Greetings earthlings..

I'm here to tell you all about my time in Vienna, and why it is my favourite city on my travels so far :)

I arrived to Vienna airport just before 10pm on Thursday night. Once again I got to the airport using mitfahrgelegenheit, my new boyfriend. I'll start with the airline, NIKI which is a partner of Air Berlin for those of you playing along at home. It was the greatest budget airline ever! For those of you who have ever traveled with some crappy budget airline that tries to squeeze every last dollar out of you, you know that the plane is s*** and you don't get any food. But on THIS airline, the plane was brand new, extremely comfortable and we got a free sanga and soft drink! I was cheering. Now for Vienna itself..

The night I arrived I made my way to the hostel which was in a dodgy little back street somewhere in Vienna. The hostel was cozy and homely, I got a locker with a key and the bed was clean and had the SOFTEST blanket ever. I got there pretty late so decided to have a couple of beers and read the maps to figure out where I was going the next day. I got to talking to a french guy named Armand. Which sounded a lot like Elmo, so I proceeded to address him as 'Elmo' for the remainder of my stay. Elmo was busy working on something important for an interview..or something, I wasn't really listening. So I left him to it and we agreed to meet up the next night for some partying.

On Friday I woke up pretty early after a crappy sleep thanks to some noisy Americans, and enjoyed a cheap but fulfilling breakfast at the hostel. I decided to go out and see the Schoenbrunn Palace, Museums Quartier and Hofburg. The Schoenbrunn is surrounded by immaculate, beautiful gardens that you could quite easily spend hours getting lost in. And that's exactly what I did, wandered aimlessly taking it all in because it was just magnificent! I did say Paris was my favourite city but Vienna has blown that out of the water. It's so untouched and detailed, and not to mention the space allows you to be free from other tourists and go your own way. The Museums Quartier and Hofburg were among the most beautiful buildings I've seen so far, and I've seen a few! It amazes me to think these buildings are still standing and still so beautiful after all these years. There's so much history behind them too, which makes it even better. Somewhere in between Hofburg and another random Cathedral of sorts, I realised I lost my phone! No big deal, it's only an $800 phone that I paid for out right! I immediately re traced my steps, running through Vienna like a headless chook trying to remember where I might have had it last. But alas, I couldn't find it. Either it fell out of my pocket or I was the victim of a very sneaky pick pocketer! Worse things could have happened though, so I'm grateful about that.

I made my way back to the hostel at around 4pm and tried to have a quick nap, before rising for a shower and outfit change and making my way down stairs to the bar. I got to talking to the well travelled bartender about all his adventures. There's nothing better than hearing about someone else's crazy experiences, especially in countries you've never even heard of. Then Elmo turned up not long after and announced he was going to have a 'quick nap,' but to wake him when we wanted to go out. By we he meant me I guess, but I invited myself to join in a table in the bar and they were playing some weird dice game that I really sucked at, but it was entertaining none the less. They were all guys who had been living in Vienna for some time, not sure why they were at the hostel but anyhow, I thought they'd be able to take us to some really cool places! WRONG. I tried to wake Elmo up when we left, but he was completely dead to the world so I just left him there. Haha, sorry Elmo. Anyway these guys had NO IDEA where they were going! We went to a couple of random places which were not happening at ALL, including one called '25/8' which would suggest that it was open all the time. Wrong again. Anyway so we ended up at an Irish bar and by this stage it was so late, I was so tired, and I'm like DUDE I've been to Ireland twice already, I definitely don't need to be here. So I just left back to the hostel and decided to get some sleep before more sight seeing the next day.

Saturday my morning started pretty well the same way it did on the Friday, early wake up and some breakfast. I waited a bit for Elmo because he said he wanted to do some sight seeing with me, but he didn't show up so I went off by myself again. It's nice to travel by yourslef, you never know what's going to happen and you don't have to answer to anybody :) I went to go and see the Belvedere Palace, and it was magnificent. Set at the top of a really nice lake and surrounded by pristine gardens. The weather was s*** but what can you do! I paid to go inside and although I'm not a huge art buff, I couldn't help but appreciate the immaculate interior decorations and the hundreds of artworks on display. It was so beautiful! I spent a couple of hours here and then I kind of almost, ok no well COMPLETELY got lost haha. Stupid weird Austrian tram lines. Anyway I wanted to go to the most famous restaurant in Vienna, the Figlmüller, which is home to the famous Austrian Weiner Schnitzel. It took me FOREVER to find it, I was standing in the middle of the old town square with a map held at arms length, like a complete dickhead trying to a) find the restaurant and b) brush off losers who kept trying to sell me crap I didn't want. Anywho so I FINALLY found it and it was full! Both of them! The waiter told me to come back in half an hour, but I was tired, sick and SO hungry, as I'd been starving myself all day for it. I just ended up settling for some other random little restaurant which was a lot quieter and had one of their schnitzels, which was still delicious. And reminded me of my weekly $5 Snitty at the Royal ritual back home. Note to self; next time you go to Vienna, book ahead for the Figlmüller! After a very late lunch I went back to the hostel for another quick cat nap.

When I woke up from my aforementioned nap, the girl above my bed asked me if I was doing anything that night. It was later revealed that her name was Louise and she comes from Sweden. So I invited her down to the bar with me and we met with Elmo, and Patrick from the night before, some random British guy called Scotty and a few thirsty Americans joined in for a round of King of Beers before we hit the town. Scotty introduced me to the best rule I've heard so far, and great for travelling; the national anthem card. Needless to say when you pick the card you stand up and belt out your national anthem as patriotically as humanly possible. It was a great laugh.

Elmo then lead the way to a place called Chelsea's, which was an alternative music club. On the way I decided I was starving so I picked up 2 massive slices of pizza and a huge beer for 4 euro 40 or something. SO cheap and so delicious. You really can't go wrong. This club was so crap when we got there! There was nobody dancing (except me and Louise haha) and the music sucked. We wanted to leave but Elmo urged us to stay to see how the night panned out. So glad we did! The music was the best I've heard in AGES! Green day, the Offspring, Tenacious D, the Kooks etc. So much fun! Apart from the fact this club was full of creeps galore. At one point I was sitting next to the British guy but not too close, cos he was chatting up a German girl from our group and I wanna let a man do his thang. And there was a guy sitting across from me at the table who was really old and gross and kept giving me the creepy eye. And he tried to talk to me and I straight away said 'I don't want to talk to you I have a boyfriend.' So he dropped it for a bit but then he started edging his chair around the table... closer.. I moved my chair closer to the British guy... the creep moved his chair closer still... UNTIL he invaded my personal space SO much so that I bumped into my British friend, who proceeded to turn straight to this loser and say 'MATE. She told you she isn't interested, she has a f**king boyfriend, now beat it!' Ahh fending off sleaze bags for me. British Scotty you are my hero <3 As if THAT wasn't bad enough, when I went back to the dancefloor and was dancing with the whole group, there was a DIFFERENT guy over the shoulder of Patrick giving me the creepy eye. Dead set, he had to be at least 50! So I moved out of his line of vision and he moved back INTO it! This happened a few more times until eventually I decided I'd had enough of this cool, but weird club and left. I took myself home, got some delicious 3am noodles on the way and ate them all up at the hostel.

Sunday I woke up sick as a dog, so I just went to the chemist to get some nasal spray and hung out with Louise and Elmo at the hostel until it was time for my airport bus transfer. On the way to the bus stop I got some lunch, but I couldn't finish it all so I gave it to a homeless person. Much better than giving money I think :)

I got to the aiport about an hour before my flight was due to leave, and I was freaking the hell out because a) I read the wrong flight info and b) my check in was in a completely different area of the airport! After finally asking for help and realising this, I RAN as fast as I could with 7 kilos on my back and a hand bag weighing me down. Got to the right check in gates and tried to use the self service check in, which I've recently become a huge fan of. When that didn't work I ran to a real person check in, got a boarding pass and then, you guessed it, ran to my gate. I honestly thought it would be closed, but I had about 5 minutes to spare luckily. Made it back to Frankfurt, took the train to the main station and got a lift with mitfahrgelegenheit back to Saarbruecken, about half an hour from where I live. Both of my mitfahrgelegenheit drivers and the other passengers could speak English, but I made sure we spoke German and they said for 3 months in my German is really good! So that just motivates me to keep learning :)

And so, another trip is finished. Vienna, I loved you! In terms of creepy guy to single white female ratio, I wasn't your biggest fan. But your beauty and history captivated me and I would definitely visit you again <3 As for my next trip, I've booked flights to Bulgaria for Easter, just for something different! So I hope it's a trip worth remembering

Adios for now,

Kate