Fairy Tales

I'm currently being held hostage by my charging camera. I figured I should make good use of this time and write a little blog.

I'm convinced that Vienna is where fairy tales happen. It's just beautiful here. And pleasant. And lovely. And calm. And peaceful. Oh my gosh, I love it. How could you not? It's where all things lovely flourished - waltzing, big dresses, music, sparkly hair things, coffee, chocolate cake. The list goes on.

I wonder if any fair tales did take place here. I know Belle (Beauty & the Beast) is French, Ariel (Little Mermaid) clearly isn't from here, neither is Jasmine (Aladdin). Pocahontas is American (yeah!), Mulan is from China. Sorry, I don't mean to be listing all the disney princesses. . .Hmm. . . I'll look it up. If any princess was here, I would put my money on Cinderella. Nope, looked it up. Cinderella is supposedly from somewhere on the French/German border. But the source wasn't super reliable. And there are carriages and shoes and castles here. . . I'm going to do so more digging. (Not that you care, but I suddenly do).

Shoot, it was French. I so badly wanted it to be Austrian.

But do you know IS from Austria? The Sound of Music! And guess who is going on the Sound of Music tour tomorrow??? Me!!!! (I'm sure you'll hear more about that later).

But anyways, Vienna. Could it be more lovely? No. The answer is no.

I got here Saturday night and got Chinese food to go, ate it in the hostel and met some cool people including Julia, who will come up later, then I went to sleep. Exciting, I know.

That morning, I woke up and had breakfast. Not everyone knows this, but hostel breakfasts are an important moment when you're traveling alone. Especially in a hostel like this, which is really large. Why are hostel breakfasts important? Great question, let me tell you. Hostel breakfasts are important because they are when you can easily meet someone that you may be spending the rest of you day and/or stay with. You have to choose your breakfast table wisely. Look for someone who just started their meal (you don't want to be abandoned right away), preferably alone or in a group of two (not a couple, though), avoid big groups. Look for nice people. Yesterday I lucked out and sat with a cool guy named Jojo from Germany. Turned out we had the same plan for the day (go to the really big palace thing), so we planned to meet later that afternoon.

After breaky (that's what Aussies call it), I spent the morning exploring with Julia. Fun!

Then I met up with Jojo & his new friend Lim at the palace. And oh. my. gosh. If you're ever in Paris and considering going to Versailles, I implore you to take the exorbitant amount of money that you would spend there, buy a plane, fly to Vienna, and Schonbrunn. I cannot say enough good things about it. It's beautiful. The palace is beautiful. The gardens are beautiful. There's stuff to do. Oh my gosh. Hedge mazes and math games and gardens and hiking (ish) and palace exploring and strudel making shows and tastings and pole climbing and ducks and beauty and ball rooms and giant cheap pretzels and all things lovely. Can you tell I liked it? I could have spent all day there. Really! It was that good. And reasonably priced! I didn't feel like the nickle & dimed me (euro & euroed?). I actually found myself going, "Wow! All this for less than 20 euros?" Oh my gosh, I loved it. And as if that wasn't enough - there was a rainbow! Sometimes, things are perfect.

Then we came home, and I downloaded Lim's pictures. Here are two of them:

Lim's palace pic

Jojo, me, Lim

Then we went out to dinner, and I knocked all the Austrian food I wanted out in one night. Weinersnitchel? Check! Pancake thing that starts with a "K"? Check! It was awesome being there with Jojo because he speaks German (duh, he's from Germany). So he was able to translate everything for us and make recommendations. Hurray! It was like having a local who also like touristy things. Perfect.

me & Soey

Then today I started with running into a friend from Cal!!!!!!!! Randomly. I walked downstairs and saw a girl wearing a Cal sweatshirt, and I was like, "Do you go to Cal?" She looked confused, but the guy next to her started to say, "no, it's mine." But he only said, "No, it's - oh my gosh!" And I kinda screamed (sorry hostelmates). And we made a big scene of "What are you doing here????" "I'm traveling through, what are you doing here???" It was SO FUN seeing him. Especially so randomly. Then we had to split, because he was hitchiking to Budapest and wanted to get an early start, and I was headed towards the walking tour.

So we parted and I went on the walking tour and learned some history, which is always cool. Then a group of us went to a really, really old coffee house, which was super fun. Love coffee! And it's a whole culture thing here. Then I hung out with Julia as she did souvenir shopping (I feel like I should warn you all now that I'm not bringing home gifts. I'm sorry! Can we all pretend the post cards were gifts?? Saving an expensive country for the last stop was a bad move on my part). Then I hung out with her for a bit more before she left for the airport, then I came on here and wrote this blog. Look at that, you're all caught up!

In case you forgot what I look like, here's a picture Lim took.

Hopefully that lasts you 'till Thursday when I get home. 

But until then, here's my game plan: emails, Chinese food, night wandering, sleep, wake up early, Salzburg (on the other side of the country), SOUND OF MUSIC, train across the country again, sleep, wake up, rent bike, explore gardens & river, sleep, CA. 

Love you all.