dark looking, kinda like a pub. We went in though, got a table, and sat. They didn't have menus, but I got a hot chocolate. We asked about desserts, and he brought us a plate of 5 desserts. Rule number 1, never put a plate of desserts in front of 2 Fontbonne alums... 3 of them were the same, and the other 2 were something else. The 3 were a kind of cake, half chocolate, half vanilla. So we stared at them for a few minutes wondering if we should eat them, and we came to the conclusion that yes we should. We also came to the conclusion that the whole plate was for us, because we were probably getting charged for the whole thing. I had 2 and a half pieces... it was really good. But we sat and talked for like 3 hours, about everything. You name it, we talked about it. It was so awesome. At one point, there was a guy sitting near us, and he got up, paid his bill and then leaned into our table and said, "Goodnight ladies, thank you for the nice evening." Yep, he heard everything we said. I had a feeling he understood some of it, since I would look over and see him smile, but yeah, he understood every word. Oh well. The thing with this cafe was, we were the only tourists... it was clearly a cafe that was for regulars. Not that we were invading, but it wasn't on the main street, and unless you knew it was there, you wouldn't see it. We were looking for it, and it was awesome to sit there for awhile. Granted, we were loud and very American, so we got pegged right away, but it was still fine. It was a quick 3 hours too, we were just having so much fun sitting around and talking.

After that we walked back to the hostel, we planned to grab stuff and go back out again, but we ended up staying in. We had to use the computers for traveling purposes, and the hostel has free tea and coffee, so we just hung out there for a while, did our stuff, and went to bed around midnight.