Day 1 _Vienna

St. Charles Church
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We left Krakow at midnight to head to Vienna.  We took a mini-bus with two seats on one side of the aisle and one seat on the other.  There are thirteen of us (9 Americans, 2 Australians, 2 Canadians), plus Jacek (our professor), and also the bus driver (Andrea).  Around 2am we reached Czech Republic.  We had to stop at something that looked kind of like toll gates that we have at our bridges, except there was a man that got on the bus (and it was here I noticed he had a handgun straped to his waist) and took up all our passports.  He brought them back all stamped.

St. Charles Church
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Then around 8am we reached another stop where they checked our passports because we were leaving Czech Republic and entering no man's land before Austria.  Here we stopped t a really weird place to eat breakfast.  It looked casino-esque with fake castle and knight-in-armor decor on the outside and inside of the building.  There was a lot of liquor inside and then there was a restaurant. However, the restaurant didn't accept credit cards and the money exchange station was closed because it was early Sunday morning.  I had brought a lot of snacks for occasions like this, so I got back on the bus and ate cheerios and crackers and nutella.  Jacek ended up loaning everyone that wanted to eat in the restaurant money.

St. Charles Church
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Around 9:30 or 10am we got to Vienna!  We saw so much stuff in such little time, but I loved Vienna!  It helped too because the weather was awesome.  It was pretty cold, but sunny and beautiful.  Vienna is a clean city and there's a lot to see, but it's not like Krakow where the plan is pretty basic with one huge square and the streets laid around it.  I had no idea wehre I was ever in relation to everything else in the city, but luckily Jacek is a great tour guide!  He gave us lots of information and we had some time (barely) to take a few pictures and do a quick sketch before the next site.  We also got a little free time to eat lunch and look around.  The Americans and Isabelle (Canadian) ate at this place called Chattanooga.  I had the Chattanooga burger and fries and it was very good.  I hadn't had a burger since leaving America!

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While in Vienna we went into a few cool buildings.  We first went into St. Karl or Charles Church.  It was absolutely beautiful inside.  I got some good pictures, but unfortunetly there was scaffolding up on one side of the church.  We also went into the sucession building (with the golden dome).  It's a museum and they had on room with really old murals going along three walls that was supposed to go along with one of Beethoven's symphonies.  It was pretty cool.  There were a couple other cool things in the museum, but most of the stuff was weird (like art sometimes is).

St. Charles Church. Built to memorialize the ending of the plague.
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Then, at the MQ (Museum's Quarter), we went into the lobby of a really cool museum.  It was a modern building and the outside looked like it was made of slate tiles, but when you got closer it looked like pumice board.  Around 6pm we left Vienna to head to Graz.  It took a few hours, but we stayed at a nice hotel- a nice change from the bus.