Blogs from Austria, Europe - page 262

Hello from Vienna! Well, it was the best of times, and today was the worst of times. But somehow we managed to stay smiling! Friday after classes, me and JC from Hamilton (who's also studying at the University of Ljubljana with me) took off on 7 hour train ride to Vienna. We arrived late, so basically we just found our hostel and crashed. We're staying at the Hostel Ruthensteiner (http://www.hostelruthensteiner.com/), which is very clean, though a little noisy at night. Yesterday, we started out at the Spanish Riding Museum, watching Lipanzer horses train in a huge indoor ring that seemed more like a palace from the outside than a stable and riding ring! It was more interesting for JC who rode horses for a lot of her life than for me, but still... neat to see. ... read more

9:30PM we boarded our night train to Vienna and took our seats in good spirits and excitement. That, in and of itself, was quite an accomplishment considering we were stuck in a steamy-hot compartment along with four other grumpy Polish people with no hope (really) of getting a single wink of comfortable sleep. Emily, periodically throughout the 8-hour ordeal, stepped out into the corridor for a breath of fresh air. Where as I, sat in my fully-up right seat sweating in the sauna…or so it felt. 5:30AM the train comes to a stop. We arrived to Vienna nearly an hour ahead of schedule (a slight miracle in Europe). Of course, by the time we realized that fun-fact the train had stood empty (aside from us) at the station for a solid 15-minutes. SO we hurriedly scurried ... read more

Ok, this is from the Nationalfeiertag (Austria's independence day, more or less) in Vienna. Everything is closed, but there are celebrations, and stuff all over town. For instance, the Hofburg and Parlament are having 'Tag der Ofnen Türe' (Day of open doors) so you can go see some of the government buildings for free. The army (Bundesheer) was also on display celebrating at Heldenplatz (Hero's Square). So, while at Heldenplatz, we ran into a lot of the 'in' crowd... such as Heinz Fischer (the President), Herr Gusenbauer (the head of the Socialist Party of Austria, and probably the future Chancellor), as well as his People's Party counterpart, and current Chancellor: Wolfgang Schüssel, and a crowd of Austrian generals. url=http://fliqz.com/FliqzWebPublic/Dynamic/proxy.aspx?IsInPlayer=true&VID=3210&ORIVID=3210&fliqzster=true&from=permaThis is some grainy footage of some of the s... read more

We found a beautiful place to rest for a while. We stayed here for 5 nights to catch our breath and relax before the next leg of the journey. Salzburg is such a great city and we got to stay in the old part of town so its pedestrians only, a great change from the big busy cities. The weather was fabulous, for a change, it was like summer when we were expecting it to be freezing. We spent the first day on the Sound of Music Tour and came to the conclusion that Austrians don't even like the movie they just make a lot of money from it! We got to see the many places around here that were used in the film and, as a bonus, we got to see some beautiful sights and ... read more

Field trip to Niederösterreich, where we got to see Klosterneuberg. Kloster means monestary, but unfortunately I didnt see any monks. The place was founded back in the days of the Babenburgs as part of one of those 'monestaries with a built in palace' deals, presumably so that God will forgive you if youre completely corrupt. Anyway, it became the obsession of Charles VI of the house of Habsburg, (a Habsburg in the 17th century), who tried to make it into a huge baroque thing out of it. The monks here apparently are the largest single producer of wine in Austria, so the whole monestary smells like... a lot of wine is being made. Following this, we went to a .. i guess 'restored' castle nearby. It wasn't really 'restored' so much as just plain built out ... read more