Ok, I'm home. I haven't updated as much as I thought I would now that I'm home but there are people to see and books to read and delicious restaurants for noms. So. Yeah. Sorry.
BUT. The plus side of being home is that pictures load SO MUCH FASTER. I found that out yesterday when I was uploading for this post so that was exciting. Also, it probably means good things for the regularity of future posts. Maybe. I realize now that I can't really promise anything. Errr, sorry.
Anyways, now that's out of the way it's on to Vienna!
Kun-Wei and I got on a train in Munich at around 11:ooPM (that's 23:00, oh yeah, I calculate military time now...perhaps a bit too slowly for a 20 year-old but still...) bound for Vienna. We had the kind of tickets that get you a seat but no bed because I'm horribly cheap and train tickets that include beds are crazy expensive. Well. Prohibitively expensive by my standards.
The train ride was fairly uneventful. We met a puppy that a young couple had recently purchased and were bringing home. We didn't really sleep. I listened to a good deal of Harry Potter and....I don't remember which audiobook I was on at the time. Note to potential night train riders: If you decided to drink a large quantity of alcohol before you get on a train and then you and your friend are sitting a few compartments away from each other, please do not try to communicate with each other. You're drunk so you don't make any sense within normal hearing range and when shouting you are completely unintelligible. Also, you are probably going to keep your fellow passengers awake and consequently grumpy. That's a party foul, dude.
We arrived in Vienna bright and early. The city was lovely but we were tired and train...y. This is not a pleasant state to be in. We dropped our stuff off at our hostel and then went to explore. Oh! We had a little difficulty finding our hostel at first and we asked a random guy on the street where the street we were looking for was. He didn't speak English but we managed to communicate our issue to him and he thought about for it a minute and then signaled us to stay put. We waited for a little bit and were considering moving on to find the right place when he trotted back with a policewoman in tow. She spoke English and set us off in the right direction. People can be so wonderful. :)
Another American girl was wandering around the area, looking for the same hostel as us. She tagged along and was VERY chipper. She told us all about her "everything happens for a reason" philosophy towards life, which was admittedly rather unwelcome to two dead-tired people who had spent half the night (ok, fine, at least an hour of it) listening to two drunk guys shout at each other across their compartment. However, we all found the hostel not too long after and she was very friendly.
Once our stuff was dropped off we decided to wander about for a while.
We started out by St. Stephen's Cathedral (Stephensdom).
I don't know if you can see in the pictures but it's all pretty and stuff. I know. A lovely religious building in Europe? I can hear the gasps. :) Seriously though, I found the roof fascinating. I feel like tile mosaic things should be on EVERY roof. Do you hear that, world? MORE MOSAICS ON ROOFS. I LIKE THEM BECAUSE THEY ARE PRETTY. Sorry. Sometimes I get carried away by my own brilliant ideas.
We next walked into this really lovely park. We were rather hungry and tired and perhaps a little grouchy at this point but the park's loveliness was totally refreshing. If there is one thing that I can count on to totally make my day (beyond, well, actually a pretty substantial list of things if I'm being honest) it's flowers. Gorgeous flowers everywhere I look.
Also, classy statues. Classy statues are a MAJOR plus. They make you forget that drunken train-passengers with astoundingly healthy lungs exist.
Lake thingy. I decided on this trip that I can pretty much feel at home anywhere that has a lake or pond to walk around. I love lakes. I guess that's what you get growing up in Minnesota.
More pretty trees. I think that flowering trees are probably the prettiest of flowers and the prettiest of trees so it's basically a win-win-win-win-win-win-win situation. Basically.
We found a flower clock! I like flower clocks. They're fantastically impractical as clocks, probably (way way way too hard to read), but they're still the best.
These were my favorite flowers close up. They're so bright and happy. I realize that this is probably not the most necessary picture from Vienna but...but they're so adorable! Please don't judge me.
This building was in the garden and our first real taste of the fabulous architecture in Vienna. Seriously, our eyes met with stunning architecture pretty much everywhere we looked. I started seeing lovely buildings when I shut my eyes, it was that pretty.
Different pretty building. Still pre-breakfast time.
I have so many pictures of really awesome buildings and am far too lazy to look them all up so...errr...sorry! Just enjoy the view, I guess.
Fountain! This was a war memorial of some kind...I think.
I don't know why the signs on the underground delighted me so but they did. Basically, what I think it's trying to say is offer your seat to Sigmund Freud if there aren't any seats left. He's REALLY old at this point and probably more tired than you are.
We took the underground because we were DESPERATE at that point. Not that the underground wasn't very nice. Because it was. It was very very nice. But we were not focused on how nice it was. So we found a place that obviously served food and we knew had opened at this point and ate the breakfast of champions. Yeah, that's right, we ate CAKE. I had the Mozart cake because pistachio anything is normally delicious and when you combine it with chocolatey goodness then you have something that is EXTRA delicious on your hands. Mind you, we probably would have enjoyed seasoned sawdust provided it filled us up, but the cake was definitely preferable. Add to that a steaming latte and suddenly the world seemed an even brighter and lovelier place than it already was.
Upon being refreshed we wandered more. Kun-Wei and I got very good at wandering on our travels.
Horsey statue! I loves me the horsey statues.
EPIC ARCHWAY. I love epic archways. In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that walking through epic archways temporarily inflates my ego to an absurd degree and I feel like a freaking conqueror! I'm not entirely sure why, but I start hearing triumphant trumpets in the background...
Once again, I should know what these buildings are but...I don't. Sorry for failing at life.
I think these were around the Museum Quarter though. There was a section of the city with so many museums and cool stuff packed in this suh-WEET area, that we could barely see them all, let alone go into them. Unfortunately, we weren't able to go into as many museums and stuff as we would have liked. There is some CRAZY expensiveness going down in Vienna.
Oh man, if I had a dollar for every beautiful building corner in Vienna then...well...I'd have enough money to go into the museums.
If I had a dollar for every beautiful building front, I'd be morbidly obese on cake and would be wheeled around in a wagon because I would be incapable of supporting my enormous girth. Yes. The cake is that delicious.
Sooooooo...I wanted this guy's top hat and mustache.
Mozart statue and musical flowers! This was ALMOST as cool as the flower clock. Almost. It brought back too many painful memories of fake violin playing in orchestra too be as cool as the flower clock.
I like to think that Goethe was judging everyone. Isn't that a lovely thought?
I think this was actually the back of the Opera House...yes. Maybe? I think it was.
This next picture is the Michael Wing of the Hofburg Palace. The palace was the official imperial residence of the royal family. I love Wikipedia.
What city would be complete without its own set of Roman ruins? No city. That is the answer. And that's why America is terrible. Just kidding, I really like being home. As I type, my dad is prepping to make salmon tacos tomorrow.
But seriously, I miss these building and I miss Roman stuff.
The statues around this area were really cool. Kun-Wei was able to identify most of the myths that they were based on. That girl, she is a myth/fairytale/story GENIUS HERO. That's how awesome she is.
Uuuuuuuh, I think this was a museum entrance...
Imposing man statue!
Ha ha, so many horse statues! Everywhere. And I took pictures of them all! Lucky you.
See all the horses?
Ummmm, more Hofburg?
HORSE.
Pretty building! I think it was a theatre. Yeah...that sounds like a good guess...
Boat!
While walking around the river, we found graffiti. I was inspired! Because I like making cute faces.
I thought that this was too cute to ignore. :)
More river!
We decided to check out Wiener Prater, Vienna's historic amusement park! It had free admission! I get excited about the important things! But seriously, I'm pretty sure that amusement parks turn magic at night.
Exciting lights and squiggles and screaming people!
Ok, are ya'll ready for the best pun of the trip? Set-up: Vienna is also known as Wien.
Get it? If you laughed, then congrats! You're terrible! Next up is my FAVORITE picture from the Wiener Prater.
And my second favorite picture.
The entrance. I logically took the picture of it at the end of our visit. :) Duh.
For dinner, Kun-Wei and I tracked down this restaurant that...something recommended to us for excellent wiener schnitzel. We finally found it after a loooooong walk. And, for a mere €6 we got an INSANE amount of wiener schnitzel and it was delicious! YUM.
Lastly for tonight, these are the remains of this old church just chilling in an underground station. I love surprise archeology. :)
We next walked into this really lovely park. We were rather hungry and tired and perhaps a little grouchy at this point but the park's loveliness was totally refreshing. If there is one thing that I can count on to totally make my day (beyond, well, actually a pretty substantial list of things if I'm being honest) it's flowers. Gorgeous flowers everywhere I look. 
Also, classy statues. Classy statues are a MAJOR plus. They make you forget that drunken train-passengers with astoundingly healthy lungs exist.
Lake thingy. I decided on this trip that I can pretty much feel at home anywhere that has a lake or pond to walk around. I love lakes. I guess that's what you get growing up in Minnesota.
Claaaaaaaaaassy statues. Vienna has ALL the classy statues. And it's not just classy statues. It's the CLASSIEST of classy statues. It's kind of like having the tastiest Belgian chocolate (oooooooh! forshadowing!).
More pretty trees. I think that flowering trees are probably the prettiest of flowers and the prettiest of trees so it's basically a win-win-win-win-win-win-win situation. Basically.
We found a flower clock! I like flower clocks. They're fantastically impractical as clocks, probably (way way way too hard to read), but they're still the best.
These were my favorite flowers close up. They're so bright and happy. I realize that this is probably not the most necessary picture from Vienna but...but they're so adorable! Please don't judge me.
This building was in the garden and our first real taste of the fabulous architecture in Vienna. Seriously, our eyes met with stunning architecture pretty much everywhere we looked. I started seeing lovely buildings when I shut my eyes, it was that pretty. 
Different pretty building. Still pre-breakfast time. 
I have so many pictures of really awesome buildings and am far too lazy to look them all up so...errr...sorry! Just enjoy the view, I guess. 
Fountain! This was a war memorial of some kind...I think. 
I don't know why the signs on the underground delighted me so but they did. Basically, what I think it's trying to say is offer your seat to Sigmund Freud if there aren't any seats left. He's REALLY old at this point and probably more tired than you are. 
We took the underground because we were DESPERATE at that point. Not that the underground wasn't very nice. Because it was. It was very very nice. But we were not focused on how nice it was. So we found a place that obviously served food and we knew had opened at this point and ate the breakfast of champions. Yeah, that's right, we ate CAKE. I had the Mozart cake because pistachio anything is normally delicious and when you combine it with chocolatey goodness then you have something that is EXTRA delicious on your hands. Mind you, we probably would have enjoyed seasoned sawdust provided it filled us up, but the cake was definitely preferable. Add to that a steaming latte and suddenly the world seemed an even brighter and lovelier place than it already was.
Upon being refreshed we wandered more. Kun-Wei and I got very good at wandering on our travels.
Horsey statue! I loves me the horsey statues. 
EPIC ARCHWAY. I love epic archways. In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that walking through epic archways temporarily inflates my ego to an absurd degree and I feel like a freaking conqueror! I'm not entirely sure why, but I start hearing triumphant trumpets in the background...And now you think I'm crazy.
Once again, I should know what these buildings are but...I don't. Sorry for failing at life. 
I think these were around the Museum Quarter though. There was a section of the city with so many museums and cool stuff packed in this suh-WEET area, that we could barely see them all, let alone go into them. Unfortunately, we weren't able to go into as many museums and stuff as we would have liked. There is some CRAZY expensiveness going down in Vienna.
Oh man, if I had a dollar for every beautiful building corner in Vienna then...well...I'd have enough money to go into the museums. 
If I had a dollar for every beautiful building front, I'd be morbidly obese on cake and would be wheeled around in a wagon because I would be incapable of supporting my enormous girth. Yes. The cake is that delicious. 
Sooooooo...I wanted this guy's top hat and mustache. 
Mozart statue and musical flowers! This was ALMOST as cool as the flower clock. Almost. It brought back too many painful memories of fake violin playing in orchestra too be as cool as the flower clock.
I like to think that Goethe was judging everyone. Isn't that a lovely thought?
I think this was actually the back of the Opera House...yes. Maybe? I think it was. 
This next picture is the Michael Wing of the Hofburg Palace. The palace was the official imperial residence of the royal family. I love Wikipedia. 
What city would be complete without its own set of Roman ruins? No city. That is the answer. And that's why America is terrible. Just kidding, I really like being home. As I type, my dad is prepping to make salmon tacos tomorrow. 
But seriously, I miss these building and I miss Roman stuff. 
The statues around this area were really cool. Kun-Wei was able to identify most of the myths that they were based on. That girl, she is a myth/fairytale/story GENIUS HERO. That's how awesome she is. 
Uuuuuuuh, I think this was a museum entrance...
Imposing man statue!
Ha ha, so many horse statues! Everywhere. And I took pictures of them all! Lucky you.
See all the horses? 
Ummmm, more Hofburg? 
HORSE.
Pretty building! I think it was a theatre. Yeah...that sounds like a good guess...
St. Charles' Church! AKA Karlskirche.
Boat!
While walking around the river, we found graffiti. I was inspired! Because I like making cute faces.
I thought that this was too cute to ignore. :)
More river!
We decided to check out Wiener Prater, Vienna's historic amusement park! It had free admission! I get excited about the important things! But seriously, I'm pretty sure that amusement parks turn magic at night.
Exciting lights and squiggles and screaming people!
Awwwwww, I felt right at home when we passed the "Jack the Ripper ride." Not because I am or even have aspirations of being or becoming a notorious serial killer, but it did remind me of my beloved London. In a terribly cheesy sort of way.
Ok, are ya'll ready for the best pun of the trip? Set-up: Vienna is also known as Wien. 
Get it? If you laughed, then congrats! You're terrible! Next up is my FAVORITE picture from the Wiener Prater.
And my second favorite picture.
The entrance. I logically took the picture of it at the end of our visit. :) Duh.
For dinner, Kun-Wei and I tracked down this restaurant that...something recommended to us for excellent wiener schnitzel. We finally found it after a loooooong walk. And, for a mere €6 we got an INSANE amount of wiener schnitzel and it was delicious! YUM. 
Lastly for tonight, these are the remains of this old church just chilling in an underground station. I love surprise archeology. :)
Well, that's it for this Viennese post! I will be posting more. Spoiler Alert: There are going to be so many pictures of cake in the next post, it will be ridiculous.
Much love and cheers!
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