The Vienna Trip Part 8-Everything Else

 While in Vienna a slew of other things took place. I was lucky enough to go see the Prater, a permanent amusement park on the eastern side of Vienna. A group of people went with me and we all decided that we have to ride the giant ferris wheel. This sounded really cool, so I happily jumped in with the group and completely forgot that I am absolutely terrified of heights.

It was ok for the first few seconds, and then everybody moved to one side of the cart and the whole cart shifted. With my hyperventilation starting, I death-gripped the seat and refused to move. I was able to snap a few pictures, but there were relatively few to pick from for this post because they were all blurred from my intense shaking.

There were a few other rides at the Prater, but riding the ferris wheel was enough for me. I did appreciate the giant cat ride, though!

There were all sorts of interesting and intricate buildings throughout Vienna. This one was located near the Karlsplatz subway station, and once again I am not for sure of what it is. A lot of these buildings have no signs or anything to explain what they are, which sucks if you are a tourist.

This picture was taken in front of a monument for the fallen Russian soldiers of WWII. Behind the fountain is a large pillar with a statue of a soldier on it, but the tour was moving along and I wasn't able to snap a quick picture.

One tour sent me off with two others to experience the famous Viennese coffee houses. I was sent to the Cafe Griensteidl, a favorite of the famous Viennese author Stefan Zweig. There I enjoyed a basic coffee with milk and absorbed the atmosphere of the cafe.

This is a view of the Cafe Griensteidl. This cafe is located right next to the Hapsburg palace and was comfortable without being snooty. Back in the 20's and 30's the coffee houses places a huge role in the lives of artists and musicians.

I was also able to attend Wiener Blut (Viennese Spirit), an operetta based on the music of Johann Strauss II. The operetta was in German, but there was a small screen at the top of the stage with English translations. I really enjoyed it, but there were some inside jokes that I just wasn't able to understand.

Johann Strauss II was the composer of The Blue Danube, a very famous waltz. The video below plays The Blue Danube, and I'm sure you will recognize it quickly.

Another thing that I got to do was visit the Upper Belvedere, a once summer palace turned art museum. This gallery features my favorite artist, Gustav Klimt, including his most famous picture of all: The Kiss.

I was not allowed to take pictures of The Kiss, so here is a generic online picture that doesn't look nearly as good as it did in real life.

However, I WAS able to quickly take a photo of this one Klimt sketch. :D

After the tour was over I headed home and began to plan my next big adventure. The next trip was to take place during a week long break, and it was decided that I would be heading to France.

The Vienna Trip Part 7-Freud and Downtown

One of the Vienna tours took place at the Sigmund Freud museum, where Freud worked until the second World War. This museum is where Freud had his famous couch therapy sessions took place. Freud's apartments are quite empty since Freud took all that he had with him to London when he escaped from WWII.

This is the same room that all of his sessions took place at. The walls were covered with pictures of Freud's colleagues, family, and famous patients. The whole place was really cool, but it was hard to imagine what it was like without any furniture or remains from Freud's house. There is one room, but it is the waiting room and therefor not too interesting. Oh, I did learn one very important thing: Freud did cocaine. Maybe that's where he got all of his ideas from!

Oh, and this was Freud's official document certifying him as a psychologist. History!

The other tours took the group through the center of the city, but I would go back by myself later on the trip. The subway was the quickest and easiest way to navigate the city. This was my first time in a subway, but I adapted pretty quickly. It doesn't sound hard, but it really is when everything is in a different language. This subway took me to the heart of the city: Stephansplatz!

The heart of the city is Stephansplatz, which featured an amazing amount of stores. Since this was inside of the original walls of Vienna, there are tons of tightly packed buildings. There was shopping, food, and history everywhere!

As far as history goes, what you see in this picture is the "Carpenter's Tree." This sad little piece of wood stuck behind glass use to be a main destination for European carpenters. The idea was that anyone who was a serious carpenter would eventually travel to Vienna and mark that he was there by putting a nail into this tree. If you get really close to the glass you can see that the "tree" is completely covered with nails.

The American Bar was over priced and had a secret entrance to a brothel located next to it. Why? I don't know. I just kept walking.

This huge statue...thing...was located in the middle of Stephansplatz. I don't know what it was there for or what it represented. I'm going to take a guess that it was dedicated to the glory of Vienna or something like that. History!

The Vienna Trip Part 6-Actually Vienna!

 Finally, Vienna! After several adventures, I finally get to my final destination. Unfortunately my camera died, so these were taken with my phone. Crappy pictures are better than no pictures at all, right? Anyways, and I stand on the trolly, shooting through the Ring Streets I got a glimpse of this ancient city and the high class aura that surrounded it.

 With multiple tours came a realization that I can remember the layout of cities and streets very well. I explored many different parts of Vienna, and some specific places will be touched on in the next posts. This picture shows one of the many churches littered around Vienna.

This building sports the Austrian crest, a double headed osprey. I think this is the parliament building, but I am not for sure. So many buildings had elaborate designs and pillars that "fancy" was the common building style at the turn of the century.

Even on the top of some regular building is the sign of a bright age past. This huge angel just stands up there, marking a building of no real importance.

The famous Ring Streets featured these wide walkways that were used in the 19th century primarily for showing off your newest poofy dress or mustache. They really add to the charm of Vienna, but were constructed for more than just looks. With the addition of these wide walkways, it made it harder to barricade off routes (which had happened before).

This is the entrance to the Hapsburg Palace. The center of the Hapsburg Empire was here in Vienna, and the castle was huge. This picture only shows 1/6th of what I saw. The Empire eventually falls around WWI, but left remnants of its glory behind.

This was just one of the exits of the Palace. I thought it looked cool. :)

The Vienna Trip Part 5-Salzburg Part 3 (The City)

 So, now I finally get to show off the actual City of Salzburg. It was insanely touristy, which really ruined a lot of it for me. The feeling the town gave off felt false, like an air put on for outsiders. Besides that, it was very pretty. This first picture was taken on my way back to the bus after the Hellbrunn fountains.

The city was divided into two halves, the first half being the "Old City" and the second half being more modern. This shows me crossing the bridge to get to the Old City, where you can see a castle on the hill and the cramped buildings. A lot of older cities did this because there was limited building space due to protecting city walls. Also notice the car advertisement on the side of the building. That is the new Volkswagen Beetle. It looks like a regular car. I do not like this.
 

 Inside the Old City is Mozart's "Geburtshaus," or birth house. This is one of Salzburg's claim to fames, and all the tourist stores nearby were full of Mozart stuff. While looking for a present for my mom, I discovered some chocolates that were sold in only Austria called "Mozartkugeln." After returning home and skyping with my parents, I showed Mom what I bought her. Apparently the business she works with has some ties in Austria, and every year they are given a box of these chocolates that she absolutely hates. Of all the things I bought her, I bought the one thing she hates the most. She will still be receiving this present because of the irony.

 Many old cities also have more than one castle. Obviously this is pretty impressive, but I'm under the impression that this may now be part of a university. Brett and I were by ourselves and there wasn't any tour guides to explain what this was.

Overall, Salzburg was pretty, but also very touristy and expensive. I walked around with Brett and our other roommate, an Icelandic guy whose name we couldn't pronounce and explored the small streets and alleys. We even found a restaurant named after me! :D

The Vienna Trip Part 4-Salzburg Part 2 (Hellbrunn Fountains)

After the Stiegl Brewery, Brett and I made our way to the Hellbrunn fountains. It was created as part of a palace for the 1612 Prince Archbishop, who designed his fountains for not only visual appeal, but for his own stupid enjoyment. Hidden throughout the beautiful pools and fountains are trick jets that soak unaware nobles or tourists. This is the very first sign I saw when entering Hellbrunn, and it made me very, very nervous.

 

The palace itself was wonderful and enchanting, but after the sign I knew better. This place was designed for some little 17th century punk who wanted to squirt water up ladies' dresses. I watched where I stood and, most importantly, where not to stand because the ground was wet.

The first trick fountain we found was this big stone table. You can see that every seat (except for the Prince's seat) squirts water, along with jets from behind. There is also water in the middle of the table where wine bottles were placed to keep cool. We were told that the mechanisms that run the fountains are almost unchanged from original construction.

It was pretty funny, but seeing how I had a camera, an ipod, and a blackberry I really didn't want to risk it.

These mentally incapacitated stag shoots water jets from the tips of each of its horns. At this point I was really questioning the Prince's sanity.

This joyful little...thing is essentially a giant music box. All the music and figurines (over 200 moving parts!) were water powered! It was cool, but something was wrong...the ground was wet. I stealthily positioned myself at the end of the group. Smart move, as I witnessed the jets come from behind. Sneaky, but not enough to trick me, haha! VICTORY.

 

Finally, there was a small cave/building that had religious statues and a special fountain that was suppose to show the power of the church. As I explored (and dodged jets) I found this statue. Ok, some guy is going to cut the Devil, and hes....wait...Is the Devil poking his nipple? Yes, yes he is. He seriously was. Why, I have no clue. I'm pretty sure that isn't in the Bible..but its in my blog! :D

Oh, and once you exited the Hellbrunn Fountains, you could see the Sound of Music Gazebo. Awww yeah :D

The Vienna Trip Part 3-Salzburg Part 1 (Stiegl Brewery)

The next destination on my way to Vienna was Salzburg, famous for being where "The Sound of Music" was filmed! Unfortunately this section starts out disturbingly.

On the train ride to Salzburg from Regensburg, the train stops somewhere after Munich and will not start. An announcement comes over the speakers in German, and the lady next to me was nice enough to translate. She said that the train could not continue because the rails were locked. Ten minutes later another announcement explained the rails were locked because there was a police barricade on the tracks. Another ten minutes passes, and another announcement finally explains what is going on. A man had committed suicide by jumping into the front of the train in front of us. Not my train, the one before. I almost took that train, decided to get food instead.

So, it took the police half an hour to clean up the tracks and then we were on our way. Wonderful omen for the start of a trip...

Anyways, once I arrived in Salzburg I made my typical beeline to the hostel first, where I met my friend Brett. We were in a 6 person room, which we shared with an Icelandic guy who plays Team Fortress 2 and an awkward American/Romanian couple that never left the room. Awesome. Once Brett and I settled down, the two of us and the Icelander went to the old city to find food.

End day one. Day two begins with a tour...

of the Stiegl Brewery!

This brewery, located on the outside of town, makes delicious Austrian brews that are available in Jungle Jim's in Ohio! Notice the scenic mountain backdrop and the pretty yellow color. The whole thing had a very home-based feel to it. This brewery was around during the time of Mozart, so these people know how to make a good Wiess.

The entrance led to a nice courtyard in the center of the brewery, which was decorated in Oktoberfest and pumpkin themes. The whole place seems very...non-industrious.

The courtyard was filled with people eating the local ham stew (which I had and loved) and drinking various beers (biers), such as Goldenbraus and Radlers. Right next to this courtyard was a gift shop, where we bought the tickets for the tour. It was only 9 euros, a wonderful price! This 9 euros included more than just a self-tour...

The museum was based in the old brewery rooms and were filled with various nicknacks and trinkets of the past. There were many different rooms, but my camera kept dying and messing up the pictures it took, so this is the only room picture not distorted. You can see a pyramid of bottles from the past 100 years or so of production.

This crazy lady was one picture on a wall entitled "How Do You Open Your Stiegl?" I think this lady's answer was "without the help of my meds."

At the end of our tour we were given three beers and a free glass. Three beers cost 9 euros by themselves, so by taking the tour they just gave me a free glass...ok! The beers here (from left to right) are a Weiss (very smooth and sweet), a Radler (half GoldenBrau and half raspberry juice), and a typical GoldenBrau (not my favorite and not that bad). Definitely worth 9 euros...Brett and I left happy with our glasses to set out for the next tour.

Oh, and my blog has a new fun feature! Notice the fish at the bottom of the screen? Click to feed them :3

The Vienna Trip Part 2-Regensburg

My second stop on my trip to Vienna was Regensburg, one of the only cities not damaged in WWII. Upon exiting the train station, I was greeted by a lovely fountain with a statue of some guy on top. I don't know the history behind this, but it was sure pretty! After a little navigation I located my hostel and set out to see historic Regensburg.

The first thing I found was an ancient church, but photography was prohibited so no pictures from that. I found the second church of Regensburg, which is shown below. This monster of a church can be seen over buildings and isn't very hard to locate. Unfortunately, because Regensburg is an old town there are no main roads, just a bunch of alleys. I tried to relocate my hostel and ended up at this church three different times.

Even though they were very frustrating to navigate, the alleys were very pretty and housed many shops to visit. My favorite shop by far was the hat shop, seen on the right side of the picture...

So many wonderful hats! Very expensive hats, but wonderful, elegant hats that I would love to bring home! It was around $100 per hat...I was ok with this. I didn't buy anything, but I think I should have. Hats!

Of course I ran around in the alleys, taking pictures of the old fashioned charm. I have no idea what "Kuss" is, but it looked cool. I may have gotten lost, but I really enjoyed it. I wish my hostel was in the area around the church and not next to a bunch of gothic clothes shops and pot joints. 

I asked the receptionist at the hostel about a good place to eat. She recommended Da Luigi, which was located by the church. I was told to look for a small alley on the left of a certain road. It took me half an hour and several trips up and down the road to find the alley. It was so small I had to turn sideways to get in. Once past the main entrance the alley widened to reveal Da Luigi. The food was delicious and the waitress was very nice. She wanted to practice her English skills with me, a common occurrence in Europe. After one night's stay in Regensburg, I headed to the third stop in my trip...