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AUS

On Wednesday, Garrett showed his extreme generosity and sent Kate and I off to Vienna for two days. We took a bus and the 5 hour ride was a wonderful time for the two of us to talk. We had to change buses about 2 hours in, which involved a mad-cap dash, at breakneck speed, wearing our backpacks, to find a WC, in the short time we had. Thankfully, Kate knew where the WC was, having been there the week before on a field trip. Upon arrival in Vienna, around 3:30, we were extremely hungry, but the train station where we disembarked was large and had a grocery store, so we picked up fixings for sandwiches. Neither of us had any Euros, only Czech crowns, but we saw signs for credit/ debit cards, so we weren't too worried. Except that they didn't take debit cards. Or apparently, any of the credit cards that we had with us. And the cashier only spoke limited English and we speak no German. So I waited with all of our stuff while Kate ran to an ATM. I really hate looking foolish and not knowing what I'm doing, so it was a rough wait.

When we were finally provided with food, we headed to the Praten- a large amusement park. I wanted to go because of its Ferris Wheel, actually built by Mr. Ferris himself, in the 1890s, which looks very similar to the one built for the Chicago World's fair, only smaller. We were planning to take a ride, but it cost 10 Euros and it just wasn't worth it. But we ate and enjoyed the sun, then decided to head to Stephansplatz.

We walked around Stephansdom and went inside briefly. learning that there would be an English tour the next day at 3:00, so we decided to return then. We walked up and down the street, taking in all the tourists and searching for an information-giving place. Upon finding one, we picked up tons and tons of literature to help us to decide how to spend our time. And we decided to head immediately to the Kunst Hundertwasser. It was a unique art museum- Hundertwasser did not believe that things most people think should be straight or plumb need to be straight or plumb: floors, walls, etc. He used his art for political activism it seemed, and from his quotes on the wall, would've gotten on famously with Henry David Thoreau. I think my favorite piece of his art we saw was a plan for a city- very eco-friendly and community-focused, with houses built under bridges and in hills, and lots of green space. The houses under bridges and in the sides of hill reminded me of Laura Ingalls Wilder's dugout. We then walked a few blocks to see a building he'd designed, the Hundertwasser House, basically an apartment building, which reminded me of a socialist commune.We then climbed aboard a tram and set out to find our hostel in the dark. That took some doing, but we arrived, threw our stuff down, met our roommate for the night and headed back out to eat. On the way to eat, we followed some brown signs to Hayden's home. We picked a random German restaurant on some random street, where no one else was eating and the waiter spoke no English, without English menus. Quite an interestinng experience trying to decide what to eat. We did at least recognize "schnitzel" and apparently mushroom is a cognate between French and German, so I was able to recognize that. We wound up with some tasty food and headed hostel-ward quite full.

Labels: travel

posted by CP @ 2:18 PM 0 thoughts