Eating the Sword, and Going Home

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Saturday, 8/30
On my last whole day in Vienna, I slept in, despite not having a particularly late night. My mission for the day was to pack, work on my blogs, and get some last minute souvineers. Kelsey and I hung out in our apartment for awhile, both of us putting our stuff into our bags (of which I definitely had more!) and trying to polish off the rest of our food. Kelsey needed to iron her shorts, and I finally found a use for my travel iron. We decided to go to Cafe Central, a cafe in Vienna famous for its role in the Enlightenment and the coffee house culture at the turn of the century. I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to finally try the Maria Theresia coffee that I have been eyeing on menus all month. We got to the cafe and seated ourselves (I will miss this back home), and took turns going up to the display to pick out our cakes. I got the Nusstorte (nut cake, haha) with the Maria Theresia coffee, which was spiced up with orange liqueur. For some reason I envisioned something along the lines of an orange mocha frappuccino, forgetting that a liqueur and a syrup function quite differently in a coffee. The coffee was very expensive and pretty unappetizing, but the cake was alright. At least the historical aspect was exciting! We headed back home to change for our class goodbye dinner. We met up at the Prater park, a permanent fair housing the ferris wheel famous for being featured in The Third Man. We waited for about 20 minutes for classmates to show up before we bought tickets and got in line for the ferris wheel. The cabins looked like cabooses from trains dangling from the wheel's frame. We had to split into two to fit. The ride took about 20 minutes, and we got panoramic views of the city and the park. Duane, the program coordinator, had told us about the wild rides at Prater that would never be legal in the US. We enjoyed trying to spot the craziest ride in the park while the wheel was turning. Austrians must have strong stomachs, or else no fear of vomiting, because I have never seen so many spinny, swingy, fast and wild rides in my entire life. Aside from being questionably safe, the rides appeared to give anyone's stomach a run for its money. One ride looked like a bubble wand with people strapped to the ends, and it just spun around and around on its axis. Almost like a vertical version of the ride that astronauts are trained in. There was a spinny chair ride, which I love at home. This one was on a huge vertical tower, and so as the chairs spun the entire carriage rose up the tower, so you were dangling God knows how many feet above the ground in a chair (and knowing the Austrian sense of liability, the chains holding the chair were probably rusty or skinny). I desperately wanted to go on this ride, but we had to go as a class to our farewell dinner. The park is supposed to be cool at night, but I knew that my classmates were probably itching to rage it up at the bars after dinner and not return to the park. One of the saddest things about traveling is when there is something you really want to do, but having no one to do it with (and a group doing something else that is kind of fun too, and therefore very tempting). Sometimes I wish that I had gone alone to the last few things I wanted to see, but there is also a safety concern of running around the city alone. A month in a country is enough time to get to know all the things that you want to get to know more. It sounds like enough time to do all you want to, but Vienna really did seem to have an endless supply of things I wanted to do. Someday maybe I will go back so I can show someone around the city, and accomplish those last few things I never got to do. But how can you ever feel like you have gotten a chance to experience everything? Anyway, we headed as a class up to the restaurant we were going to have dinner at, called Centimeter. I knew my way there because it was directly across the street from the microbrewery that I had chili beer and garlic soup at. We pushed together tons of tables so we could seat all 25 of us, so it was a cozy fit. I was sitting next to my professor near the center of the table. The meal was pre-paid for, and my professor said the first round of drinks was paid for too. I got a dark beer. The fun part of the meal was when we were served a variety of food skewered on a sword. There were veal medallions, Wiener schnitzel (made with turkey!) and red peppers. My professor warned us to stay away from the peppers, because they were really spicy. This encouraged about 6 spice-craving people to help themselves to several peppers. My professor looked on in horror as people were downing the peppers without much more than a sniffle. I ate about 3/4 of a pepper, and it was the seeds that were killer more than the pepper flesh, but eating spicy food was a welcome sensation. We finished our dinners and headed home again to get ready for the night out. With all my stuff packed already, I got lucky and had one of those nights where I can't pick out what to wear (or what to subject to a night of cigarette smells). Knowing we were probably heading back to the Bermuda Triangle, I decided not to hope that we would check out something new. We went to a few clubs we have been to before, but successfully danced in a girl circle so we could rescue each other from creepers that lurked up to dance with one of us. I had a blast, and the time flew by. The highlight of my night was when Lil' Wayne's 'Lollipop' came on, a song (let alone a genre) I had not heard the entire month I was there. It's funny how I heard the song a million times on Houseboats or at Cal Aggie Camp, and I was still excited about it after not hearing it for a month. It got to be pretty late, and so we headed back to Karlzplatz to take the night bus home. Once home, I took a shower to de-cigarette myself, and tried to finish packing and cleaning the apartment so I could leave in the morning. One of my classmates was being picked up at 5:30am for her flight home, and she didn't bother to even go to bed. I knew I was probably only going to get an hour or so of sleep, but all the better for me to sleep on the plane.

Sunday, 8/31
I woke up early to make sure I had plenty of wiggle room time-wise to finish everything I needed to and get to the airport. Some students had taken the CAT (City Airport Train) upon arriving to the program, and since I felt confident about Vienna's public transportation, I decided to not be the taxi-princess I had been all month and take the CAT. Turns out lugging ALL my crap (purse, backpack, duffel bag and rolly suitcase duffel) was a lot harder than I had anticipated. And the walk between the subway stop and the CAT stop was several blocks. I occasionally had to stop to catch my breath, and I felt absolutely pathetic for it. I arrived at the CAT station sweaty, and thinking the money I saved for walking may not have been worth it. I got onto the train, again facing the challenge of lugging my huge rolly duffel up the stairs. One of the train attendants took pity on me, and let me leave it at the bottom of the stairs. The whole ride to the airport I felt really nervous, partially because I realized that the original flight I was scheduled for had already left, so I hoped that my new itinerary was solid. I got to the airport, and felt sort of overwhelmed because I didn't see a sign for departures. I walked for awhile lugging my crap around, and finally found where I needed to go. I checked my baggage (no questions about the wine bottle inside) and walked around the gates, happier than ever to only have to carry my backpack and purse at this point. I bought myself breakfast at a cafe, and the tomato-cheese-salami sandwich was delicious. I went into the gift shops, determined to spend my remaining euro, and found a copy of US Weekly. I bought that and promptly ran into the one classmate I would have picked last if I had to rank my classmates in order of how much I wanted to run into them. We chitchatted for awhile, and he said he was on my flight. I didn't sit at the gate with him while we waited, and I hoped that was the end. Once we boarded the plane, it turned out that we were one seat away from each other and the nice lady between us insisted that we sit together. Thank god it was only an hour and a half flight! He told me he was headed to Denver for the next leg of his trip, so I knew I was free after this flight. I arrived in Frankfurt, and was told to go to gate B. I walked the long walk to B before I discovered that I was supposed to be in A, so I turned around and repeated the long walk back to where I started. Finding the right place to be, I examined my co-travelers to see who was a Californian. I spotted a teenage boy wearing Rainbow sandals, so I knew him and his family were definitely Californians. I spotted a 20-something lady wearing hammer pants, and knew she must be European. I have come to identify the European/American difference in terms of footwear and pants. Europeans wear very strange pants. My flight to SFO went very smoothly, I watched 2 movies and slept. The other passengers in my row were from France, and I enjoyed pointing out to them where I lived as we circled around SFO. After receiving my baggage and being excited that my wine and absinthe were not confiscated, I wheeled my cart out to be greeted by my family and boyfriend. Arriving back home, my parents told me that the annual block party was going on. I was tired, but hungry, and it was only 5pm so I forced myself to visit the block party. I ended up sitting at a table with a German man and a Viennese woman, and it was weird to tell them, "Oh, I was in Vienna this morning." I am glad to be home, but I can already tell I haven't gotten rid of the travel bug!

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Photos

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the Maria Theresia, best to stay away from!

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outside of Cafe Central

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Prater

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bubble wand ride

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wild swing ride I wanted to go on

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last night for Viennese fast food: pizza and kebab

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last time seeing our subway stop! Simmering