Ein eleganter Mann

Firstly before I delve into our Viennese waltz, a huge thank you to all of you who have commented! There has been a recent influx or new readers it seems. Welcome! If any of you have recommendations for things we should see in/around the following cities, do let us know in a comment or message!

Budapest - Venice - Florence - Rome - Barcelona - Paris

Sorry sorry sorry for leaving it a few days without updating. My Kindle doesn't have 3G in Hungary and connecting to wireless is a bit of an effort, plus it's just easier to type on a proper keyboard. I have 46 minutes left of my internet cafe hour though so let's hope Mavis Beacon saves me once again!

On the way to Vienna I had my passport checked for the very first time on this trip! A bit worrying that I was able to pass through four countries by train without any need for identification .

The hostel in Vienna was laaavly, fairly central, but in quite a residential area as opposed to a touristy one so the food around us was cheap cheap. We were in a dormitory of only four women sharing one bathroom, which was always clean and had a proper, powerful shower!

There has been interest in the comments about the people we've met so here are some more: (this is weird because I'm posting after a day in Budapest but I can't really talk about that...yet)
1) A nameless German guy who sat next to us en route to Prague and was very chatty. He had just returned from Texas where he was on a training camp for the German air force. I asked him why he wanted to join the air force and he said he didn't really have a logical reason, he just wanted to fly.
At Prague main station, waiting for our train to Vienna, we met three guys from New York, whose names I THINK were Sean, Dee-o (Dio maybe, who knows) and Hunter who were waiting for a night train to Amsterdam. Everyone we have met who is touring Europe has included Amsterdam. Are we missing out by not going there? It was never really somewhere we were interested in but literally everyone else seems to be going there. Hmmm.

So Vienna day 1, and ouchy ouchy feet. No blisters, just the acheeeeeee. Weather was a bit crappy but still we traipsed through all the main sights in the city. Everything is very grandiose, the statues buildings are sky soaring and impressive. In Vienna, if you are under 19, most museum entry is free, which was great for us! We visited a museum of theatre where there was an incredible display of old costumes. We followed this with a visit to the art history museum, so beautiful, and every hall had a lot of sofas to admire the art from so we weren't continuously on our feet. There was a tour guide in the museum who reminded Jillian a lot of Nadja, I think she was very perturbed by her haha.
We meandered towards the Hofburg palace but found the rose garden in front of it a lovelier place to spend time. I have never seen such a huge rose garden, or yellow roses for that matter but apparently they come in all colours! We have found on our trip that the main shopping strips of cities are generally the least interesting part but at the very end of a long strip we found a church called St. Stephens. I don’t quite understand how it worked but I think they had placed large strips of coloured foil over some of the windows and we happened to enter the church at exactly the right time, when the sun was coming in through those windows, and the entire church and all its stonework was bathed in these glorious polychrome patterns. It was breathtaking. On the spur of the moment we decided to go to mass, purely so we wouldn't have to leave the church. There were about three hundred people there and we were easily the youngest by about forty years. We looked completely out of place but it was such an interesting experience. Jillian and I both have mixed-religion families and we were both brought up to decide for ourselves what we believed it. I find it difficult to put a label on 'not knowing what I believe in' but I think loosely I fall into the agnostic category.
Anyway the priest's main message seemed to be that Christ 'lebt nicht fur uns oder vor uns, aber in uns.' This (again, loosely) coincides with how I feel about religion - that everyone's personal belief system, higher power or God is different because they conceive Him, Her, it in a completely personal way. Of course there were what I perceived to be flaws in the service, things I didn't or couldn't understand or accept. But seeing the effect other people's faith has on them always makes me wish that I could have faith in something the way they do. For just the three hundred people in the church to believe so strongly in something that is impossible to prove is quite a mind boggling thought. There was a also a guest choir and orchestra and the choral music was just stunning, my favourite part of the service.
I'm still (loosely) agnostic and one mass or one beautiful church doesn't change any of that. But I just feel as though the point isn't whether a religion is real, or true, whether Jesus really did feed the thousands or cure the sick or befriend taxpayers. Whether he was the son of a vengeful and forgiving higher power. The point is that the three hundred people who entered the church worrying about their divorces, their debts, their drama and their damage, and left feeling comforted, reassured and newly capable. Isn't that a higher power in itself?

After mass we got completely lost which wasn't such a bad experience as it resulted in our finding the rose garden. However it also resulted in us caving to constant advertising and succumbing to the persuasion of McDonalds. I had been adamant to Jill that we weren't going to step inside one but when you're on a budget you really do realise how cheap it is in comparison to ANYTHING else. And tasty. Mmm.

Late afternoon saw a complete loss of energy and once again we took a siesta back at our hostel. On the way back however we'd found a restaurant near by called Zum 2 Lieberln (or something like that), which I remembered reading about on one of my many surfs of tripadvisor (IB escapism) as a cheap place with hearty portions of Austrian food. We returned there for what we thought was an early dinner - arriving at seven - but they were already out of schnitzel! And all pork, turkey, and beef in fact. There were only about three things on the menu we could have but they sounded interesting so we went for it - goulash with sausage, egg, and dumpling, and something called Hockharznockerl or Hockhacknockerl or something similar that was like bits of dough with bacon, onion, cheese, herbs...mmmmmmm. We also had a bottle of Riesling (Jillian said her Dad would approve) AND pancakes for dessert and still only spent 15 euros each. We did have to fight off some douchebags on a table nearby who were drunk, wearing lederhosen, and harassing Jill. This all got ruder and more disgusting until it got a bit much for me to put up with, and everyone else in the restaurant was noticing and looking like they might intervene, so employing the eyes of steel I inherited from my mother and the threatening voice I got from my father, I wiped the floor with them. They very quickly got up and left to the wide appreciation of the restaurant - there was practically a round of applause. It's funny how, for all the self-empowerment of the moment, I really just wished my Dad was there.

Vienna Day 2 and unfortunately Chris we didn't have enough time to go to Salzburg! Instead we began the day at Cafe Hawelka, one of Vienna's many beautiful and historic coffee houses and one that Jill's dad had recommended in particular. I had a delicious Hauskuchen which was cherry and we both had coffee. It was of course quite expensive but we paid for the lovely atmosphere, as well as old fashioned service from the waiters who were incredibly polite. The place is still very much a family owned cafe, and the hundred year old father of the current main guy (I guess the ex-main guy) was sat at a table with some tea at the front of the cafe, wearing a suit and bow tie, and continually dropping off. Japanese people wanted to take a picture with him...poor guy! The son came over to ask us how we were and if we were enjoying our time in Vienna - this is when we found out that his father was a hundred. Jillian said he was very well dressed for a centenarian to which the son replied, 'Ja, er ist ein eleganter Mann'. What a lovely way to describe your father.

Our second day also included our first experience with inner city public transport. The Viennese metro is easy to use as it only has six lines, despite being spread over a larger area than inner city London - why does London have so many lines actually?! In fact, why do tourists go to London at all? There doesn't seem to be anything of interest there in comparison to the cities we have been to so far.

EEEEEK I have eight minutes left of my hour...okay okay so we wanted to go on the ferris wheel on the outskirts of Vienna which is why we were on the metro. When we got there we found it was actually in a completely random sort of theme park? Called Prater. We ended up going on rides instead of the ferris wheel because they were cheaper, and one was a ferris wheel in itself just less grand and half the price. I say rides but they were really very tame as Jill point blank refused to go on anything. They looked terrifying as well - they made English theme parks look tame. We had a good time, and it was nice to be able to spend a bit of money on something like that now that our strict budgeting and wonderful parents have paid off and we are less worried about money.

We left Vienna very excited about Budapest as lots of people had told us it was their favourite European city! We bought sausages and apples for the short train ride and arrived yesterday evening.

A post about Budapest will have to come another time as I have four minutes left! We have had an INCREDIBLE time so far though and the weather is BEAUTIFUL.

Lots of love and wanderlust,
Abbey x