Day 12 & 13: Vienna, Austria

Sooooo Vienna...yeah. Honestly, wasn't too impressed. I mean, its beautiful and all, but...nothing quite struck me as amazing, ya know?

A few pieces of the traditional food mush

We got into town just in time to grab some quick food before our walking tour... so we went to a place that was supposedly a very traditional Vienna restaurant, serving traditional food. It seemed legit, as the line was out the door and people were everywhere. Turns out, the food is simply cut bread with flavored mush on it...the flavors were things like Egg on Egg, Salmon and Egg, Onion and Cream Cheese, Tomato, and the like. But eating them, it just felt like spiced mush. We weren't too impressed, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend it to anyone...but hey, we tried it! Always be willing to try something new!

Anyways, we went on a walking tour done by a lady who wasn't the greatest, and by that, I mean it was terrible. We were bored after 15 minutes. It was a 2.5 hour tour. There was one time that she completely forgot the name of the plaza we were standing in (which was famous), and remembered when she overheard a carriage driver say it. 

Another time (Leanne's favorite moment) was when she said something along the lines of 'Now this place is beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous. You can take amazing pictures here. But were not going to go there, we're going to go stand in this corner where nobody is. Look I printed grainy pictures of old dead guys for you!!"

It was hilarious...after the fact.

Vienna, at least the areas we explored, were all high-end shopping areas. So Dulce and Gabanna, Rolex, Gucci, all that fun stuff in one area...what was a girl to do? Run away and buy over priced ice cream, of course!!

Streets of the Capital!

There were some pretty things, of course...like St Stephens Cathedral. Wikipedia says its built on the ruins of 2 other churches, the first one being built in the 1100s.

Also, freaking everything is under construction in Vienna! We could not get a single picture of anything without some sort of construction in the way. And if somehow there wasn't construction, there was a McDonald's sign.  So heres another picture of the gorgeous cathedral, with bits under construction. This tower is the more Gothic-style tower in the church, whereas the main entrance (above) is more Renaissance-style. 

This picture is sideways (obviously) but I'm too lazy to re-upload it. I love this because if you look closely, you'll see that the tower isn't symmetrical. The builders seriously screwed it up! And its hilariously awesome ! Can you imagine 12th century builders realizing what happened and freaking out, and then just saying 'aw screw it' and finishing it anyways?

Another thing about Vienna, is that cool, older pieces of awesome are just randomly placed in the city. I mean, It makes sense since some stuff was built hundreds of years ago, and modern workers had to build around it, but its almost ridiculous! Like this bridge clock thing...Apparently it was commissioned by a medieval life insurance company or something...I don't know, our tour guide was not good, like I said. But its this beautiful piece of art, randomly thrown between two buildings! Its just so strange! We'll be walking along a main road and OH Theres a priceless piece of history just chilling over there!

I had to ;)

Hark! A random statue that's really pretty!

Alas! Another statue! I think this one represents the
Holy Trinity...

This is a really pretty and large plaza...there was construction on the other side of this photo. The national library is in this building :) And its free to everyone!

Now this part is for my mother and sister especially. Vienna is known for their fancy horses, it seems. Like one of the things we could have done is go to the Vienna Riding School and watch them schooling their horses, or go see a later Dressage horse show. I didn't do either (it cost like 40 Euros!), but we walked past their stables...which I thought was a palace at first! It was gorgeous! Then when I looked closer, I saw there were beautiful white horses in the stalls. 

 There were other buildings in the middle of Vienna too...They were all beautiful, I just cant remember what on earth they were.

I think this might have been the....nope, I cant remember

This one was cool because of the gold-plated statue. And the McDonald's sign in the way...

But the park was really pretty! One of those parks you can get lost in, sit under a tree, and read for hours...

                    

What was cool, though, was that night we decided to celebrate my birthday! Well, our guide decided we were going to celebrate. So about 10 of us went to a bar down the road- lots of fun! 2 fruity drinks and some of my friend's food and it was a super fun night.

Fun fact about Europe...everyone smokes. So the bar was split into 2 areas- smoking and non smoking. Separated by a large glass night. Just thought that was interesting.

The next day, I decided to stick closer to the hotel, and just see what there was farther away from the touristy, high-cost city center. Our hotel was right on one of the main roads, but that didn't stop me from getting lost once again. The streets are so windy, and the signs so small! And in a different language!!

The inside, the dome paintings
were being refurbished

It also had construction...

But I did eventually find my way... and found an awesome church tucked away. It was the Church of our Lady Victorious. Small, but adorable! I was just in love with it...

LOOK HOW PRETTY IT IS 

I kept walking down one of the main streets to see another church I had seen on google earlier. Turns out, they were prepping for some sort of event inside- like a swap meet or charity event, as they were piling clothes on tables inside. But what was cool was that right next door was a kindergarten of sorts. Parents with children kept walking past me, and in the side of the church was this- recess!

The main street I walked down to find the church

I got a weird look for snapping a pic
of a garbage sign...

Just randomly on a side of a building

Found this church by going the opposite way as before on the road by my hotel...what a beauty!

And here be the road!

It seems that the area we were in, as well as the city center, is consumed with shopping- tons of stores, all so expensive. I saw 3 H&Ms (my new weakness) in a 2-mile radius. Everywhere you looked there were stores, and you had to go two blocks over to get away from it. But once you did, it was normal stuff...office buildings, apartments, things like that.

And it seems I always gotta end with the end of the day food...which for this day, was chocolate! Europeans really know how to do their hot cocoa. And this wasn't even really hot chocolate. I wanted a sorta chocolate frappachino (because it was quite warm out), and asked for a cold chocolate-coffee thing. So the lady gave me a iced coffee with fudge mixed in and it was AMAZING. Like solid chocolate chunks from the liquid chunks were floating around and it was sooo goood...plus when you order coffee, its one of the few times they give you free water. So that was awesome!