Lovely Vienna

The most famous cafe in Vienna-Cafe Central
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Mozart,

Freud, coffeehouses, and some

Toto, I don't think we're in Eastern Europe anymore...

great things to see while wandering around for two days--that's Vienna!

Cool church...there are cool churches everywhere over here!!
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I wasn't actually planning to come here at all. I was expecting to feel

the same way about it that I did about Brussels; that is, that it was a

nice enough city, but nothing of interest to me as a visitor. I was

very wrong! I stopped here anyway, since it was a logical stop

Nice park outside the Hapsburg palace
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between the Czech Republic and Budapest, and I liked it so much that I

stayed another night! Vienna actually reminds me a little of

London--very busy, bustling, and cosmopolitan, but incredibly clean,

bright, and well taken care of. Although it's geographically pretty

Joel, the male version of me--he has a girlfriend and a cat at home and speaks Italian and Spanish!
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much in Eastern Europe, the contrast could not have been more obvious!

My first day in Vienna it was raining (seems to be a theme for this

trip so far) but I walked around anyway--a little sprinkle never hurt

anyone! a huge shopping boulevard led to a street full of gorgeous

Yet another cool building. I should really write down the names, huh?
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parks and a palace with gardens I would have loved to have a picnic in,

but the rain forced me inside. I didn't mind, though, because I ended

up in a coffeehouse called Cafe Central, which is where Freud, Trotsky,

and Lenin used to meet up to play chess! It was beautiful inside, and

had live piano music as a nice background to my cappuccino and journal

writing...I felt like I should be writing a book of philosophy rather

than gluing train ticket stubs into my journal, but...you take what you

can get, I guess. That night, I discovered that the Vienna Opera sells

cheap standing room tickets right before the show every night, so I

went to check it out, and ended up seeing Aida

at the Vienna Opera House for 2 euro! What an experience...though after

3.5 hours of a very fat guy singing in Italian, I was ready to call it

a night!

The next day was beautiful, so I went sightseeing. I went to a museum

that had a lot of different kinds of art, including an extensive

selection of Klimt, whose most famous painting is The Kiss. It was a

really nice museum, though I didn't appreciate the modern art section

as much. Is it just me, or does a completely blank white canvas not

really deserve a whole wall of an art gallery?? I guess I just

don't understand modern art...it probably symbolized the

emptiness of civilization or something like that, I suppose, but I sure

didn't see it!

I then took advantage of the weather and sat around reading and

painting in the Hapsburg palace gardens. So beautiful!! Everything

around there was so picturesque. Speaking of, though, I also discovered

that day the one situation when a McDonalds is the most beautiful sight

you've ever seen--when you have been desperately and unsuccessfully

searching for a bathroom for 20 minutes! Those Golden Arches in the

distance are more beautiful at that moment than any cathedral in Europe!

That night, I actually went out and socialized in the hostel bar and

met quite a few really interesting people. It turns out, actually, that

the majority of people I've met who are traveling for more than a

couple of weeks are traveling alone, which is really nice for me! I

forget how hard it is to get up the nerve to meet people, especially

people who are already in a big group. It sounds silly, right? but it

is just so hard for me sometimes to walk up to a group of people and

say, essentially, hi, I'm Maggie, let's be friends! Everyone is always

very nice, but it's still a wierd situation! It also makes me remember,

though, once I work up the nerve to meet them, the thing that I love

most about traveling. You can meet a group of people for one night, and

come out with someone to sightsee with tomorrow, someone to meet in

another country in a week, lots of pictures and email addresses, and a

group of people you really care about, after just a few hours. This, I

think, really is the highlight of travel for me. And people who travel

are very interesting, just by nature, so it's so much fun!

So...I loved Vienna, but it was a good deal more expensive than my other stops, so I'm moving on soon. Budapest, here I come!!