Vienna!

Steps of Schönbrunn palace

With too early of a wake-up call, Haley and I departed for Vienna on Saturday at 7:40 AM. It is only a short 2.5 hour train ride (and I say short because I'm used to the 6-8 hour train rides) before we had arrived in Vienna. Ian (unfortunately his travel buddy had fallen sick), Haley, and I headed off to Schönbrunn Palace. The fall colors in the park around the Palace were gorgeous and the view at the top of the hill was stunning. 

We then meandered our way over to Pizzera Mafiosi where we met up with Olivia, Steffi, and Rose who had taken a later train. We ordered three pizzas to share between the six of us and not only where they delicious, they were cheap! We all had a good sized lunch for €2 each!! It was incredible! 

After checking into our AirBnB, we took the metro into the main area of the city, wondered around, took some pictures (of course!), and saw the Hundertwasser House, Stadtpark, Burggarten, and the Austrian National Library.

Hundertwasser House

National Library

Stradtpark

Finally, we ate dinner at a place Ian had found, 1516 Brewing Company. I had a sausage with a delicious soft pretzel. The pretzel was not like the soft pretzels we have in the US - it was more like our pretzel buns, but still so much better.

Then Haley and I headed off to an A Capella concert. We had found that Voice Mania, an international a capella festival, was happening in Vienna in November, so Haley and I bought tickets prior to coming to Vienna. The show included three different a capella groups. The first was an Austrian female group, and they had a mix of pop and Austrian folk songs. They were very talented. The second group performed classical music (and one musical theater song) in a fun way with a pianist. Yes, with someone playing piano. They were all definitely excellent singers, but we were so confused on why this was included in an a capella concert. The evening ended with a Swedish group that did a combo of jazz, disco, and pop songs. This was my favorite group, and their best song was their last one, I Got a Feeling by the Black Eye Peas. It was the perfect way to end the show. One cultural thing I learned from this performance was that in Austria (or maybe just Vienna) after the group finishes, if the audience claps enough, they come back on and do another song. However, it felt more like the formatting was traditional and the group comes back regardless of how long the audience claps. I don't fully understand the reason behind it, but it's kind-of fun. The performance lasted for about 3 hours, and by the end of it Haley and I were ready for a good night's rest. So we headed back to the apartment to do just that.

The next morning I woke up early enough in order to do some exploring before attending Mass at the cathedral. Sunday ended up being a very rainy day, making it difficult to fully enjoy the city to the max, but we did the best we could and spent some time experiencing the large café culture in Vienna instead of being outside as much. First, I walked around in the beautiful brisk morning air and saw Volksgarten, the Parliament, and Rathausplatz (which was unfortunately being set up for the Christmas Market). Then I found a cute little café with decent prices, so I escaped the drizzle outside for a bit and enjoyed a cappuccino and an apple strudel (since Vienna is known for them!). The apple strudel was flaky and fresh, so it was a great addition to the morning. Finally I took some pictures of the beautiful St. Peter's church before heading to Mass at St. Stephan's cathedral.

Rathausplatz

Crosswalk Stoplight in Vienna!

I had arrived at the 10:15 Mass about 20 minutes early, but figured I could go in early and sit in awe over the beauty of the inside. I'm sure glad that I was there early because there were tons of people there already. I was lucky to get a good seat.  Mass was good but very long. There was a full choir and orchestra that did the music, and while they were excellent, sometimes I thought it was a little too much and almost taking away from Mass. I ended up leaving after communion at 12:00 (yes, a hour and 45 minutes after Mass started) because I had made plans to meet up with Rose and Haley.

I found Rose and Haley and we went to the Hofburg Palace and finally wondered to a café we found on Haley's phone. There I had a delicious chicken sandwich with egg, cucumbers, and chipotle mayo with a side of potatoes wedges. We stayed there quite a while in order to avoid the rain. Eventually Rose left to catch her earlier train back and Haley and I left shortly after. 

We walked towards one of the parks and found the digits of pie on a mirror in the subway station. The math majors in us freaked out a little. We then went to Café Sacher - a tourist café known for the famous Viennese Sacher Cake! We figured it was worth the extra cost to say we did one of those tourist things. The cake was very good, a little dry to my tasting, but still good. Lastly, Haley and I walked to the Belvedere Palace where we ran into Olivia and Steffi. We weren't there long before heading to the train station early to again get out of the rain. 

Overall, it was a great trip, and I came back with lots of memories, a decent amount of pictures (more can be seen on Facebook when I hopefully upload them in the coming days), and very wet shoes. :)