Christmas in Vienna 24 - 28 December 2008

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We arrived after multiple train changes to Vienna at about 7am. It was dark, we were tired and hungry. We didn’t get that much sleep during the night - there was some guys from maybe Hungary?that were a little bit strange, who sat in a seat near us and first were trying to watch our laptop as we watched movies then watched us as we tried to sleep.

When we got off the main train station of Vienna (Wein) we hoped onto the S-Bahn from Vienna main station to find the hotel Eurostars Embassy. The hotel was located at Landstrasser Haupstrasse 120. Although their breakfast buffet was good, I wouldn’t recommend that you stay there as they said one thing about tea being inclusive but then tried to charge as €5 for 2 cups of tea? Also they don’t really provide knives and forks in the rooms, so we had to keep going downstairs and asking. And also they tried to misquote us a higher price for €75 per night instead of €60? Which is what we actually paid for it - which I pointed out was listed on the website which I found listed under them. And they were tight they said we cant have breakfast buffet on the first day - though there wasn’t that many guests staying there anyways! Other than that though it was a good stay.
So we checked into the room then we went and put the bags upstairs. Nadia had a nap whilst I caught up on life - ie read my emails etc. I got a nice surprise about one of our friends coming out which I had was so happy about as I know he was happy about it. And also another one of my really good mates got engaged! I was sooooo excited for Jared I wrote him a message straight away congratulations and I was so happy for him!

Anyways after Nadia woke up we went out to do some Christmas market shopping without being restrictive in the price we brought all the foods we wanted like lychee's and grapes and ice cream and cheeses oh yum so much food. Then we headed back to the apartment and dropped it off. We asked the ladies that worked there what they would recommend in terms of seeing in Vienna. They mentioned some of the Sissi museums. We grabbed some wine glasses from down stairs and cutlery and brought it back up to the room. Then we had some delicious savories and got ready to go out. Out and about Vienna was beautiful at night. All the lights for the Christmas time were so nice. We eventually made our way to the Christmas markets. When we were there we brought some Christmas wine. After finishing it we went to return the cup that we brought - however the shop was already closed! So we ended up finding the German lady who had also brought the wine with us and in broken English we managed to communicate that you could return the cups back to another guy who was packing up. We got our money back then the lady asked to have some photos with us so we did it then we got some photos with her. She was gorgeous! Then we eventually headed back to our place for a delicious nights sleep. The beds were really comfortable and delicious I might add!

Merry Christmas!
On Christmas day I was awoken to Christmas socks from Nadia to which I gave her sinterklaas chocolates earlier - for Eid.
We put on our socks and wished each other a merry Christmas then headed down to a delicious all you can eat breakfast buffet.

After breakfast we decided to go to Schonbrunn. As we had had a nice walk around the city yesterday we thought it would be good to have a look at Schonbrunn today. We got the S-Bahn to Herrrengasse. Schönbrunn Palace together with its ancillary buildings and extensive park is by virtue of its long and colourful history one of the most important cultural monuments in Austria. Scheduled as a listed monument, the whole ensemble, including the palace, the park with its numerous architectural features, fountains and statues and not least the zoo - the oldest of its kind in the world - was placed on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List in 1996.

In the possession of the Habsburg dynasty since Maximilian II, the palace passed to the ownership of the Republic of Austria at the end of the monarchy in 1918 and was subsequently administered by the Schlosshauptmannschaft Schönbrunn. We caught the S-Bahn to the Schonbrunn. We decided to get a Sissi ticket - and we managed to blag it that we were children - 18 years old - sweet! For the ticket 11.50e we got to go to The grand tour of the Schonbrunn. The tour was about 50 minutes long. It was an audio tour were we walked around the 40 rooms of the palace.

We headed for a walk around the city after this. In the city we met a few peddlers trying to sell us tickets to Mozart & Strauss concerts. I haggled big time with them. I managed to get us tickets to the performance tomorrow night for 26e for both of us. that meant 13e each for a classical performance! Stoked. We decided to go with a company called Paladis Palffy and the guy who sold us the tickets - his name was Sami. He got my number as he wanted to meet us after the show. I thought it was no harm since he told me he had a fiance back in Kosovo. The hall where we were going to watch the concert was at the Palais Palffy (14th Century), in the Figaro hall where Mozart gave concerts in 1762 with his sister.

After this we went to check out the Hofburg palace. The Hofburg palace had the imperial apartments, the Sissi museum and the Silver collection of the royal palace which was quite nice. It was getting late, and while we had a brief snack at the Schonbrunn whilst we were there we hadn't really had any dinner so I thought it was about that time. We had a nice Christmas dinner out in a park with Sangria and yummy packed sandwiches etc. Very romantic. Though as it started to get cold we got a movie. We checked out Austria - the movie it had come out but it wasn't starting until much later so we decided to look into it the next day. We headed home and then to bed.

On the December 26 it was time to go check out some more of Vienna. We had a walk around the city centre and visited the main church. It was really so nice to see and I was surprised so many people were still out and about. We walked around the city and took in all the sights of Vienna. In the evening we went to the performance. We were a bit late. At the end of the performance - we got called up by the staff. Turns out Sam had sold us really cheap tickets and they wanted to confirm the price we had brought it for. WE were pulled up abruptly and not too happy that they did this to us in front of everyone. Sami caught up to us at the end. WE complained to him saying that his company didn't treat people that well who were going to see the show. He told us yea he had had to pay the difference out of his own money for the concert tickets. We felt sorry for him and said that he could join us for drinks. At drinks he told us how he wanted to cheat on his fiance with us so whilst he wasn't looking - we snuck out of the bar and ran off. We ended up going to a bar and dancing to this Arabic style music. Then we went to a club. That was good fun we danced salsa and met some Iraqi and Turkish boys. We got back to the hotel at 6am. Haha good times.

On the 27 December we checked out and after our lengthy breakfast, hang over feeling from the night before me and Nadia went to the furniture museum, the final place to visit on our 3 part Sissi pass - was the Hofmobiliendepot furniture collection.

It was an exhibition with Sissi in the Movies - the Imperial Furniture for the movie set. thought initially I would fall asleep there with the lack of sleep that we have had over the past few days and plus to be honest I didn't think i could find furniture very invigorating. How wrong I was!!!
We had some really good times there was a directors chair to muck about it and some small soft animal toys that were really fun. We spent about 3 hours of quality time there.
Eventually it was time to go. We got back to our hotel the Eurostars Embassy to grab our bags. The lady there gave us tea - and then made us pay for it! Even though she said it was included in the price! It was 5e for two teas. We didn't have time to argue we had to catch a train but I said I would write a compliant email about thier poor service. I still havent written one but I guess this blog makes up for it.

To see more photos have a look at: http://picasaweb.google.com/dkruchkoff/ViennaAustria2427December2008?authkey=Gv1sRgCOGjjqGJ_vDtag&feat=directlink

We made the train and switched at Munich were we go the night train at 22:44 to Arnhem and eventually we switched for Zwolle. At Zwolle we went to Pauls house were I finally got my concession travel card for the train. After this we walked around the city for a bit. I wanted to take Nadia where I - rather Paul- took dad - the dominican church and monastery st thomas of aquino in Zwolle - built in the 1900s.

But Paul just wanted to get drinks so we ended up at the Irish pub before I said look we have to get our train and we didn't end up having drinks either. Anyways as we got back to Amsterdam - it came to the end of our 2 week escapade together in Europe. We had some good times, traveling, arguing, crying and laughing together. I love you Nadia and cant wait till we do this again.

What did me and Nadia see back in Zwolle: http://picasaweb.google.com/dkruchkoff/ZwolleNetherlandsWithNadia28December2008?authkey=Gv1sRgCPyk7p_F87-mDw&feat=directlink

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