I arrived in Vienna at night with directions of how to get to my hostel. I followed the directions to my best ability for two full hours, hopping from one incorrect tram to another. Finally, exhausted and realizing that every tram I took brought me further from where I needed to go, I stepped into a taxi and took it to my hostel. I checked in and introduced myself to my roommate, who was from Washington and completely uninterested in talking. I noticed he had a nasty cough, and made a mental note to wash my hands every time I touched the doorknob (spoiler alert: I developed tonsillitis the next week).

The next morning I headed out to see a free Christmas concert at the Rathaus (city hall). Two people sat down next to me on the U-Bahn, and one of them seemed to have an accent from the San Fernando Valley. When we got off the train I asked, "are you from Los Angeles?" It turned out he was from Minnesota (I was way off!) and she was from Australia. They had just met at their hostel the night before, and were headed to the same concert as me. We had a nice chat and decided to hang out through the concert. After an hour or so, we were bored to tears and moved on to the Christmas market.

We realized then that we had never exchanged names, and they introduced themselves as Brittni and Haian. I asked what they were up to later, and they said they hadn't found anything to do yet. I invited them to join me at a party I had found on couchsurfing.com. The host was housesitting, and throwing a big Christmas Eve party for travelers. They agreed to join me, but we had a couple of hours to kill before going out there. We walked around the Christmas market and even tried our hand at some offensively poor caroling before heading out to the party.

On the bus to the party we met a couple who was headed to the same party. We asked where they were from, and discovered that Haian had a mutual friend with the woman we just met! The circumstances were bizarre, that I met him randomly on a train in Austria and invited him to a party, on the way to which we would meet another random partygoer with whom he has a dear mutual friend. I guess it really is a small world after all. We arrived as a group and the host welcomed us. The host is from Alaska and was housesitting this beautiful place in Vienna, so she decided to throw a Christmas party! She invited us to decorate the tree as more people trickled in.

Soon there were a hundred people at the party, and we ate a wonderful potluck dinner. There was plenty of alcohol too and people were drinking heavily, but I just had a small glass of wine. The party was fun, but as the evening went on and more alcohol was consumed, the men got a little too clingy for my taste. When I found myself surrounded by a circle of men assuaging me with personal questions, I ducked out and kept close to Haian. I noticed the same thing happening to Brittni, so I went over and asked if she was okay. She said she was ready to leave, as was I. we thanked the hostess and I said goodbye to Nadhir from Tunisia, whom I made plans to see again in a couple of days. We headed out despite the desperate persuasion of a dozen men to stay, and I made it back to the hostel by 1am.

At 4am, the rest of my roommates drunkenly stumbled in, flipping on the lights as they entered and talking in exaggeratedly loud slurs. When I rolled over and rubbed my eyes, the sick guy from Washington hushed them. Ten minutes later I had almost slipped back into sleep when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned back over and looked up at my new roommate. "I just wanted to say sorry for waking you up," he said. "Grrrawrr," I answered.

The next day I met Brittni, Haian, and their hostel-mate Troy for Christmas lunch. All of the restaurants and grocery stores were closed because it was Christmas Day, so we each brought the few groceries we had. We combined them to make arugula-sauerkraut-fish stick-cheese-spaghetti and mimosas, which turned out to be tastier than it sounds. Haian headed to the train station to move on to the next city, while Brittni and I took a long walk around town. She pointed out the places she had seen already that I hadn't, and we enjoyed hot punch at the Christmas market before it got dark and we parted ways.

Back at the hostel I skyped with Dalya, one of my best friends back home. Distractedly, I managed to lock all my keys in my locker. At the front desk they had a humongous pair of metal cutters, and I hacked my lock to bits to get back to my stuff. I face-timed my parents too, and felt a bit homesick as I drifted off to sleep that night. At 6am, I was awakened by a light in my face and a tap on my shoulder. I blinked my eyes open to look at the same guy who had woken me up the night before. He held my jacket and scarf, which I had hung on the coat rack the night before, in his hands. "Is this yours?" He asked. "Yes, but what... Why... Ungghhhrawrr," I replied articulately.

I spent the entirety of the next day walking around Mumok, Vienna's Museum of Modern Art. Although I much enjoy art, I don't often attend museums of modern art because they're largely out of my budget and every metropolis has one. Haian had raved about Mumok being one of the best museums he's ever seen though, and he had been to the most famous museums in the city. It turned out he was right; the museum was entirely different than any other I had attended. What made this museum so spectacular was its self-criticism, as it evoked the question of what makes something worthy of placement in a museum. It combined the forces of art, history, and politics to highlight the concept that in order to appeal to the public, museum exhibits must isolate and focus in on an "other." Only by creating an other may we comfortably reflect on ourselves. The exhibits that came together to make this point revolved around folk art, feminism, gentrification, and the AIDS crisis of the 80's. I enjoyed the museum until closing time at 7pm, at which point the few of us who remained we were unceremoniously hustled out.

The next morning I was walking down the hallway of the hostel when I ate s*** (spoiler alert: this was the first of three full falls that week. Read my next blog entry for more SPLAT-downs). Apparently "slippery when wet" signs are not as fashionable in Vienna as gigantic bruises. Cool. In moderate pain, I hobbled over toward the city center. There I met with Nadhir (from the Christmas party), his friend Omer (also from Tunisia), and a woman named Susan from Canada whom they had met at their hostel. I downloaded a map of the major tourist sites in Vienna, and we explored many of them. We had the best time joking around, sharing our travel stories, sightseeing and enjoying local cuisine. When Susan and I went to the bathroom, we were treated to a book on tape that told us, "Our s*** is the key to our eternity and salvation, and every time we flush, we waste it by allowing it to slip away forever." After dinner at a local brewery we went back to their hostel for a few drinks. I used the wifi at the hostel to book a blablacar out for next day to Budapest!