Advertisement
Published: February 11th 2008
Edit Blog Post
What an adventure this had been! Where do I begin? The beginning I suppose...The sleeper car train lost power in our car over night, so when we awoke we were freezing. We got to our hostel easy enough. It was nice, Westend Hostel. We had our own bathroom. It was sweet, but it didn't have any handsoap. We took a brief nap at the hostel and then went on an adventure to find the Opera House. Emily Raleigh and all them asked this man in the street wearing a theatre looking cape about standing tickets for the opera. I said I'm not dealing with this sketchball and went in to where the actual tickets were being sold and asked the ticket man when they went on sale. He said 5.20 and that he was closing in 10 minutes. Crap. I went outside and they were bargaining with this man because he said if you wanted a ticket you should get there by 3. Liza and I were really sad because that was one of the main reasons we went to Vienna. We decided we didn't care what everyone else was doing we were going ot the Opera. We asked another ticket
Hotel Sacher
Home of the Original Sachertorte man inside the opera house and he said if we got there by 5 we'd be okay, so we were like sweet that's what we're doing. We returned outside and Emily, Raleigh and Melissa were getting tickets for about 30 euro to see some ballet thing with Mozart music. Liz and Natalie jumped on our bandwagon because they thought the guy was sketchy too. After that we lost E,R and M. Liza and I had gone in to the gift shop and Nat and Liz were triple checking on tickets. We al got back outside and they were gone. The four of us went to the Hotel Sacher and got sachertorte. I thought it was good. It was rather dry, but it had a delicious raspberry filling. We also got coffee because Vienna's supposed to be the coffee capital of the world. Natalie said that if the sachertorte had been a Montarina dessert she would have complained lol. Actually I think she said she wouldn't have thought it was a good one, but you know what I mean. After that we went shopping and to get ready for the opera. We got there around 4.30. The line wasn't that long
so we were a little confused, but it worked out. We payed 3.50 euro and got to see TOSCA. "La Tosca!" "Mario, Mario, Mario!" Those are the only lines I remember from the opera because they were sang so much. It was an amazing show though. We had awesome seats. First row of standing which is perfectly situated in the middle so you can see perfectly! Natalie stood by the man who was directing hte opera singers making sure they were in time wth the music. The story was one of love, jealousy, lust, courage and pain. It was very sad, but I didn't cry. Standing for that long though is rather hellish. We stood for about 4 hours total with waiting and the show and all. It was worth it though! The scenery of the opera was gorgeous too. I never thought that scenery could be that pretty and realistic. There was elaborate rooms and courtyards and churches. Very cool. I can't believe that people can sing like that though! I wonder what they sound like when they talk. I definitely gained a greater appreciation for the art of opera that's for sure. Did you know that they have
KFC in Europe? They do, but they don't have biscuits which is some b.s. because that's one of the things that seals the deal with KFC. Gosh! We then went back to the hostel and changed and me Liza and Nat went and got a beer at what we can only assume was a gay bar. We saw Hofburg, from outside of course. Hofburg is a palace in the middle of Vienna and they have a butterfly greenhouse type thing which sounded really cool but we didn't go in 😞 I feel like there's so much I'm missing out on because of money and time. I mean I'd pay for it but I don't want to be doing half of these things by myself and everyone having to wait on me. O well. I can't help but wish that we were just traveling these three months. There's so much to do and see. Vienna's beautiful. I would love to live there at some point in my lifetime if possible. It's such a classy place I feel. Today we woke up and went to the train station to check times to Budapest. Haha! Funny story, Budapest rail workers are on strike!
Natalie and I in front of the Spanish Riding School
She is my steed. Awkward I know, but we were having fun! Go figure. So we had to take a bus, which I am currently on eating chocolate and listening to Gary Allen with Natalie. After finding out about the train strike though we went to the Spanish Riding School and watched the Lipizzaners exercise. They just walked/trotted in circles but they're so beautiful! I would've liked to go to a show, but they don't start again until March. Bummer. It made me miss having horses and riding though 😞 We went and looked at the outside of Parliament. The statue of Athena was really pretty. I wish the fountains were going. I bet they're pretty too. We got a hotdog at this stand. Natalie and I mistakenly got ones filled with cheese. They tasted good, but it made my tummy hurt 😞 Last night Dad called me during the opera. Perfect timing I know, but I called him back and he said that Meagan's coming for spring break. I'm so excited! 😊 Now on to the adventure of getting to the bus...To get to the bus we had to take a tram. Tram 18. The wrong way at first but a nice man with rotting, tobacco stained teeth told us the
Amadeus Amadeus
Statue of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart right way to go. So we got on the correct tram 18 and then got to the south something train station. There we hopped on an underground, went a little ways, hopped on a U3 and then wound up in Erburg or something where the bus was. This is what we had to do to get to the bus: Hop on the U3 where we were at at the hostel and take it to Erburg. Wow. END.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.053s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 7; qc: 44; dbt: 0.028s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb