Well it was our first day exploring Vienna :) We woke up pretty early and
showered and then headed down to breakfast. Breakfast is not included but it is
all you can eat for 3.9Euro which is not that expensive. Especially because we
are only paying 22Euro a night.

The best part of breakfast is the coffee/espresso machine. You honestly just
put your cup under it and choose from about 10 different things! It is awesome,
and I would truly love one for my apartment :)

A woman from Japan joined us at breakfast. She has been traveling for her 7
month! Started in Tokyo then to Australia through New Zealand over to South
America and then up through Central America and now finishing the last 2 months
through Europe. She had the craziest stories. She is about 30 years old and is
traveling by herself and not planning a thing. I totally could not do that, but
she definitely had the perfect personality for it. Being very outgoing and laid
back.

After breakfast we decided to head out to Schönbrunn Palace. This was the
Imperial Palace of Emperior Joseph Franz (or Franz Joseph) I can't recall.
Anyways, now it is divided into a thousand different things including the zoo
which is Europe's oldest. It was definitely something Meredith and I wanted to
see. And last night we had found a coupon for 1Euro off the little car/train
that will take you all over the grounds. So that is what we planned on doing.

First we had to buy the tram and metro pass for Vienna. And we bought the 48
hour pass for 10Euro, which is really cheap. After yesterday Meredith and I are
definitely going to make sure we have the correct tickets for public
transportation :)

Anyways, it was really easy to get to the Palace. And then we found the
car/train. The whole thing kinda reminded me of the Saginaw Zoo and the little
train that takes you through those grounds. I also need to point out that
Meredith and I were the youngest people on the train by about 40 years. We were
probably capable of walking the grounds, but we were on a time crunch for the
day. And this seemed like the perfect way to see everything and quickly.

The train is set up so you can get on and off and different stops. So we got
off at the Greenhouses. This is one of the attractions that we were going to
enter. But once we got there and peaked on the inside, it seems as though the
outside is actually prettier. So we opted not to go in, and then we walked up
to the Zoo.

I am not really a zoo person, entrance was expensive and we didn't have much
time. So that is why we didn't go in. But they had giraffes and a polar bear
:) We had about 20 minutes before the next train came around, so we just sat
down the bunches and people watched. It was so cute to see all the families and
little kids going in. Because you could tell the kids were SO excited!

The train eventually came to pick us up and we were off. The good part about
the train is that it also included a little guided tour. Except that it was in
5 different languages. So it was say one sentence in German, and then in
English, and then in French, and then in Spanish and then in Italian. So that
got a little old. The train took us up to a look out over the whole city of
Vienna. Which was absolutely gorgeous, it really reminded me of Greenwich.

The entire train ride was a little over an hour, and then we decided to head off
to the city to see the main churches and attractions Vienna has to offer. So we
jumped on the metro and headed towards the Ring Road. The Ring Road is the path
that goes around the center of the city where you can see the main attractions
including Hofburg palace and Parliament.

The thing to know about Vienna metro stations is that they are about 30 feet
under ground, so lots of escalators and have about 10 different street exits.
We couldn't find the exact road that it told us, so we just went up a random
exit, and found ourselves looking at the Opera house (which Budapest's is much
more impressive) ... We also couldn't locate ourselves on the map, but we could
see a huge church tower... So headed in that direction.

We found ourselves at St. Stephen's Cathedral. Which we were warned is almost
always under construction, so of course it was. This trip we have ran into a
lot of the scaffolding that is covered to look like the building and blend in,
but at the same time you can tell is scaffolding. Which is disappointing, but
better than white dry board I guess. The most impressive part of the church is
the roof. That like Budapest's castle is designed with different colors to make
larger pictures of armor shields and crests.

We then walked around the city looking at some of the other older churches.
Meredith and I both agree that churches are great, but currently we are churched
out. They are all starting to look the same, and although pretty, are just
getting to be too much for us. We are both dying to do something beyond the
normal "sightseeing"

A little frustrated that we couldn't figure out where Hofburg palace was located
we decided to sit down at a Starbucks and relax for a while. We then got out
bearings and realized that we were so close to the palace!

One minor detail that Meredith and I didn't catch when reading our books about
Vienna is the fact that the Hofburg Palace is now divided up into the Spanish
Riding School, the VIenna Boys' Choir, the National Library, seven museums, the
butterfly house, the president's office and a conference center.... So we were
actually staring at it the whole time and just didn't know it. We actually even
saw the Spanish horses being taken out while at Starbucks.

We walked around the Hofburg Palace just amazed that we couldn't seem to find
it. Cause it is honestly HUGE. We were both feeling hungry and tired, it was
about 4pm. So we decided that we would take the tram around Ring Road to at
least see everything else, versus walking it all. So we jumped on tram 1, that
was supposed to just go in a circle... key word "suppose"

Well at first we were on the right track, we saw Parliament, City Hall, Burg
Theater and Votiv Church... so Meredith and I felt really comfortable. Then we
started going out into the rural areas and even crossed the river (which is at
the northeast side of the city) ... But Meredith and I kept telling ourselves
"don't worry it makes a circle" .... yeah not the case.

Meredith started talking about the time we were in Budapest and all of a sudden
the bus came to the end and everyone got off. And we thought we had one more
stop to go. So we were really confused. Well it turned out we were at the
right stop on the bus, but she was just making jokes about us always dead ending
on public transportation...

and right after she finished that story what does our tram do? well naturally
it came to a dead end and everyone got off....

Totally thinking we were on a circle route, Meredith and I were so confused. So
we got off the tram (after it took us about 3 minutes to figure out how to open
the door) ... and pulled out a map.

A man then approached us and asked if he could help us and we told him where we
were trying to go... he then told us "oh, you can just come with me"

I know this is the part of my blog that everyone (especially my dad) is freaking
out, because this man just told Meredith and I to come with him... haha but
don't freak out, because he was the driver of the tram! :D

He told Meredith and I the exact stop to get off at ... Feeling totally dumb
that we ended up about 2 miles outside the city at a park Meredith and I just
sat until the tram left... Right before the stop that we were told to get off at
the driver was totally looking at Meredith and I pointing to the stop name just
to make sure we got off at the right one... haha, and then after we got off the
tram he pointed down the road in the direction we wanted to head! He was so
nice, and this is the main reason I love Vienna... nice people!

We headed down a couple of blocks and then saw the "U" sign, indicating the
underground. We jumped on and headed to Westbohn ... the station closest to our
hostel.

By this time we were both dyinggggg to go to the bathroom! We had to go for
about the past 3 hours, but in Europe there are no public toilets and you have
to pay about a Euro to use the bathroom... That was totally not going to
happen... So we waited till we got back to our hostel.

I don't think I really described the hostel in my blog yesterday. So I will
right now. It is very nice, and it is set up more like a hotel again. Except
that we don't have a private room like in Paris. Okay so on the main floor
there is the reception, a pool table, a tv room with couches, a kitchen to cook
your own food, a big room with tables (where breakfast is served) and a big
mattress room with pillows to just hang out. There is a whole wall that is full
of printed brochures and cool things to do around Vienna, and then downstairs
there is the bar. Which has another pool table, a fools ball table and a big
projection TV.

Our room is six bunks and one bathroom. We are on the first floor (which would
technically be considered the second floor in the states) ... The call ground
level E for even I think and then count up from there... Meredith and I learned
this the hard way went we spent 20 minutes looking for our room in Paris that
was on the "first" floor.

Anyways last night in the room it was Ryan from Sydney Autralia, Ritz for
Frankfurt Germany, and Sunny from Korea (and Meredith and I of course) ...

Okay back to today ... Meredith and I got up to our room and Ryan was the only
one here. He was cleaning out his pack and getting ready to do some laundry.
If no one was in the room Meredith and I probably would have napped, knowing
us... but instead we decided to go to the market and get stuff to cook dinner.

That is the other great thing about this hostel, is that there are 3 grocery
stores all within the same block. We went to Penny Mart and bought some
gnocchi, pasta sauce, bread and frozen vegetables. Everything together was
5Euro, which meant that Meredith and I were eating dinner of 2.5Euro which was
awesome!

This was the first hostel that Meredith and I used the kitchen. The only one
that offered it was Florence, but they always cooked us pasta at 6:30pm that we
never felt the need to cook for ourselves. Everything was really easy to cook,
so we cooked, ate and cleaned up.

I then decided to go upstairs and blog and Meredith stayed downstairs to use the
computer. When I got upstairs we had a new roommate, Laura from Nebraska. She
was traveling by herself and going on her 5th month being overseas and 2 month
just traveling. She is 20 and was studying abroad in Berlin and now just
traveling for the summer.

We all just sat around and talked. Right as Meredith and I worked up the
motivation to head to the Haus deer Musik museum it started raining. So that no
longer was happening.

We all just hung out and talked. We then went down to the bar, watched the FIFA
highlights and got our free welcome drink... (when you check in they give you a
voucher for a free welcome drink at the bar... which is like a flute of beer,
but free never the less)

It has been pretty exciting being over here for FIFA, because it is such a huge
deal! Completely not the case in the States. But the televisions are on 24-7
and always just on the games.

After watching the highlights Meredith and I decided to head to bed...

Tomorrow we are hoping to the that Blind exhibit and possibly head to the large
Ferris Wheel!
-brooke.