Vienna
December 22nd 2006 10:28
Vienna, the birthplace of Amadeus Mozart and the country where Beethoven composed many of his symphonies, is a cultural smorgas board. Though to see the real Vienna really requires that you have the cash to see it. Freud's house is in Vienna, though the infamous couch is no longer there, it’s encased in glass in a museum somewhere in England I think.
Vienna - is a strange, strange place. I found it difficult to adjust to an entirely different culture. Having lived like kings for the past 5 days on relatively little money, we struggled at first to adjust our lavish lifestyles. Those planning to travel to Vienna should prepare to live on instant pasta for the duration of your stay. Vienna is SO expensive, we couldn’t even afford a Vienna Schnitzel
We found that the people of Vienna were also semi - strange. (Insert French accent). Like the typical westerners we are/were, we assumed, given that most Austrians speak German (or a very similar dialect), that they would be much the same as Germans: We were very wrong. The men so sleazy - it's crazy! The entire time I was there I was on guard. Something was definitely a little off. I can't work out whether Vienna is quite conservative (though obviously not without its double standards), or whether we were being oversensitive. The fact that I got mistaken for a prostitute tonight might have had something to do with it!
So, the story goes, Caz and Claire were walking along the beautiful streets of Vienna trying to find a cheap meal to ease our aching bellies. An old fat man of about 50-60 years of age approaches Claire and Caz, and asks Claire: “What do you do?” Claire, (not thinking he was referring to various sexual acts) replies “I am a student”. He asks “do you have time for me?” Claire the bumbling idiot, frozen from the shock and embarrassment reels away muttering no, no no no, NO”.. and runs as fast as she can in the other direction. Caz, obviously is still basking in the glory of this awful tale... . Claire's plight is of NO interest to Caz at all and much mockery and laughter has ensued. Why does this always happen to me? (During our holiday vacation to Byron Bay, Claire and Caz were asked to feature in a “members only website” . We were asked to pose in “naturalistic amateur porn”, as well as being asked to model in Brazilian bikinis the very same day by a different person!). What part of me looks like trouble? °CRY° It's not fair!!!!!
Vienna was much more cosmopolitan than we were expecting. Though the place is gorgeous and the weather perfect, the city is filled with high-rise buildings and expensive shopping, restaurants and cafes. Neon lights and detailed shop fronts line the streets. I was hoping to catch some opera while I was there, but it was too expensive... We weren’t able to see the Vienna Boys Choir either which was disappointing. I think Vienna is a city for married couples, a great place to celebrate a 25th wedding anniversary. Had we had our time again, I doubt we would have included Vienna on our itinerary. It is not a city for young people.
Vienna is supposedly the home of artists and writers, philosophers even who spent many hours lingering in coffee shops and creating their masterworks... Most of the cafes originally designed for day long pondering, now have a massive surcharge and are hugely expensive. Also they tend to be visited by the cities most pretentious. We failed to recognize the “artists haven” that our tour books spoke of.
We stayed at the Wombat hostel – (The Lounge) which was nice, spacious, and clean. Though I recommend you stay on the lower floors. We were put up on the top floor, a renovated room in the roof that sleeps eight. None of the rooms have air conditioning and when it’s close to 40 degrees day and night, you do not want to be on the top floor. In the middle of summer, we found the heat became quite uncomfortable. With no breeze at all of which to speak of, it remained 38 degrees Celsius the entire night. The showers in that place were heaven.
We did not meet many people during our stay in Vienna (at least not very interesting ones); a few hostile Americans, a boring Canadian, an intense Irishman, and some fairly average pommy girls that didn’t shower.... There was a crazy Nigerian guy at reception that kept hitting on us as well. Most people traveled in groups, and the structure of the hostel is not very conducive to socializing and meeting new people. Vienna really is hella weird... we both felt very much under the microscope the entire time. We’ve talked about it a lot and we still have drawn no conclusions about the people of Vienna. We asked locals and the people at our hostel whether Vienna was a conservative city, and all answers were to the contrary so we have no idea what was going on there.
Vienna is beautiful but was one of the quieter cities of our travels... there is not a hell of a lot going on, and I am still confused about the culture... I think maybe we stayed in a dodgy area, the men were very aggressive, or dominant, and sleazy... there was a lot of testosterone flying around.
The architecture in Vienna is something else... we visited some cathedral to watch an opera film as part of a film festival that was on during our stay. Films were being shown all over the city. I assumed the film was in German... though that may not have been the case necessarily. The lights of the castle were lit up as we watched under the stars... the weather had cooled down (finally), and it was perfect... I am still kicking myself for forgetting my camera!
The hop on - hop off bus tour was great! I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to see as much of the city in the smallest amount of time. We pretty much saw everything, including the Hoppsburg Palace, and the massive Ferris wheel. The older parts of the city were still my favourite - St Stephens Cathedral is truly magnificent.
The older parts of the city tend to contain the types of people you would expect to come across in Vienna. The older Austrian people especially were very kind, and helpful and extremely generous. Many leant us their expert directions and telling us best ways to get around... I don't quite know what has happened to make the other areas so different - kids these days!!!
We found ourselves at the bottom of a bottle of Yeigermeister on our last night in Vienna. Bored of going to bed early due to lack of 'scene' in Vienna, Caz and Claire decided to get out of bed and blow their budgets at the downstairs bar.... Caz danced with two VERY hot Aussies, Claire got taught how to Salsa (including the sexy leg up over hip bit from dirty dancing, in fact the whole thing was a scene out of dirty dancing, except in the place of Patrick Swayze was the crazy Nigerian/Austrian guy from reception) and destroyed her ankle in the process. Getting out of bed and to the airport the next day was a struggle (to say the least). Vienna is hugely expensive but we really couldn’t seem to help ourselves... we were young and free and bored…
We came up with The Seven Dwarf names for the people who were staying in our room:
Illie: - A sick Canadian complaining of a migraine that did not leave the hostel the entire time we were there.
Smelly: - A strange Irishman that doesn't believe in flushing - at all! He kept leaving us little (or not so little) presents every day for other people to clean up and flush down. Urggh So many kinds of wrong!
Fitty: - This gorgeous Welshman that looked like Henri the French Footballer.
Aussie: (Claire and Caz )
Pommy: - one of the British girls,
Doc: - The other British girl who played doc and dopey in her high school play and insisted she be Doc.... fair call.
So yeah, don’t have much to say about Vienna. I wasn’t particularly impressed. You could do the whole city in a day. I wouldn’t recommend it to young people, though aspiring architects should definitely make a visit.
Vienna - is a strange, strange place. I found it difficult to adjust to an entirely different culture. Having lived like kings for the past 5 days on relatively little money, we struggled at first to adjust our lavish lifestyles. Those planning to travel to Vienna should prepare to live on instant pasta for the duration of your stay. Vienna is SO expensive, we couldn’t even afford a Vienna Schnitzel
We found that the people of Vienna were also semi - strange. (Insert French accent). Like the typical westerners we are/were, we assumed, given that most Austrians speak German (or a very similar dialect), that they would be much the same as Germans: We were very wrong. The men so sleazy - it's crazy! The entire time I was there I was on guard. Something was definitely a little off. I can't work out whether Vienna is quite conservative (though obviously not without its double standards), or whether we were being oversensitive. The fact that I got mistaken for a prostitute tonight might have had something to do with it!
So, the story goes, Caz and Claire were walking along the beautiful streets of Vienna trying to find a cheap meal to ease our aching bellies. An old fat man of about 50-60 years of age approaches Claire and Caz, and asks Claire: “What do you do?” Claire, (not thinking he was referring to various sexual acts) replies “I am a student”. He asks “do you have time for me?” Claire the bumbling idiot, frozen from the shock and embarrassment reels away muttering no, no no no, NO”.. and runs as fast as she can in the other direction. Caz, obviously is still basking in the glory of this awful tale... . Claire's plight is of NO interest to Caz at all and much mockery and laughter has ensued. Why does this always happen to me? (During our holiday vacation to Byron Bay, Claire and Caz were asked to feature in a “members only website” . We were asked to pose in “naturalistic amateur porn”, as well as being asked to model in Brazilian bikinis the very same day by a different person!). What part of me looks like trouble? °CRY° It's not fair!!!!!
Vienna was much more cosmopolitan than we were expecting. Though the place is gorgeous and the weather perfect, the city is filled with high-rise buildings and expensive shopping, restaurants and cafes. Neon lights and detailed shop fronts line the streets. I was hoping to catch some opera while I was there, but it was too expensive... We weren’t able to see the Vienna Boys Choir either which was disappointing. I think Vienna is a city for married couples, a great place to celebrate a 25th wedding anniversary. Had we had our time again, I doubt we would have included Vienna on our itinerary. It is not a city for young people.
Vienna is supposedly the home of artists and writers, philosophers even who spent many hours lingering in coffee shops and creating their masterworks... Most of the cafes originally designed for day long pondering, now have a massive surcharge and are hugely expensive. Also they tend to be visited by the cities most pretentious. We failed to recognize the “artists haven” that our tour books spoke of.
We stayed at the Wombat hostel – (The Lounge) which was nice, spacious, and clean. Though I recommend you stay on the lower floors. We were put up on the top floor, a renovated room in the roof that sleeps eight. None of the rooms have air conditioning and when it’s close to 40 degrees day and night, you do not want to be on the top floor. In the middle of summer, we found the heat became quite uncomfortable. With no breeze at all of which to speak of, it remained 38 degrees Celsius the entire night. The showers in that place were heaven.
We did not meet many people during our stay in Vienna (at least not very interesting ones); a few hostile Americans, a boring Canadian, an intense Irishman, and some fairly average pommy girls that didn’t shower.... There was a crazy Nigerian guy at reception that kept hitting on us as well. Most people traveled in groups, and the structure of the hostel is not very conducive to socializing and meeting new people. Vienna really is hella weird... we both felt very much under the microscope the entire time. We’ve talked about it a lot and we still have drawn no conclusions about the people of Vienna. We asked locals and the people at our hostel whether Vienna was a conservative city, and all answers were to the contrary so we have no idea what was going on there.
Vienna is beautiful but was one of the quieter cities of our travels... there is not a hell of a lot going on, and I am still confused about the culture... I think maybe we stayed in a dodgy area, the men were very aggressive, or dominant, and sleazy... there was a lot of testosterone flying around.
The architecture in Vienna is something else... we visited some cathedral to watch an opera film as part of a film festival that was on during our stay. Films were being shown all over the city. I assumed the film was in German... though that may not have been the case necessarily. The lights of the castle were lit up as we watched under the stars... the weather had cooled down (finally), and it was perfect... I am still kicking myself for forgetting my camera!
The hop on - hop off bus tour was great! I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to see as much of the city in the smallest amount of time. We pretty much saw everything, including the Hoppsburg Palace, and the massive Ferris wheel. The older parts of the city were still my favourite - St Stephens Cathedral is truly magnificent.
The older parts of the city tend to contain the types of people you would expect to come across in Vienna. The older Austrian people especially were very kind, and helpful and extremely generous. Many leant us their expert directions and telling us best ways to get around... I don't quite know what has happened to make the other areas so different - kids these days!!!
We found ourselves at the bottom of a bottle of Yeigermeister on our last night in Vienna. Bored of going to bed early due to lack of 'scene' in Vienna, Caz and Claire decided to get out of bed and blow their budgets at the downstairs bar.... Caz danced with two VERY hot Aussies, Claire got taught how to Salsa (including the sexy leg up over hip bit from dirty dancing, in fact the whole thing was a scene out of dirty dancing, except in the place of Patrick Swayze was the crazy Nigerian/Austrian guy from reception) and destroyed her ankle in the process. Getting out of bed and to the airport the next day was a struggle (to say the least). Vienna is hugely expensive but we really couldn’t seem to help ourselves... we were young and free and bored…
We came up with The Seven Dwarf names for the people who were staying in our room:
Illie: - A sick Canadian complaining of a migraine that did not leave the hostel the entire time we were there.
Smelly: - A strange Irishman that doesn't believe in flushing - at all! He kept leaving us little (or not so little) presents every day for other people to clean up and flush down. Urggh So many kinds of wrong!
Fitty: - This gorgeous Welshman that looked like Henri the French Footballer.
Aussie: (Claire and Caz )
Pommy: - one of the British girls,
Doc: - The other British girl who played doc and dopey in her high school play and insisted she be Doc.... fair call.
So yeah, don’t have much to say about Vienna. I wasn’t particularly impressed. You could do the whole city in a day. I wouldn’t recommend it to young people, though aspiring architects should definitely make a visit.
the former royal palace
Former royal palace fountain
St Stephen's Cathedral
The View from our hostel
St Stephen's Cathedral
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on Berlin - Part 1