Day 4: Sunny Days in Vienna

11 am:
Last night was super! Yes i still use the word super. The bar at the hostel is great. Met some neat people but unfortunately alcohol has caused me to forget all their names. Went down to the bar at six for happy hour (which is misleading because happy hour actually lasted 3 hours). You can't go wrong with 1 euro beers. Met up with my german roommate. He wasn't the greatest guy to go to a bar with. He seemed really nice but he was very quiet and shy and dare i say socially awkward. Plus he didn't know much English so it took so much work to get him to talk (AND he ordered stew at the bar!?! First off, who does that? Secondly and more importantly, why is there stew at the bar? It was a bizarre series of events). So needliess to say as soon as some english-speaking people came to the bar, I ditched him (felt kinda bad but at least he got a good stew). Met a couple from S. Carolina and a hilarious guy from New Zealand who's dream it is to drive tractors in Canada. We made good use of our happy "hours". Along with 1 euro beers, the other drink special was Fizzy Vodka. We ordered one each and it turned out to be a shot of vodka followed by a shot of jello powder (ridiculous...reminded me of my botched attempt at Jello shooters at the cottage one year). Our bartender was absolutely amazing. He was super french, super flamboyant, and super awesome. And he gave me a bunch of drinks for free so he's good in my books. Later in the night we played Name That Tune at the bar which i was terrible at since i know hardly any songs and my reaction time was quite slow after all the drinks. But the guy from New Zealand was awesome at it and kept getting the songs right. Eventually, he couldn't handle any more free shots so he gave me the ones he was winning. It was definitely good times and I definitely slept well that night. Does the fact that I didn't leave a bar stool once from 6 pm to 3 am make me an alcoholic?? I don't know nor do i care. All i know is that next time i party back home we're doing Fizzy Vodka shots.

I checked out of my room an hour ago but I can use the hostel for anything until i need to leave. Breakfast here was awesome and I was definitely hungry. Nutella was consumed in epic proportions. I should just travel with it on an I.V. I am sufficiently satiated and am ready for some more sight seeing. It looks gorgeous outside (i secretly hope its raining back home). If i dont come back with a tan i'll be sufficiently disgruntled.

7:00 pm:
Had a sweet day. Walked to the flea market (on the way i stopped for 15 minutes to listen to a polka band equipped with leiderhosen and everything). the market was full of crap but it was still a cool experience. I made the mistake of wearing grey today and it was sooooo hot. i was sweating buckets. I literally had sweat dripping down my body. I took the metro to Prater Park and explored the park and the fairgrounds attached to it. Then went to the Danube river and met some people from Brazil. Hung out with them for a bit by the water and we walked along the boarwalk. It's lined with bars and water trampolines, dance areas, etc. It would probably be an awesome place to hang out on summer nights (vienna's version of the jersey shore).

Later in the afternoon I went to Schonbruun Palace. It was awesome. Of course you have to pay ridiculous prices to go inside so i just walked around the courtyard and the gardens instead. i had a really cool experience there. As i was walking out of the Palace into the Palace grounds in the back the have a huge hill with a buildling similar to a long Arc de Triomphe on top. It looks awesome looking up at it from below. Just as I saw it and was taking in its grandeur, an orchestra starting playing the theme song from Star Wars and it was blasting on all the speakers around the grounds. The epic music plus the views actually gave me goosebumps. i walked all the way up the hill (in my grey shirt which was basically a sponge by the time i got up there) and got some epic views of Vienna and the Palace below. They also have a rose garden and a zoo on the Palace grounds.

My guidebook recommended that I try Mafioso pizza (the best in Vienna) so i got some. It was pretty delicious but nothing compares to the heavenly pizza i had in naples last year. Vienna is by far the coffee capital of Europe, it runs through their veins. Alas, even here, I can't find a coffee that I actually like. Although it doesn't help that everything here is ridiculously strong. My train leaves in an hour so I'm heading over to the station now. Vienna was definitely a great city but I don't think it'll make my list of places i would want to return to.

9:00 pm:
On the train at last (it was delayed almost an hour). I'm due to arrive in Salzburg after midnight and then get on another train to Ljubljana at 1:30 am. My sleep pattern is gonna get messed up again because I paranoid of falling asleep on trains in case i sleep past my stop and end up somewhere in Russia or something. The kid three seats in front of me is driving me crazy. There should be a special train for children so no one else has to deal with them. I have become quite the jaded traveler lately. My patience for obnoxious/stupid/rude people has been running thin. But if countless years on the gem that is the LTC has taught me anything, it's that these type of people are to be expected on public transport. Anyway, excited for Slovenia tomorrow but i bit nervous since i heard no one speaks english there.