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Vienna

Cliffs Notes Version:
Only had one day ... so ... went to Spanish Riding School, saw the Crown Jewels, had some Wieners in Wien, had a torte at Sacher Cafe, checked out views of the city from afar, hiked down, went to some wine gardens, went to the ballet, had some dinner with Josh, and finally, got some well deserved sleep.

Day 1

We only had one day in Vienna, so we got our bags out of the locker at Sudbanhof (South rail station, this will be an important fact later on), swapped out changes of clothes and put our big bags back in the locker.

The first place we went is the Spanish Riding School. Essentially, they do fancy tricks with horses and ride around in a fancier building. We could never afford to go to one of their real shows, but every day they let the little people watch their training sessions (for a fee) so that's where we went. Colleen likes horses so I think she enjoyed herself. I was pretty bored until they made a horse sit, wait, nope, still bored. The Crown Jewels exhibit was right next to the Riding School so we went there next. After that, we made the obligatory stop at St. Stephen's Cathedral before deciding to get some lunch.

For lunch we figured since we were in Wien, we should get some wieners. We went to a random stand on the street and ordered a couple. They were quite good. Side note, by this point I had evolved from moderate yuppie to full fledged yuppie because I was all about carbonated water. I don't even think they'll let me into Nebraska anymore if this knowledge gets out, especially not if they find a bottle of Perrier in my backpack next to my copy of 'The Audacity of Hope.' Anyway, I bring this up because I ordered a fricking bottle of carbonated water (in very crappy German I may add) with my wiener and the wiener guy assumed cause I was American that I didn't want the bubbles. Ah well.

Loves me some weiner




Dear Colleen,
Enjoy your overpriced torte. We're laughing at you.
Sincerely, Sacher Cafe		After lunch, Colleen wanted to go to a place called 'Sacher Cafe' to get dessert, specifically some famous torte. Don't ask me what the difference between a cake and a torte is. It's one of those things I'll never understand, like the difference between white and off white. Anyway, I think some brilliant marketing dude years ago convinced tourists that they had to go to this one cafe and Vienna to get this torte because it really wasn't that great, and the entire place was full of obvious tourists like us looking down at the torte with the same bewildered face that said, 'Really, this, really.' Maybe we're spoiled with Cheesecake Factory, who knows. Yeah, I said Cheesecake Factory was better than 'Sacher Cafe.' Suck it snobs. That sentiment should get me readmitted back into Nebraska, right? I didn't mind though because on my list was to get some coffee in Vienna since it's supposed to be good so while Colleen had her torte I had a lovely Cappuccino. Crap, banned from Nebraska again.


After Sacher Cafe, we walked over to the world famous Opera House to see if they had any tickets available for that night (though that night was ballet). Apparently, they did, but they were in an area where you couldn't see the stage which might have been worth it for the opera, but made little sense for the ballet. We decided we might try our luck with standing room only tickets that went on sale closer to the start of the show.

We had some time to kill so we decided to get some great city views by taking a bus to a lookout a couple miles outside of the city. We had a couple adventures with the buses where we thought the bus kept going but it was actually the end of the line and we had to go out and catch a bus with the same route number, but went farther than the other bus. After the third time this happened, I had a local teach me this phrase, 'Entschuldigen Sie mich Fahrer, bin ich ein Idiot und mochte an gelangen ___' which translates roughly to 'Excuse me driver, I am an idiot and would like to get to ___.' Things went much smoother after that.

The view of the city was really cool, but we were so humiliated after the bus ride up that we didn't dare try to use public transit to get back down to the city. Lucky for us, our friend Rick Steves had written in his guide book about a fairly short path that went down to the outskirts of the city that happened to have some wine gardens that Colleen wanted to go to anyway. We found a map and thought we had our bearings but it became quickly apparent that we might have taken a wrong turn when about an hour in we still couldn't see the river when virtually the entire walk was supposed to be along the river. Luckily for us, the trail we were on was a loop so we ended up back at the river eventually. The loop was actually a gorgeous walk though, and we ended up walking past lots of vineyards and really nice views. We took a few "Senior Picture" shots with the backdrops. After making it to the river, the walk was fairly easy and we arrived in the part of town with the wine gardens.

We started where the red intersects with blue. We were supposed to just follow the red trail down the straight line following the river. Instead, we did the very long loop (the red trail that goes over to the left by the green) before essentially getting back to where we started.


Deep in thought Nick

Blue Steel

Colleen by Vineyard


The wine gardens were essentially like the beer gardens in Munich except, wait for it, they served wine. For both places we were the only ones actually sitting outside though because it was later in the season, although the temperature was probably in the high 50s (Fahrenheit, not Celsius) so it was pretty comfortable. We realized there was still an outside chance of making the ballet, so we pounded our last caraf and jumped on a tram to head back downtown.


This picture was taken at the wine garden right after I inadvertently caused my parents not to meet in the past thus threatening my very future existence. Notice I'm already starting to fade away. I thought I was just light headed from the cheap wine.

This was taken right after I played Johnny B. Goode on guitar and reset everything. Phew, now lets drink some wine.


The ballet was about 15 minutes in when we got to the ticket desk but lucky for us they sold tickets until the 20 minute mark. We got our tickets which ended up being about $5 a piece which isn't too bad considering how famous the opera house was. We didn't look too sketchy in how we were dressed. I was wearing jeans, but had on boots (not too comfy on our little afternoon hike) and a button down shirt. Colleen is hot so no one cared what she was wearing. We both were kind of dirty from the hike though so that was kind of amusing. There were a good chunk of people in tuxes but I think I saw someone dressed more casual than us ... though he may have been a janitor. Colleen liked the ballet a lot, I thought it sucked ... though honestly even if I did like it I could never admit it. My family already thinks I'm a yuppie liberal that drinks Perrier, eats tortes, and watches horse shows. If I said I liked the ballet too I wouldn't be invited home for Christmas.

After the ballet, we met up for dinner with my friend Josh who happened to be in Vienna for a conference. This was preplanned. I think had Josh ran into me randomly on the street like Mehul did that I would think my college friends microchipped me while in school and set me back out in the wild.

The next morning we woke up very early for our train to Budapest ... maybe.
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