Vienna waits for you/These are a few of my favorite things

I just couldn’t pick a title. So I went with both.

I know it’s cliché, buuut, Sound of Music WAS my weekend so, here are a few of my favorite things about Vienna and Salzburg (no, it does not fit with song, I’m way too lazy)
1. Apple strudel with vanilla ice cream
2. Schonbrun palace
3. Salzburg
4. Riding the Vienna metro pretty much for free (which may or may not be legal…oops)
5. The Austrian Alps


Miriam and I left for Vienna on Thursday night around 9, and got to Vienna around 7 am on Friday…I slept most of the way so it wasn’t so horrible. This was my first hostel experience (besides Israel, but those don’t really count) and they’re really fine.I got the top bunk, which I was totally fine with thanks to my childhood bed and several summers at camp.

After breakfast, we started our tour of Vienna by stopping at STARBUCKS!!!And this time, it wasn’t outrageously priced. I got my white mocha fix, and although it wasn’t as good as at home, it was still great to have because it’s one of those little things about home I really miss (although, I’m really starting to like Italian cappuccinos, although I put a ton of sugar in them).  Filled with caffeine, we got a tram that took us on a pretty pathetic tour of Vienna’s important buildings, but it was ok because we got to walk around and see them later.  From the tram, we went ot Café Sacher to try their world famous choclate cake.  The place was really fancy--you had to check your coat or they wouldn't serve you.  It was really cute, right out of a victorian parlor.

The cake is supposedly the first chocolate cake in the world and takes 36 steps to create (seriously, what are they doing to the cake that it takes so long).  It was good, but not the moist, rich chocolate cake I'm used to.  After cake we walked around Vienna for a little bit and stopped to see the famous Opera House and St. Stephen's church, both were beautiful.  Some people climbed St. Stephen's, but Miriam and I decided we'd had enough climbing towers for a little while.  Instead, because we are both dorky psych majors, we decided to go to the Freud museum, which was SO COOL (but really only if you're a psych major, otherwise it's not that exciting).  The museum is housed in the apartment Freud and his family lived in while in Vienna, which also was home to Freud's office.  The museum had his waiting room set up as it was when his Vienna office was active, which I found to be really awesome.  The rest of the museum consisted of pictures, pieces of furniture, documents, etc that helped depict his life and research. Not having psych classes this semester, it was fun to get back into that mindset for a little bit.  I'm a dork, you may laugh at me now.

After Freud and being educational, we met up with the rest of the group to go to the Schnaps museum and be the opposite of educational.  There is a Schnaps company in Vienna that has been making Schnaps since before WWII, and the company was started by the great grandfather of the guy who currently owns the company.  The man who gave us a tour was really funny, and clearly loved to drink, he told us how to tell if something was real Schnapps, taught us about absinthe, and more.  Basically, everything every college student needs to know.  The tour was followed up by a tasting.  I tasted two cream liqueurs (hazelnut and banana chocolate...YUMMY!), a chili pepper Schnaps they call rocket fuel (I think my throat was actually on fire after that one), and some cinnamon-y, goldschlagger type thing.  From schnaps we went back downtown to walk around for a bit and get our opera tickets!!  The Vienna State Opera house sells 3 euro standing room tickets, and since the Opera house is so famous Miriam and I, along with a few other girls, figured we'd try it out.

After buying the tickets we reserved our spots...first row standing room, sweet!  We happened to be next to a guy whose son goes to UMD and Miriam knows, small world, love Jewish geography!  We saw "the Flying Dutchman" which is the inspiration for Pirate of the Carribean 3, so if you managed to follow the plot line of that movie, then you know what happens in the opera sort of.  The opera was actually really, really cool.  I forgot that they didn't use microphones and then remembered how difficult it is to project that much and I definitely have a new found respect for the opera.  It was also so cool to watch the orchestra as well.  However, it was a really slow moving opera, and we were standing up, aaaaaand we hadn't eaten in several hours, so we left the opera early to go find food.  We ended up at this bar place and everyone else got weiner schnitzel...but obviously I don't eat that, so I got a pretzel with dinner in order to try Austrian food.  After dinner, we walked around an area called the Bermuda Triangle, where everyone goes out, and found a cool bar with live music, but we didn't stay long because we were exhausted.  Fun fact: the Vienna synagogue was literally in the middle of this area across the street from a bar.  Too funny.

The next morning we woke up and went to Schonbrun palace, where the Austrian imperial family lived before they were overthrown.  The palace is HUGE and, of course, beautiful.  It is said that it is second only to Versaille.  We got a really good audio guide tour of the palace and it was great history lesson of Austria as well.  It made me super excited for Versaille, and after the luxury of this place, I can only imagine what Versaille will be like.  From Schonbrun palace we hopped on the bus to Salzburg and watched the Sound of Music in order to prepare for the tour the next day.

Salzburg is ADORABLE!!! Seriously, GO THERE!!  The day we got there wasn't so exciting because we got there pretty late and most things were closed.  Miriam and I ditched the group to spend more time at the Do Re Mi garden and broke the rules and crossed the fence so we could imitate the movie.  Bad ass, I know.  Then we basically killed time till dinner at a legit Austrian beer hall.  We got coffee, did nothing (see Facebook for the pictures that resulted in), and ended up getting dinner early because we really had nothing better to do.  It was finally time to go to the beer hall, which was super cool.  There people dressed in traditional clothes (liederhosen I think they're called) and it was literally just 3 huge halls filled with people drinking beer and eating Austrian food.  Miriam and I got some streudel...it was just ok.  We had a fun night hanging out with people from our group.  This Austrian guy came over to our table because his friends bet him he couldn't hold a conversation with us for 10 minutes, which ended up just being him and his friends talking to us.  They were really funny and it was cool to meet local people our age.  After the beer hall, it was time for bed because we had to be up bright and early for the SOUND OF MUSIC TOUR!!!!!

The Sound of Music tour was great.  We went to most of the key places, although I was disappointed we didn't get so close to the front of the Von Trapp house.  It was also cool because you learned a lot about Salzburg as well.  We also went up into the Alps, and it was a)freezing and b)beautiful and so cute.  We stopped at a cute little cafe for lunch and the BEST apple streudel and ice cream (seriously this vanilla ice cream was like nothing I've ever tasted).  Go on Facebook to see where we went on the tour, it was awesome!  After the tour we headed back for Florence :)  Moral of the weekend: I love the Sound of Music.  Also, they watch that movie in pretty much every country except Austria, it's bizarre.