Day 29

Saturday August 25

7:10am - woke myself up :(

7:40am - went down to breakfast, which is actually a REALLY lovely room with lots of tables (take note Hotel Axel Guldsmeden!). Breakfast was similar to the past few places - quite excellent. An array of cheeses and meats, soft-boiled eggs, many kinds of yummy pastry (and nutella cups amanda!!) and breads of all kinds, several juices, cereals, yogurts, and my favorite, tons of kinds of fruits!! Grapes, plums, nectarines, strawberries, a fruit salad, bananas, apples. and when you come down they ask if you want coffee or tea and bring you a little pot - with hot steamed cream! So I ate and took a banana for later and a nectarine for the room. Put it upstairs and set on my way.

On my way back down from the elevator and older woman was going down and I come to find out she's from Worcester. HAHA! She was like "have you ever heard of it?" and I am like "I grew up in Peabody" LOL! She proceeds to tell me that's where her sister-in-law grew up (didn't recognize her name)… Anyway, small world.

8:15am - Walked to the opera house (had just missed a tram so walking would be faster than waiting and I wanted to get to Schonbrunn as close to 8:30 as possible), went down to the subway U4 line and 6 stops to the Schonbrunn stop, which is a short walk from the palace. Got to the palace around 8:35. Wow. Wow wow. It's HUGE (actually most of it is apartments for civil servants! Craziness!). I mean you know it's huge before you go, but even standing all the way at the entrance it's impossible to get it into one picture.

8:40am - Found the ticket office, and there was NO LINE!! Made getting up so early and rushing through breakfast worth it! Mostly the other people there were tour groups who had prebooked. So I got my ticket, chose to do the "Grand Tour" which lets you into about 15 more rooms than the lower one, it was 12.90 (expensive but one of the few best palaces in all of Europe sooooo), charged it, and saw the time on my ticket was 8:45am! LOL! So I went to the gate and stuck my ticket in and I guess the machine knows if you've missed your time or something. Anyway went through and got an audioguide. Normally I hate those things but hey it was "free" (and when you pay 12.90 just to get in, free really means, included with your ticket ;)). And it was relatively interesting I guess. I was caught behind a FUCKING JAPANESE TOUR GROUP I WANTED TO KILL THEM THEY KEPT BLOCKING THE WALKWAYS IN THE ROOMS SO I COULD NOT GET BY. Finally I just shoved my way through. Shoved my way past another group too, and could then enjoy the rooms ay my own pace, which are absolutely stunning. Fancier and more intricate than any of the other palaces I've seen. So, there was this group of teenagers, maybe it was some kind of school trip but it's a Saturday in August so I dunno. A couple girls kept taking pictures and there are signs as you walk into EACH room that say no pictures. The guards were getting SO PISSED. Honestly the girls really just looked like bitches. This is one of the world's great royal sights and there are employees all over the place, why would you be so stupid.

9:45am - finished the tour and browsed through the huge shop. Bought a couple things and special Schonbrunn water - because it was cold and in a cool-shaped bottle and not nearly as expensive as I would've guessed (1.50) LOL. Then I went around to the gardens. Wow. Not quite as great as what I remember of Hampton Court's gardens, but bigger and still quite gorgeous. Didn't feel like walking around all of them in the hot sun so I just looked from afar. You could go up on a staircase at the back of the castle to see down on the gardens - this provided the best view. A girl asked me to take her picture so I did and I figured hey I should ask her to take mine. Haha.

10:30am - hopped back on the U4 but only 5 stops this time - was stopping at the famous Naschmarkt. I knew Saturdays were different because there was also a flea market, but WHOA. It was crazy busy and there were TONS OF STALLS. No way could I ever see them all lol. Found the food area and started collecting for lunch. The biggest problem, besides the crowds, were the BEES. Especially on all the many stalls of dried fruits. OMG mom you would have had to leave LOL. So I started buying things here and there to build a lunch - a soft pretzel, some cheese, salami, tomatoes, grapes, and some fresh pickles. But the best part were the OLIVES. OMG! I knew they sold them there but I didn't realize like every 3rd stand would be selling olives!!!! So I bought some big greek ones and a black and green spicy salad mix and restrained myself thereafter ;) Some of the people were creepy. They'd offer a sample of something so you'd take it and then they'd get mad if you didn't buy anything. Like hello! Anyway, it was much fun and the prices were by and large pretty cheap. 1.00-2.00 euros a KILO for gorgeous tomatoes, depending on the type. About the same for grapes and other fruits. Remember a kilo is like 2.2 pounds. And the deli places made it easy by pricing things by the 100 gram (about 4 ounces, so pretty much just the right size). All told I probably spent about 15 euros or so, but for tons of stuff.

Buying the tomatoes was the funniest one because I just go up to one of the stands (many places sold tomatoes mostly for about the same price - these were 1.80 a kilo I think), so the guy starts talking to me in German, not just a hello or what do you want, but something long. And I just look at him and I'm like "I’m sorry, I don't speak German!!" So he's like (in German of course) "WHERES THE KID WHO CAN SPEAK ENGLISH" LOL!!!!!! So they bring this young kid over and he gives me my tomatoes. It was absolutely hilarious. OK Perhaps you just had to be there. But it was hilarious to me :p

Went back to the flea market area and found a nice silver ring with - shocker - a purple stone. The guy was a little bizarre but the ring is pretty and only 9 euros so whatever. And it's stamped with the .925 so it's real.

11:30amish - went over to Karlsplatz, a park near the market. Sat for a while and reorganized all my crap - which was now getting a little heavy at this point.

Right around noon I walked around the park more and saw some picnic tables! Perfect! Laid out all my stuff (and of course took a picture of the feast ;)) and ate. Mmmmmm it was all so good. The salami in particular was a Milano Salami and really good. So was the cheese (some kind of white cheddar). The pickle was different, but tasty, obviously the olives are great, and the pretzel and grapes were also quite good. The only problems were the intermittent bees lol. So I have enough food for at least one more full picnic lunch (especially if I steal a roll and butter from breakfast ;)) and probably plenty of snacking too.

12:30ish - I figured before I set out on a walking tour or something, I should get rid of all this stuff and get it into my fridge, etc. Walking around with it for the rest of the day would've been a complete pain. So on my way I decided to the supermarket I found yesterday. And on the way I saw an internet café, 3.5 euros for an hour - so really, not much different than the hotel. Anyway, went to the market and bought a 1.5l thing of water, and a .75 sports bottle. Total 1 euro haha.

1:00ishpm - get back and see the woman from Worcester again LOL - in the elevator she was talking to her husband about the shirt she took out for him this morning. I was like, OMG. Put everything away and go to refill my water bottles when I see that the bottle I bought is carbonated. WTF. Usually the cheaper bottle is flat water. Oh well. Actually the tap water here is not bad so I filled a bottle with that to see how it is.

1:30pm - just relaxing and refreshing in the a/c before heading out to do a walking tour of the main part of the city in a bit.

2:00pm - went back out, took tram 1 to the opera (one big stop lol) and started the Rick Steves walking tour - which had gone to a lot of the places I had went but took some detours, etc. Went down the Graben, a street off the Karntnerstrasse (I was spelling it wrong, my bad), to the end where there is this fancy schmancy supermarket. I was hot and saw that the gelato place I tried last night had a branch, so I had my daily ice cream a little early.;) but to be a good girl, I got a 2-flavor cup of raspberry and blueberry sorbets. And wow. You could see little pieces of each of the fruits. Very tasty. Went into the supermarket and bought a cold bottle of water for half a euro and made it to the Hofburg Complex

4:00pmish - the Hofburg complex is now public buildings but it used to be where the Hapsburgs lived and all. There are too many people with too many similar names for me to remember, but one of the big sights is the Kaiserapartments or where the Emperor and Empress lived in the 1800s or so. The 9.90 euros ticket includes a "silver" museum (basically it's room and room and room of plates and dinnerware), a little museum about "sissi" (I still can't figure out who she is mind you), and then the apartments, which are similar to the ones I saw this morning at Schonbrunn, except because they are where the emperor and empress actually lived, you got a real sense of what they actually did every day. The empress had floor long hair that took 2 hours to prepare every morning. Her exercise "equipment" was this bizarre wooden bar, and the emperor slept on a bed about the same size as the one in my current hotel room (fancier décor, of course ;)). Anyway the silver museum was first and I blew through that, there was no way I could stand and listen on the "free" audioguide about plates. They were pretty so I just meandered and looked, til by about room 15 I got bored and whizzed through. I didn't have the patience or energy to learn about Sissi's apparently very bizarre and celebrated life, and the rooms were dark and kind of creepy to be honest. So I just spent the bulk of the time (about an hour) in the Kaiserapartments, which like I said were very cool. Something about being able to see things like the toilet and bathtub makes you feel like you're actually getting a good experience.

5:15pmish - the complex is so confusing and after the tour they drop you through a gift shop (of course) and right onto a street, who has a clue where! But luckily Rick Steves's guide had directions ("two quick lefts" and under a particularly ornate arch) to get to the treasury, aka the crown jewels. The price had gone up since the guidebook was published (well almost all the places have to be honest but this one went up 2 euros), so it was 10 euros. Yikes, had an expensive admission prices day - over 30 euros to go into the 3 Hapsburg sites alone. Geez - even many of the similar places in Denmark weren't this expensive (ok, you get to see a lot more in the ones here since the empire no longer exists unlike the Danish royal family). So anyway, it is over 20 rooms of stuff and you are allowed to take pictures, so that was cool. Got some of the crowns and stuff, we'll see how they turn out. It was interesting and always nice to look at pretty stuff, but not sure it was worth more than the pretty snazzy 20 or so apartments I had just seen.

Wandered around a little more and went into a couple of gorgeous churches in and around the Hofburg complex. Came outside St. Michaels and there were these girls dressed in traditional costume balancing wine on their heads and dancing. Interesting. Walked back up the couple blocks to the Graben, where I'd seen a café earlier that had stuff on the menu that looked interesting. I know I know, horrible to eat on such a touristy street, but I could sit outside and people-watch and that's half the fun. On my way, there was a huge wedding procession! It almost sounded like the wedding had been in the HUGE St. Stephan's cathedral that is the center of the whole city. I wonder how you get to have your wedding in that place! But anyway the whole party and guests were all walking down the Graben. I could've taken pictures as they walked right by me but I thought taking pictures of someone's wedding and putting them online would be a little tacky.

6:00pmish - found the Chattanooga grill and found their bathroom inside first, then sat outside in the big patio. Unlike in Spain and in some places in Portugal, no extra charge for sitting outside. So I had some water and a "chicken basket" - aka chicken fingers and fries. I know I know how American can you get!! But honestly, they sounded good, I don't even remember the last time I had regular old chicken fingers… over a year maybe? Anyway and only 7.50 so I could justify going to a touristy place and sitting outside to watch and listen while not even paying that much. So anyway the food was actually really good, whatever they breaded the chicken in was really tasty and crispy. Total was 11 euros including the 1 I left on the table.

7:00pm - instead of having ice cream a second time, at the end of the Karntnerstrasse behind the opera house is the Hotel Sacher - the place that created the Sacher Torte. So of course it's way touristy and way overpriced but if you're going to eat something you might as well eat it at the place that INVENTED it, especially for something like this. Anyway they sell little squares of chocolate-covered cake to go for 2.60. Expensive, but you only live once.

Took the tram 2 back to the hotel to have an early night because I had a crazy long day, my feet hurt so bad, and I am tired! I did a lot of stuff that I had planned for other days so now I will have to decide whether to stick in an unplanned day trip or just take it easy and people-watch in cafes. I think the latter might be a better option. Just see the sights in Vienna really well and try to rest up just a teeny little bit for Italy where I am pretty much going to be on the go nonstop for 2 full weeks. I can have more relaxed mornings and long lunches and afternoon coffee breaks in some of the famous cafes I've read about. I haven't really done the "sit in a coffeehouse and people-watch for 2 hours" thing yet, and Vienna then all throughout Italy are supposed to be the best places for that, so maybe I will do it now;)

7:30pm - sitting on the toilet with my feet in the shower, letting it just run hot water over my feet LOL!! Btw I forgot to mention (some people will find this amusing, I think). Last night I was trying to find something to watch and I am back in the land of the dubbed english stuff, so all the stuff is dubbed into German. EXCEPT. The Flavor of Love. HAHAHAAHHAHAHA. They have Austrian (I'm just assuming, I suppose it could be German) QVC here, and that amused me greatly.

And what's very interesting - my laundry is drying way faster here than in copenhagen. Bizarre.