Veronika - CS #12 | Fat N Happy

The benefit of staying with a host who hates to sleep? We got the luxury for the second day in a row of waking up to breakfast! She'd made us fried eggs, toast, and hot chocolate this morning. So wonderful!

We had arranged to meet Heather at 1030 AM so we set out to go find her. Thankfully, Heather's directions to her flat were quite good and we found it with no problems. Heather is 26 years old, but has been living in Vienna for about 2 years (she is originally from Florida). She also has one of the cutest one and a half years old kid I have ever seen!! Heather was thrilled to have Americans to talk with and graciously offered to give us a walking tour of the inner city. We hadn't explored that area at all yet, so we walked past the University, the Rathaus (City Hall), the Parliament, and through the Museum Quarter. The Museum Quarter is kind of like a big square surrounded on three sides by national museums. Outside of one of the museums was one of the strangest art pieces I have ever seen. It was a hugely enlarged lady wearing a red bikini, lying on her back. The weird part: all of her limbs and her head had been cut off, leaving large red stumps. So very weird. That is art? Really?

We then walked down a very busy and popular shopping street called Mariahilferstrasse. We found an Italian cafe to eat at and got lunch there. Laura and I each got pizzas. It was an Italian place (and Heather says that since Austria is so close to Italy the Italian places there are under a little bit of pressure to be authentic and delicious), so the pizzas came whole and uncut. As I was trying to cut mine, I noticed that it seemed difficult and the pizza kept sliding around on the plate. We were sitting at a rather small, circular table. Next thing I know, Laura's plate and pizza were sliding off the edge of the table as she was trying to cut it. She flailed and tried to save everything. CRASH. The plate shattered on the floor. So much for quiet, nice Americans lol. Good news though - the pizza was completely saved, free of any glass shards, and now laid on the table exactly where it had been just 30 seconds before, just sans plate. When the waiter came over, who didn't see the commotion, that is what he saw: an entire pizza sitting on the table and a broken plate underneath our small table. I was laughing so hard and I suppose Laura was embarrassed because Heather told us we both turned quite red. It was pretty funny. Laura would save the food...

After lunch, Heather wandered with us and took us to this really cool Mozart statue. In front of the statue is a big green grassy patch. In this green rectangle though were yellow flowers that formed a treble clef. It was so cool - I love flower designs like that! It made for a very nice picture, Mozart above this yellow floral treble clef.

By this time it was early evening and Laura and I were due to meet our next host, Veronika, soon. We parted ways and ended up arriving at Veronika's doorstep at the exact same time that she was getting home from work. We were trying to figure out which button to press, and she comes up on her bike and says, "I think you guys are looking for me."

Veronika is also 26, working 3 jobs and eventually hoping to finish her PhD in social anthropology. She is my CouchSurfing-cooking soul mate! This lady LOVES to cook, and I had an amazingly fun time watching her cook and talking about cooking and cooking related things (like "Julie and Julia"). She does like to be in control of her kitchen though so helping her was essentially out of the question. She worked quickly, efficiently, and simply - and somehow prepared simply gorgeous meals with the appearance of exerting little to no energy. It was crazy impressive! Given that Laura and I eat a lot, we connected with Veronika, who also likes to eat a lot. It was fantastic.

Veronika had been planning and preparing our Friday night dinner for about a week, and it was a real treat. She made us this homemade minced meat dish (a lot like meatloaf) that had onions and garlic in it...and that was WRAPPED IN BACON! That came along with mashed potatoes, a wonderful cool, crisp salad, and homemade tzatziki sauce. And it was served with white wine. It was incredible. Laura and I just sat in the kitchen chatting away with Veronika about food while we salivated and soaked up all the delicious smells. Veronika also helped keep our mouths busy before dinner by serving us hot, fresh peppermint tea. Fresh as in picked from her parents' garden. So good, I think it's my new favorite kind of tea! Soon we were ready for our feast though and we gobbled it up with little hesitation.

Oh, and there was dessert too, naturally. Chocolate mousse. Homemade, fluffy, chocolatey, amazing chocolate mousse. After our large and filling dinner, we still easily managed to eat more than half of this huge bowl of chocolate mousse. I haven't laughed that much in an evening in quite a while. We just couldn't contain ourselves and thought it was endlessly amusing how capable of devouring food we were. It was kind of mind blowing. Of course I felt like rolling instead of walking anywhere afterward...I just keep telling myself I have "X" number of weeks to work it off. But now that number is down to 8...

Although it was quite difficult to summon the energy to move after dinner, Heather had kindly let us drop our bags off at her apartment before we wandered the city for the day, and we had left them there wit intentions of getting them after dinner with Veronika. But eventually we did stop eating and took the trams to Heather's place. After picking up our bags, we headed back to Veronika's. However, somehow, the Night Lines are a little different from the normal Day Lines on the tram system...so we ended up getting dumped off at some last stop that we weren't planning on going to--not at the stop we needed to be at to transfer. The nice things about trams is that you can just follow the tracks back. So we walked along the tram tracks until we found a stop with the tram we needed to get back to Veronika's place. It was a really lame accidental adventure...Carrying all of our bags around in the dark and trying to figure out the Night Line trams. Anyway we finally made it back safe, don't worry!


Quotes:
Hilary: "How many servings was that supposed to be?" (Asking about the meatloaf-type dish)
Veronika: "Oh...the book says half a kilogram makes 4 to 6, but I made a whole kilogram."
Hilary: "Are you saying that the three of us just ate 8 to 12 portions of meat?"
Laura: "Plus everything else?"
Veronika: "Yes."
WE ARE COWS!!! Fat and Happy cows.

Accomplishments:
Figured out how to use the trams (ignore the Night Line detour)...until today we had just been using the Underground transportation systems in each country, somehow the above ground stuff seems more intimidating.

Travel Tip:
Consider the fact that Night Lines might be different and plan accordingly.