So, Friday morning started off crazy.
First of all, Professor Kim screwed up. Apparently, the excursion was set up for next friday... he gave everyone the wrong date. We were all there at 6am, including Professor Kim and his family when he figured this out. It was a huge mess. Since my group (which was about half of all the Calvin students) had already made reservations, he told us he would pay for our tickets there (we had our own tickets back). Four students had already made plans (and bought plane tickets) to go to Athens, Greece next weekend, so he has to figure out when he can get them to Vienna. Everyone (other than those four) will be going to Vienna next weekend, which was fine with my group; we just ignored the places we'll visit next friday. So my group went to the train station, and ended up having to get round trip tickets, since the station didn't have one-way tickets left for that day. (We later confirmed that Prof Kim would pay for them) So we embarked on a train to Austria.
And that was crazy thing of the morning number 1.
#2: Someone jumped in front of our train. We were traveling along, early in the ride, and the train suddenly came to a very quick halt, not at a station. An hour went by. Trains passed us on the other track. Eventually some of us walked to the restaurant on the train. We found out there, that someone has jumped in front of the train. I guess they needed to figure out who and clean it up? We were shocked. It was just so bizarre. Eventually we got going again. The rest of the ride was uneventful. It was a relatively empty train, so we were able to spread out; some of us took two seats. Finally, around noon (after a four and half hour train ride in total), we arrived in Vienna.
First, we went to Belvedere Palace.
It was beautiful. We didn't go to the museum, but we walked all the way through the grounds.
Next we kind of wandered around, looking for lunch, and ended up going to Gorilla Kitchen. I had a delicious pulled pork sandwich
We then went to Spar to grab breakfast food, and then to our airbnb. It was pretty nice. Guys set up for sleeping on the floor, girls were sleeping on the bed and couches.
After that, went to the Heldenplatz, in front of the Austrian version of the White House, where Hitler announced the annexation of Austria to loud cheers.
From there, we visited the famous central cafe. It was super fancy and expensive, so we just peeked in. Next, we walked to the opera.
We got standing room tickets for just a few euros. We couldn't see anything, so we only stayed for part of the first act. Then we went to St. Steven's Cathedral.
We got to see part of a light show on the face of the art museum. The sound was much better synced in reality than the video makes it seem.
For dinner, we went to an Italian place, where I got wiener schnitzel and fries. It was delicious.
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Saturday morning, we made egg sandwiches for breakfast. They were good.
We then walked to Parliament
and City Hall.
Vienna is so beautiful!
We went back to St. Steven's to see it during the day. For lunch, we all got some wurst (I got bratwurst) in a baguette. It was delicious. I should have taken a picture.
We went to some gardens
where we saw two guys playing accordion... with horse masks.
We went to St. Peter's church.
Most of the rest of the group then went to the art museum, but me and another guy didn't go. I needed to sit for a while. We hadn't used any public transportation, and all the walking was really bothering my legs. (Just soreness, my knees are doing fine now)
Finally, we headed back to the train station, in a rather meandering way to catch a few pictures of some minor sites (you can see them in the pictures). The train ride back was mostly uneventful, although much more busy. I got back, went through emails, got my photos uploaded, and blogged. Michigan won by a bunch, as was expected. And now I'm about to go to bed!
Next time on Events: Hungarian Parliament, meeting with Aaron Stevens, and hopefully blogging that answers all the questions I've been getting.
Have you studied Vienna in your coursework?
ReplyDeleteNot really, the only studying we've done of Austria has been big-picture, and how Austria has affected Hungary/Central Europe. Not as specific as Vienna.
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