Schonbrunn Palace and Zoo- Day 3

Schobrunn Palace with Christmas Market
see all photos »

Today I woke up in a panic.  I looked at my ipod and saw the time was 9:30 and we had to be out of the hostel by 10.  I rushed around trying to get ready until another mate in the hostel told me his clock read 8:50.  Opps, never changed my daylight savings on it.  But we were up and ready to do the town a little earlier than planned.

We had decided to head to Schobrunn Palace, a place highly recommended by my mother by others she had talked to.  There, we got to see another Christmas market.  They are all over!  We walked around and got ourselves an austrian pretzel.  Mine was pizza flavored and Natalie's was an apple one.  They were yum, but a bit dry.  Afterwards, we headed around to the back of the palace and saw the grounds.  It was quite big.  Being the winter time, the trees were bare, so it didn't have the nature affect that would have been neat to see, but it was still nice.  We walked back to a statue with pond and noticed the zoo to the right.  Decided to check it out.

Another cool booth
see all photos »

At first, we were thinking there might not be any animals.  It was freezing outside.  I think I saw the temperature somewhere say 7 degrees.  In the end, the zoo turned out to be pretty incredible.  I am not a huge fan of zoos, but I had a good time.  We saw polar bears, koala bears, penguins, pandas, seals, buffalo, zebras, giraffes, and elephants just to name a few.  They had this jungle section where the humidity and temperature was really hot.  Inside, though, the environment was neat.   There was one section where you had to walk into a room with bats flying about.  I hate birds and a room like that was not my cup of tea.  Not knowing though what I was walking into, I went through the first section and looked in at the room with the bats everywhere. Quietly screammed and refused to go in.  Natalie walked right by as I panicked in the doorway.  It wasn't until a bat managed to get into the small doorway where I was that I pushed through the second door and scooted out to the exit.  I survived, with not one bat touching me.  Thank god!

Garden behind palace
see all photos »

At this zoo, a new baby panda had just been born.  We were unable to see where they were keeping it, but they had a video showing them together.  It was adorable.  The penguins were one of my favorite, they also had a new baby there as well.  We didn't stay incredible long at the zoo, it was very cold and the wind was picking up.

We did another loop around the ring.  Such a relaxing, warm ride.  We then headed for lunch.  Got a sandwich named after an abbey.  It was good and came with the best dipping sauce ever.  I think it was their version of french dressing.  Afterwards, we headed back to the hostel, to hang out a bit before our bus took us back to Prague.

Statue in back of palace
see all photos »

This is were the excitement started.  A little under an hour before our bus took off, we left the hostel.  Natalie was hungry so we stopped at a convinient store to pick up some food.  Then, I needed to stop and get some postcards to send home.  With twenty minutes till the bus left, we were doing well.  That is when disaster hit.  The metro was backed up and the time on when the next one came was going up.  We saw nothing getting better and couldn't understand the announcement that was made, but assumed it was not good.  So we looked at a map and found another line that could take us there.  We hopped back on the previous metro to get to the other line to just miss it.  The next one didn't come for a half an hour.  By now, our bus left in 5 minutes.  Thinking we were out of luck, we decided a taxi was our best bet to make it.  We ran and were fortunate enough to find a taxi waiting at the nearby stop light.  He drove us there as the clock pasted our departure time.  Anxiety was all over in that car.  We pull up to see the bus there.  Natalie pushes me out of the car and I sprint to the bus to find all the doors almost closed and the attendant getting in the passenger seat.  I yell, "Wait!" and they open everything up for us to get on.  It was too close for comfort.  It was then we decided... always be extra early.  Not that that shouldn't have been a rule already, but we are learning lots as we go.  The cool thing about it all was we got front row on the bus.  We could see out the drivers window.  At times though, I really wonder what the driving rules are like here.  He was driving on the middle lines for a while with traffic going both ways!  Also, he took some very risky passes.

Overlooking the zoo
see all photos »

In the end, we made it home. Exhausted but glad to be back.  Vienna was a lot of fun and we now can't wait for our next trip.  Venice.... here we come!