Last Two Days in Vienna
Trip Start
Jun 28, 2008
1
21
36
Trip End
Aug 01, 2008
Vienna,
Austria
Sunday, July 13, 2008
After getting back from the museum, I took a short nap. Andrew, Kelly (a girl from the hostel), and I hit happy hour at the hostel bar, grabbed some pizza, and decided to hit the pub crawl again. The bars this time were definitely better, and we had an added fun bonus of a bunch of the same people from the previous night also coming again. Adam showed up with basically his entire dorm, and Keith and Dan (the guys from Kentucky) where there again too. These two together with beers involved is just hilarious. They bicker constantly, and the threats they make to each other are just ridiculous. Seriously entertaining!
Andrew definitely got drunker on this pub crawl than the last one, as did I. Its also funny because he once again got roped into sort of helping out. He is an easy person for people to follow, so he always seems to become an unofficial leader. I also have a number of entertaining photos of drunk Andrew, which will have to get posted at some point, as well as one with him picking Keith up and Keith with his legs around Andrew's waist. Wonder what his Marine buddies will have to say about that?!
(Mom, Dad, Mike, if you actually stopped reading last post like you were supposed to, your brief "ok for the family" catch up to understand the next part of this is that Keith, a hardcore Republican from Kentucky who just got out of the Marines, and I made out in a bar during the last pub crawl.)
Kelly (from the hostel) was asking me at one point about my necklace, and I was telling her that I got the Tiffany heart for my Bat Mitzvah. She responded with, "Oh you're Jewish, I didn't know that" at which point Keith, who was within earshot, basically gives himself whiplash spinning around and is like, "Your Jewish, huh, you don't seem Jewish." To which I responded, "Guess you can cross that one off your list." Not sure what he expected. Apparently the only Jew Keith has ever know was another guy in his army platoon that was certainly not practicing, and for whom it was just a basic differential and not much else. Is it sad that I am amused by breaking the boundaries of typical white-bred mid America!
Anyway, the crawl was good, and while I left the last bar with the group and was definitely waiting with everyone at the bus stop, Keith, Dan, and I all somehow missed everyone getting on a bus and ended up having to cab it back. After hailing a cab, the guys asked how much it would be. The driver, who spoke little English, said 13-15 Euros. I climbed in, but the guys started trying to get the guys to agree to just charge us 10 Euros. The poor driver kept pointing to the meter to make it clear that he didn't pick what he charged, it just went by the meter, but that didn't seem to satisfy Keith and Dan. I eventually pulled them into the cab though, and ultimately tipped the driver a little extra for having to put up with them.
The main downside to this pub crawl was that unlike the last one, I forgot to drink my water along the way, so I definitely woke up horribly hungover. I managed to get my stuff packed so we could check out by 10am and then Andrew and I (now bed less) both proceeded to take a 2 hour nap on the couches in the hostel lounge. Still feeling crappy, but at least no longer feeling like I might puke, we decided to head into the center of the city to find a coffee shop. (We had wanted to go see the globe museum, or the museum with all the globes, but we had neglected to notice that it was closed on Sundays. Sorry Mike, would have had some cool photos/stories from that...next time.)
We headed to a cafe listed in Andrew's guide book and we both got coffee with a shot of liquor in it. Definitely helped the hangover! While we were sitting there, we saw some sort of bike race go by. Turns out it was the last leg of the 60. Internationale Osterreich-Rundfahrt or 60th Tour of Austria. (Website: http://www.oesterreich-rundfahrt.at) After finishing our coffee, we walked along the tour route and ended up seeing the rest of the race. Really cool! At this point we were both feeling sluggish and tired, so we decided to head back to the hostel. While I cooked pasta that we picked up, Andrew decided to do some exercising (push-ups, pull-ups, etc.) which given what was available and around, made for quite a show.
We are now relaxing a bit before heading to the train station for our night train to Florence.
Final thoughts on Vienna: Amazing buildings everywhere. Tons of palaces, or places that once were palaces, that are covered with stunning statues. I really wish I had had more time here to walk around and see more of the city. I know this is my own fault to having too much fun in the evenings, but I think given the year I've had, I need that too. Bottom line - I definitely need to come back here some time and spend a week or 10 days.
