We slept in til 11, just because we could. Travel days are usually also catch-up-on-sleep days. The only thing on our agenda was, naturally, more food.
We had heard from multiple people about a restaurant called Deewan (D1) which was an all you can eat Pakistani restaurant. The catch is that the restaurant was a "Pay as you wish" place. It was customary to pay only 3 or 4 euros for an entire meal there! Laura and I couldn't wait. We arrived around lunchtime, so it was moderately busy. Nobody talked to us, nothing was in English, so we just watched and followed. I think the restaurant makes a lot of different things, but only serves 6 main dishes per day in mass quantities. Today they had 1) rice, 2) a chicken dish, 3) beans, 4) a potato dish, 5) something gross, and 6) something unknown but OK. Before we knew it, we had simply picked up plates, loaded them with variations of the 6 entrees, and sat down. Free tap water is notoriously hard to get in Europe. But, on a tray next to the kitchen were glasses of tap water, neatly arranged. We watched, and soon we had just taken a glass of tap water for ourselves. Still, nobody has talked to us. We had no clue if we were doing anything here right, but assumed we must be if we weren't in trouble yet. We both went back for seconds, I also got salad and some custardy dessert thing, and we both got more glasses of water. It was delightful. The only time anybody really paid us any attention was when we finished our meals. Somehow, within 5 seconds of putting our fork from our last bite down, somebody would come and whisk away our plates! It was amazing! Then we were really confused how people paid. I went and spied and found out where the cash register even was, and Laura saw that people were just handing some coins to the guy by the cash register and walking out - before he even had a chance to count them. So it was literally "Pay as you wish" - there were no prices. Crazy!! Laura and I left around 5 euros each, which still felt like we were stealing food. Oh yeah, and this restaurant's slogan is "Good Food, Good Mood" - which I have lovingly adopted as one of my own life mottoes. It is so true :)
Then it was ice cream time. We had also heard from a couple people (a recommendation from one local makes it a good recommendation, a second, unrelated recommendation from another local makes it a Must-Do) about an ice cream place called Zanoni & Zanoni. We knew exactly where it was because we'd passed it many times just walking around. We acted like pros on the public transportation system, zipped into Zanoni's, got some Amazing ice cream, sat at their cafe for about 4 minutes, and then decided that we didn't really have time to sit there any longer. We hadn't packed yet and our train left in about 2 hours and we were currently in the city center, half an hour away from Veronika's flat!
Somehow, we ended up doing our fastest packing job yet and were on our way to "Meidling Station" a little over an hour before our train was supposed to leave. One problem: we didn't know where Meidling Station was, but we decided it couldn't be that hard to find because it was a freaking international train station! We found a map of the metro system and found a Meidling Station stop. Thrilled, we arrived with half an hour to spare! Except that...looking around, it just seemed too quiet and too slow-paced to be a train station, even for a random Tuesday afternoon. As we climbed the stairs to the ground level, we didn't see any signs to trains. Ut oh....So we asked some police officers, "Where are the trains please? We are scheduled to leave for Budapest in half an hour." They didn't' quite have good enough English, but one police officer took us to a BIGGER map of the metro system, one that we had never seen before in our WEEK in Vienna, and pointed out ANOTHER Meidling station that was also called some other name and was farther away, and partially back the way we just came. Exasperated, we thanked him and flew down the stairs. When the metro came, we got on, but still couldn't see this Meidling Station on a map - because on this map it was called its second name. WHY Vienna has two stations named the SAME thing and why the international train station has TWO names and WHY the name is written on the map is NOT the same one that comes up when you search for the station on a computer is all quite beyond me.
So - we arrived with 15 minutes to spare - which is still really good for us considering some of our mad dashes through train stations. We even had time to get our European East Eurail validated. This is good because now all of our passes have been validated and we don't need to worry about that anymore. Once we were on the train, it was a very easy ride and soon we were in Budapest.
So Budapest is probably the most exciting place we've been so far, just because it is the most challenging so far. It throws me back to my SAS days of being utterly confused. As soon as we got off the train, people were hounding us to come get in their taxis or stay at their hotels. The languages there are Hungarian and a little bit of German, which means that English is actually on quite a few signs because not that many people around the world know Hungarian and German. (In other places where they had multiple romance languages, less stuff was in English it seemed like). And this sounds terrible, but we didn't even know what their currency was (it's the Forint) or what the conversion rate was (it's 200 FT = $1). This reminded me a lot of Viet Nam or Thailand, where you are spending hundreds or thousands of "units" but really it's only a few dollars. So much getting used to was in order, in the world away from romance languages and euros :) This is what gets my traveling adrenaline going! I love it.
We had a tough time nailing down really specific details with our host - he said he might be at the train station to meet us if he could get off work in time, but if he wasn't, to make our way to his place, and to call him on his cell phone if anything went wrong. Except that he didn't leave his cell phone number and all of his CS pictures were far away shots so we couldn't even really tell what he looked like! OH YEAH, when we looked up our train it said we were stopping at the "Deli Pu" station at 18:45, on the Buda side of Budapest, and that's where he was planning on meeting us. Except that our train stopped once at 18:41 and again at 18:49 - and did NOT go to the Deli Pu station at all. It spit us out at the "Keleti Pu" station, which is on the Pest side of Budapest, where there was little to no chance of our host actually being there. Great. so now what?
We struggled through 3 visits to the information office, who couldn't really tell us anything useful because of language barriers. We found a tourist office that was closing, but a kind man there gave us a map and told us which bus to take to get to our host's general area. But we didn't have any money. The tourist shop man said we could buy tickets from the newspaper stand. We went to the newspaper stand and asked where an ATM was in the train station. The lady said there WASN'T one. How could there NOT be an ATM in an international train station? So I figured she just must not have known where it was or must not have understood us, because come on, there had to be a freaking ATM, so we could buy a freaking bus ticket, so we could freaking find out host.
And at this point, nice tourist shop man had left and we'd already been to the information office 3 times.
Here, you just have to laugh, take a deep breath, and think, "OK, what next?"
Next: we FOUND the ATM, but the slot where you put your card in was pushed really creepily far back into the machine. It looked like it was going to eat it and never give it back. We found that very strange and did not put our cards in. I hung around and watched somebody else attempt to use the machine and he also thought that was weird, which confirmed that it probably was not normal.
So, next: I thought - screw it. Let's just take the bus. Our host for sure isn't here, we know where the bus is, and which direction to take it, and where to get off, so let's just get on and hope that we don't get caught. Which is what we did. We just stole a little bit of public transportation, got off 4 stops later, and quickly found our hosts' flat. PHEW. Still no money - but at least we had arrived.
When we walked into his flat, we were greeted by our host, Bernhard, and three other CouchSurfers. Two were Canadian girls named Sherilee and Mandy, and one was a Japanese guy named Hiro. Between the 5 of us I felt like Bernhard was running a youth hostel! It was crazy. And all five of us were sleeping in the same room. There was no floor space, just backpacks, everywhere.
Bernhard is a consultant not much older than us who was born in Hungary but has citizenship in Germany as well. He spent 4 months volunteering in Peru, has one brother, and hosts quite a lot - other than that I don't know too much about him. I think he was a little overwhelmed with so many CSers invading his house, so he was pretty quiet while we were all jabbering away.
We sat around chatting and getting to know each other, and soon Bernhard led our group to dinner. We went to a mediocre Italian place and nothing very exciting happened at dinner.
When we got back, I read the Budapest section of the European travel guide book that the Canadians brought, which was helpful since I didn't really know anything about Budapest. (Laura and I split up countries to research and Hungary was one of her countries).
After a long day, I was ready for bed. It was so funny, that room just stuffed full of 20-somethings from around the world...
Quotes:
Group: "So, are you going back to Japan soon?" (To Hiro, who hasn't been back much over the last 4 years)
Hiro: "Yes. I need to make baby."
Everybody burst out laughing...
Group: "Well, first do you need to make girlfriend?"
Hiro: "Yes yes, first I need to make girlfriend, then I need to make baby."
Accomplishments:
Found our host.
Travel Tip:
It would be good to know the currency and conversion rate before you arrive in a country. Also, trying to arrive during working hours so that things like tourist offices will still be open is smart.
Stay calm, stay optimistic, stay clear-headed. It will work out.
Nice People Alert:
Tourist Shop Man - for giving us a map and actually telling us something useful and helpful!
Showing posts with label Vienna. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vienna. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Delicious Meals
This morning we had something glorious to look forward to. Heather, who also likes to cook/bake, invited us over to enjoy a traditional American breakfast with her!! Laura's favorite meal is breakfast and I just love food, so we were more than happy to oblige. Seriously, what a happy way to wake up - with the first thing on your agenda to go eat delicious home cooked breakfast food with somebody from your home country :)
My mouth I think started salivating walking up the stairs to Heather's flat. It definitely started salivating when I saw the huge plate of fresh blueberry muffins, the huge plate of fresh baked biscuits, and the growing stack of pancakes next to Heather who was still working at the stove. She was also making us fresh gravy. There was fruit and fruit juice, butter, syrup, and honey...it was AMAZING! A little embarrassing is that we had told Heather about how much we eat and so she had cooked and baked an especially large amount to try at satiate our appetites. How embarrassing! There was so much food there! Nonetheless, we tried to live up to our reputation. Laura did eat at least twice as much as me though - pretty impressive. Everything was delicious though and we spent a leisurely 3 hours chatting and munching on Heather's incredible breakfast!
Hegan was also there running around which was lots of fun to see :) He is such a cute little boy. Finally, when it got to be 1:30 PM Laura and I figured we should get on with our other errands. As we were making our way to the door, Hegan came up to me with his arms outstretched and holding a disc-like yellow toy. I picked him up and he threw it to the ground and kicked and whimpered to get put down. So I put him down, thinking he had dropped it on accident (silly me). He picked it up and raised his arms to be picked up again. Of course I obliged and he happily threw his toy on the floor again. This happened one or two more times before I said to him, "Nein" regarding picking him up again. But then he just started making his beautiful blue eyes water and started to whine and I caved and picked him up again. Only to have him throw his toy on the ground AGAIN. I was being made a fool of by this cute little kid but I finally stopped! Oh kids.... :) They are so silly.
Laura and I went back to the Nachmarkt, and got our fresh raviolis for dinner which included basil raviolis, prosciutto raviolis, quattro formaggi raviolis, ricotta and spinach raviolis, and one other kind that I can't remember. We also got up-sold and bought some amazing looking/smelling fresh pesto sauce!! I LOVE markets!!!! I need to live close to one. Then Laura found a shot glass and I was feeling much more productive than yesterday. We had one errand left to do - which was to go find patches for our sad pairs of jeans that are taking out their angst at us for being worn so often by ripping holes in themselves...rude of our jeans, I think. We found a wool store that Veronika told us would probably have patches, and they did. So many things crossed off of our little to-do list!
Veronika got home soon after we did, and the three of us headed out to a grocery store. We owed her a grocery trip to restock her kitchen after feeding us that feast a couple of days ago, and we needed some supplements to our dinner - ravioli and pesto was not a complete meal. It was great fun to go grocery shopping with Veronika! She has a large basket-type thing on wheels with a dog on it, and this device is named Michelle and it's what Veronika uses to carry groceries home. Very clever - finding ways to not use a car and walk every where! I love it.
At the grocery store, we got items for an anti-pasto plate designed by Veronika. She got half of a cantaloupe, freshly sliced prosciutto, freshly sliced ham, olives, sheep cheese, some extra raviolis, some rosemary bread sticks, some olive oil, and some other stuff too I think.
At home, she refused to let us help and once again whipped up a delightful 2 course meal. She decided to start us off with just the antipasto plate so that we would eat slower and have a longer, nice meal (told you! I love her!). Her antipasto plates were a beauty. The only drawback was that the store bought olives were not as good as the Naschmarkt olives I got a couple of days ago...so perhaps olives as well as beer, fries, waffles, chocolate, and cheese has also been ruined for me?! What a scary thought. But it was a delicious and rather filling appetizer course. Then she made our raviolis, as well as two other types of noodles, and was modifying some left over bolognaise sauce. So she had all four burners going while we sat watching in awe...Soon all of our noodles were ready and we had one type of noodles with her delicious bolognaise and the other types of raviolis and tortellini noodles with our fresh pesto sauce. The pesto was also a little too salty, but good and fresh nonetheless. She brought out a bottle of red wine and we stuffed ourselves on noodles. It was beautiful. I am going to miss eating with her!! It is so much fun.
After dinner, Veronika gave us directions to an Heuriger, which means "this year's wine." Heurigers are usually located on the outskirts of the city because they are connected to vineyards. They serve really cheap, really good wine and have lots of outside seating. They are usually frequented more in the warmer months but one of the Heurigers that Veronika really likes was already open. Veronika didn't feel like coming out with us though, so Laura and I set off to find it ourselves. It wasn't too difficult to find...but the address was 222-224, and we found 227, and 225, and then we found 221 a little farther down. In between 221 and 225 was a huge empty lot filled with dirt. Pretty funny - we were like, did we do something terribly wrong?! Could it really just be a dirt pile all of a sudden...? But then we saw it down the street a little farther.
It was still very pleasant weather to sit outside. They had a well lit, mostly empty courtyard where I enjoyed a glass of red wine while Laura sipped on white wine. We sat there for probably an hour and a half or two and had a really great conversation about all kinds of things. It was a wonderful evening.
Back at Veronika's flat we ironed on our patches so that we will be able to wear real pants again tomorrow! How exciting!
Quotes:
Hilary: "What are you doing to your bolognaise sauce?"
Veronika: "Putting garlic in it, then maybe some salt...It's like a pimped bolognaise."
Hahahaha
"Two-two-two, to two-two-FOUR!" - Our chant that we made up while looking for the Heuriger.
Accomplishments:
Had a real American breakfast!
Found patches for our pants.
Travel Tip:
Bringing patches just in case you get rips and holes is probably easier than trying to find wool shops in foreign countries.
And that was about the extent of today...we officially have done everything on our Vienna list except for go to that D1 Pakistani restaurant and get ice cream at one of the places Veronika recommended to us. Looks like that's our plan for tomorrow! Food food food. That is all we do. Really.
My mouth I think started salivating walking up the stairs to Heather's flat. It definitely started salivating when I saw the huge plate of fresh blueberry muffins, the huge plate of fresh baked biscuits, and the growing stack of pancakes next to Heather who was still working at the stove. She was also making us fresh gravy. There was fruit and fruit juice, butter, syrup, and honey...it was AMAZING! A little embarrassing is that we had told Heather about how much we eat and so she had cooked and baked an especially large amount to try at satiate our appetites. How embarrassing! There was so much food there! Nonetheless, we tried to live up to our reputation. Laura did eat at least twice as much as me though - pretty impressive. Everything was delicious though and we spent a leisurely 3 hours chatting and munching on Heather's incredible breakfast!
Hegan was also there running around which was lots of fun to see :) He is such a cute little boy. Finally, when it got to be 1:30 PM Laura and I figured we should get on with our other errands. As we were making our way to the door, Hegan came up to me with his arms outstretched and holding a disc-like yellow toy. I picked him up and he threw it to the ground and kicked and whimpered to get put down. So I put him down, thinking he had dropped it on accident (silly me). He picked it up and raised his arms to be picked up again. Of course I obliged and he happily threw his toy on the floor again. This happened one or two more times before I said to him, "Nein" regarding picking him up again. But then he just started making his beautiful blue eyes water and started to whine and I caved and picked him up again. Only to have him throw his toy on the ground AGAIN. I was being made a fool of by this cute little kid but I finally stopped! Oh kids.... :) They are so silly.
Laura and I went back to the Nachmarkt, and got our fresh raviolis for dinner which included basil raviolis, prosciutto raviolis, quattro formaggi raviolis, ricotta and spinach raviolis, and one other kind that I can't remember. We also got up-sold and bought some amazing looking/smelling fresh pesto sauce!! I LOVE markets!!!! I need to live close to one. Then Laura found a shot glass and I was feeling much more productive than yesterday. We had one errand left to do - which was to go find patches for our sad pairs of jeans that are taking out their angst at us for being worn so often by ripping holes in themselves...rude of our jeans, I think. We found a wool store that Veronika told us would probably have patches, and they did. So many things crossed off of our little to-do list!
Veronika got home soon after we did, and the three of us headed out to a grocery store. We owed her a grocery trip to restock her kitchen after feeding us that feast a couple of days ago, and we needed some supplements to our dinner - ravioli and pesto was not a complete meal. It was great fun to go grocery shopping with Veronika! She has a large basket-type thing on wheels with a dog on it, and this device is named Michelle and it's what Veronika uses to carry groceries home. Very clever - finding ways to not use a car and walk every where! I love it.
At the grocery store, we got items for an anti-pasto plate designed by Veronika. She got half of a cantaloupe, freshly sliced prosciutto, freshly sliced ham, olives, sheep cheese, some extra raviolis, some rosemary bread sticks, some olive oil, and some other stuff too I think.
At home, she refused to let us help and once again whipped up a delightful 2 course meal. She decided to start us off with just the antipasto plate so that we would eat slower and have a longer, nice meal (told you! I love her!). Her antipasto plates were a beauty. The only drawback was that the store bought olives were not as good as the Naschmarkt olives I got a couple of days ago...so perhaps olives as well as beer, fries, waffles, chocolate, and cheese has also been ruined for me?! What a scary thought. But it was a delicious and rather filling appetizer course. Then she made our raviolis, as well as two other types of noodles, and was modifying some left over bolognaise sauce. So she had all four burners going while we sat watching in awe...Soon all of our noodles were ready and we had one type of noodles with her delicious bolognaise and the other types of raviolis and tortellini noodles with our fresh pesto sauce. The pesto was also a little too salty, but good and fresh nonetheless. She brought out a bottle of red wine and we stuffed ourselves on noodles. It was beautiful. I am going to miss eating with her!! It is so much fun.
After dinner, Veronika gave us directions to an Heuriger, which means "this year's wine." Heurigers are usually located on the outskirts of the city because they are connected to vineyards. They serve really cheap, really good wine and have lots of outside seating. They are usually frequented more in the warmer months but one of the Heurigers that Veronika really likes was already open. Veronika didn't feel like coming out with us though, so Laura and I set off to find it ourselves. It wasn't too difficult to find...but the address was 222-224, and we found 227, and 225, and then we found 221 a little farther down. In between 221 and 225 was a huge empty lot filled with dirt. Pretty funny - we were like, did we do something terribly wrong?! Could it really just be a dirt pile all of a sudden...? But then we saw it down the street a little farther.
It was still very pleasant weather to sit outside. They had a well lit, mostly empty courtyard where I enjoyed a glass of red wine while Laura sipped on white wine. We sat there for probably an hour and a half or two and had a really great conversation about all kinds of things. It was a wonderful evening.
Back at Veronika's flat we ironed on our patches so that we will be able to wear real pants again tomorrow! How exciting!
Quotes:
Hilary: "What are you doing to your bolognaise sauce?"
Veronika: "Putting garlic in it, then maybe some salt...It's like a pimped bolognaise."
Hahahaha
"Two-two-two, to two-two-FOUR!" - Our chant that we made up while looking for the Heuriger.
Accomplishments:
Had a real American breakfast!
Found patches for our pants.
Travel Tip:
Bringing patches just in case you get rips and holes is probably easier than trying to find wool shops in foreign countries.
And that was about the extent of today...we officially have done everything on our Vienna list except for go to that D1 Pakistani restaurant and get ice cream at one of the places Veronika recommended to us. Looks like that's our plan for tomorrow! Food food food. That is all we do. Really.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Closed
Today was slow, long, hot, dehydrating, and thoroughly unproductive. Heather had told us that everything would be closed on Sunday, and she was NOT kidding.
Our first stop was to this restaurant called D1 which serves all you can eat Pakistani food. It's a buffet where you "pay as you wish". So most people pay only 3 or 4 euros and stuff their faces. And this restaurant's motto is "Good Food, Good Mood", which is now my newest personal motto. We found the restaurant, only to find that of course, it is closed on Sundays.
Next.
Well, we had to find lunch somewhere else so we got some street food. I got a chicken kebap (kebap is my new favorite word here, I love the spelling). It was delicious and filling as far as street food for 2.9 euros go!!! I got it shaved fresh off the spit, with yogurt sauce and veggies and a little hot sauce and it was yummmmy. We topped our lunches off with ice cream. Seriously, people are eating ice cream here 24/7, regardless of age, weight, time, or weather. Ice cream, 24/7. We sat in the sun and ate our cones and then tried to find souvenirs.
This was the most draining part of the day. We walked around until about 3:30 PM up and down streets looking for souvenir shops (which were open, by the way) but neither of us liked anything we saw there. It was very disheartening, since we are running out time here (we're planning on leaving tomorrow). We called shopping quits and when back to the Naschmarkt to get some fresh food to make our host dinner.
We arrived at the Naschmarkt, which was of course closed on Sundays.
Frustrated with our lack of productivity we decided to call it a day. Heading back to Veronika's, I found a plate I liked better than anything else I'd seen at the freaking tram stop that connects Veronika to the main city area. I can't believe it was just there the whole time! I got it so that my annoying search for it would be over, and we went back to her flat. After feeling dehydrated all day, I downed 3 glasses of water in a row. While we waited for Veronika to get home from work, Laura and I began catching up on the most recent Grey's Anatomy episodes - because, yes, Veronika has all of this season downloaded. Love it! We finished the 2nd to last episode and had just started the most recent episode when Veronika got home. We put the show on hold and chatted with her for a while.
She told us a lot about her family, and I always really respect those conversations. Not everybody is willing to talk about their families, but it is so interesting for me to hear and learn about. Aside from her family, we also had quite a long discussion about World War II which was extremely interesting as well. And also, today just happened to be the Austrian Presidential election day. So Veronika explained to us some of their political things and told us about each of the candidates. It was awesome talking with her about all of these important, real things. These kinds of conversations make me love CouchSurfing even more - who else can you just have an open dialogue about these types of things with? I'm sure you could find people, but having hosts that are willing to share with you their life, their culture, and things about their country and their country's history just makes me so happy. That is really how learning about other lifestyles and countries and making connections happen. Having a broad knowledge base about how things function and operate in other places is so valuable. So it was a wonderful early evening to counteract our mediocre day.
After our conversation wrapped up, we watched a few more minutes of the Grey's Anatomy episode while Veronika got ready to go out to dinner with us. She walked with us to this place called the Tunnel. It is a place that Nathalie had told us about, and Veronika verified that it was in fact a cool and cheap place to go eat. It was a pleasant 20 or 30 minute walk to the restaurant and it was really a great place. It had outside seating, two stories inside, and in the back there was a concert venue area. Laura and I were planning on staying for the evening because there was supposed to be live rock/jazz music starting at 9 PM.
Veronika helped translate the menu for us, and Laura and I in our creepy way ordered the same thing as usual. It was a cous-cous-esque dish mixed with minced meat and topped with cheese. It also came with salad and tzatziki (they eat tzatziki here plain like something in between a yogurt and a salad). We also got little white wine spritzers and later I tried some of their house wine. The place was so ridiculously well priced that I actually ended up spending more than I would have at a normal restaurant because I bought so much freaking food. By about 2/3 of the way through my main meal, I was already full, but kept charging ahead. What can I say, it was good! I have totally abandoned by "stop eating when you're full" philosophy and it is really taking a toll on my belly! After dinner, I got a reasonably priced dessert which turned out to be a huge bowl of fruit (bananas, apples, and pineapple chunks) served with a scoop of strawberry ice cream, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream. It was not the simple, quasi healthy dessert I had anticipated but of course I ate all of it anyway. Yum. Once again feeling like rolling instead of walking, the three of us walked back home. (The concert was canceled due to health reasons).
Since we really hadn't accomplished what we wanted to today, we asked Veronika if we could stay another night. She said that was fine (yay!). Laura messaged our Budapest host that we would now be a day later, and that was that. The joys of flexibility!!!
Quotes:
"I'm not going to force you to go, I'm just saying you'll regret it if you don't." - Veronika, about an ice cream place.
Accomplishments:
NOTHING.
(Well, I got my plate).
Travel Tip:
Save the walking tours for days when everything is closed...?
I'm just hoping I'll be hungry again by tomorrow morning since of course we have planned our whole day around food...
Our first stop was to this restaurant called D1 which serves all you can eat Pakistani food. It's a buffet where you "pay as you wish". So most people pay only 3 or 4 euros and stuff their faces. And this restaurant's motto is "Good Food, Good Mood", which is now my newest personal motto. We found the restaurant, only to find that of course, it is closed on Sundays.
Next.
Well, we had to find lunch somewhere else so we got some street food. I got a chicken kebap (kebap is my new favorite word here, I love the spelling). It was delicious and filling as far as street food for 2.9 euros go!!! I got it shaved fresh off the spit, with yogurt sauce and veggies and a little hot sauce and it was yummmmy. We topped our lunches off with ice cream. Seriously, people are eating ice cream here 24/7, regardless of age, weight, time, or weather. Ice cream, 24/7. We sat in the sun and ate our cones and then tried to find souvenirs.
This was the most draining part of the day. We walked around until about 3:30 PM up and down streets looking for souvenir shops (which were open, by the way) but neither of us liked anything we saw there. It was very disheartening, since we are running out time here (we're planning on leaving tomorrow). We called shopping quits and when back to the Naschmarkt to get some fresh food to make our host dinner.
We arrived at the Naschmarkt, which was of course closed on Sundays.
Frustrated with our lack of productivity we decided to call it a day. Heading back to Veronika's, I found a plate I liked better than anything else I'd seen at the freaking tram stop that connects Veronika to the main city area. I can't believe it was just there the whole time! I got it so that my annoying search for it would be over, and we went back to her flat. After feeling dehydrated all day, I downed 3 glasses of water in a row. While we waited for Veronika to get home from work, Laura and I began catching up on the most recent Grey's Anatomy episodes - because, yes, Veronika has all of this season downloaded. Love it! We finished the 2nd to last episode and had just started the most recent episode when Veronika got home. We put the show on hold and chatted with her for a while.
She told us a lot about her family, and I always really respect those conversations. Not everybody is willing to talk about their families, but it is so interesting for me to hear and learn about. Aside from her family, we also had quite a long discussion about World War II which was extremely interesting as well. And also, today just happened to be the Austrian Presidential election day. So Veronika explained to us some of their political things and told us about each of the candidates. It was awesome talking with her about all of these important, real things. These kinds of conversations make me love CouchSurfing even more - who else can you just have an open dialogue about these types of things with? I'm sure you could find people, but having hosts that are willing to share with you their life, their culture, and things about their country and their country's history just makes me so happy. That is really how learning about other lifestyles and countries and making connections happen. Having a broad knowledge base about how things function and operate in other places is so valuable. So it was a wonderful early evening to counteract our mediocre day.
After our conversation wrapped up, we watched a few more minutes of the Grey's Anatomy episode while Veronika got ready to go out to dinner with us. She walked with us to this place called the Tunnel. It is a place that Nathalie had told us about, and Veronika verified that it was in fact a cool and cheap place to go eat. It was a pleasant 20 or 30 minute walk to the restaurant and it was really a great place. It had outside seating, two stories inside, and in the back there was a concert venue area. Laura and I were planning on staying for the evening because there was supposed to be live rock/jazz music starting at 9 PM.
Veronika helped translate the menu for us, and Laura and I in our creepy way ordered the same thing as usual. It was a cous-cous-esque dish mixed with minced meat and topped with cheese. It also came with salad and tzatziki (they eat tzatziki here plain like something in between a yogurt and a salad). We also got little white wine spritzers and later I tried some of their house wine. The place was so ridiculously well priced that I actually ended up spending more than I would have at a normal restaurant because I bought so much freaking food. By about 2/3 of the way through my main meal, I was already full, but kept charging ahead. What can I say, it was good! I have totally abandoned by "stop eating when you're full" philosophy and it is really taking a toll on my belly! After dinner, I got a reasonably priced dessert which turned out to be a huge bowl of fruit (bananas, apples, and pineapple chunks) served with a scoop of strawberry ice cream, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream. It was not the simple, quasi healthy dessert I had anticipated but of course I ate all of it anyway. Yum. Once again feeling like rolling instead of walking, the three of us walked back home. (The concert was canceled due to health reasons).
Since we really hadn't accomplished what we wanted to today, we asked Veronika if we could stay another night. She said that was fine (yay!). Laura messaged our Budapest host that we would now be a day later, and that was that. The joys of flexibility!!!
Quotes:
"I'm not going to force you to go, I'm just saying you'll regret it if you don't." - Veronika, about an ice cream place.
Accomplishments:
NOTHING.
(Well, I got my plate).
Travel Tip:
Save the walking tours for days when everything is closed...?
I'm just hoping I'll be hungry again by tomorrow morning since of course we have planned our whole day around food...
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Slovakia
The joy of being in Europe is that you are often times only a short bus or train ride away from an entirely different country. This morning Laura and I decided to catch a bus for 11 Euros roundtrip to go to Slovakia for the day! Bratislava is only an hour away from Vienna, so we were just like, 'why ever would we not do that?' (This is the cute way Nathy would speak).
We read that the buses were hourly and knew that there was a bus at 930 and 1130 AM, so naturally we assumed there would be a 1030 AM bus as well. We get to the station at 10:10, buy our tickets, and the lady informs us that the next bus is in fact at 11:30 AM. So with some time to kill, we ask for a suggestion of what to do. She tells us about a mall that is 'one stop away', but she didn't specify a direction. So we took the U-bahn one stop in the direction that we had just came from, wandered aimlessly, didn't see any mall, and then took the U-bahn forward two stops to go one stop in the other direction from the bus stop (hope that makes sense). There we found the mall as soon as we got up the escalators. We got some breakfast food, which usually consists of yogurt and maybe something else. I finally found my Kiri cheese and bread stick combo snack packs. Probably designed for 8 year olds but I LOVE Kiri cheese and I only ever see it in Europe (and Egypt. That was unexpected). Then we went on a search for spoons, and ended up taking miniature ice cream spoons from some ice cream shop that was just opening up and had their spoons out. Very thrifty of us.
By then it was time to head back to the bus. The bus left right on time and literally took exactly an hour to get to Bratislava. It dumped us off at the city center, and we spent the day...guess what....wandering! What do we always do? This all must sound so incredibly repetitive. Sorry.
Bratislava was sweet though! Such a cool day trip. It started off by me really having to go to the bathroom. For the first time on our whole trip I paid to go to the bathroom; it was only 20 cents so it wasn't bad. It's worth writing about though because apparently my 20 cents rented me a Western toilet AND - AND - literally 3 pieces of single-ply toilet paper. Excuse me, but honestly, who can accomplish anything with 3 single-ply pieces of toilet paper?!?! What a joke. Luckily, yours truly ALWAYS carries toilet paper with her, for reasons like this. Enough bathroom talk...
It was hot and sunny and it was a weekend day so there were lots of people out walking, eating ice cream, selling stuff, performing, touring...it was very lively. In the city center there was some kind of event going on where there was a big stage set up at one end of it. People and groups took turns singing, dancing, and playing music. The best was this dance troup of young to adolescent girls performing to...Michael Jackson. It seemed somehow a little inappropriate, but downright hilarious to watch. They adolescent girls were in all black with one white-gloved hand, and the seriously young girls were in all white with one black-gloved hand. It was outrageous.In the middle of the square were tons of stations for kids that basically were like coloring-book stations. Some of the tables also had chess sets on them for the big kids. On the outskirts of the square were all the touristy vendor shops selling everything under the Slovakian sun. After the city center, we walked through a restaurant/cafe area and under St. Micheal's Gate, which is one of the last original gates to the old city. Then we walked around the outskirts of the Old City and eventually ended up at the castle. You can walk into the castle grounds and get really great views of the Danube River and of the Old City of Bratislava. Other than that, there wasn't a ton to see in the city, it was really just a fun place to walk around for an afternoon. The city does have a lot of statues up around it which are neat to see. One in particular, called the Working Man, is very famous (somehow...? I think just because people liked it the most). It is a man coming out from the sewer resting his chin on his hands and smiling. I have to admit I haven't seen a statue quite like that before.
After our self-guided and thoroughly uneducated tour, we went to go sit at a traditional Slovakian restaurant in a sunny cafe area. I got something called Devil's Toast which was really interesting and delicious. It was a big, thick piece of bread with some kind of tomato sauce on it, chunks of pork, and then cheese over the top of it. It was very filling. We also tried traditional Slovakian beer (of course) which tasted terrible. OK not terrible, just plain and watery, and, well...terrible, compared to Belgian or Munich beer. The waiter also brought a bread basket which we happily attacked especially after I found olive oil and vinegar on the table. When we got our bill it was more than what we were expecting. Our waiter seemed really nice and explained to us that the bread actually cost a euro. Ok, not a big deal, we did eat it all...He walked away and I was redoing the math again in my head and it just wasn't tying out. I grabbed a menu and saw that what I ordered was 6.5 euros. So I walked up to our waiter who was in a group of 2 or 3 other waiters and asked him very nicely to please explain it to me again. It was a little awkward but if there is one thing I hate when traveling it's getting ripped off. And if I somehow wasn't getting ripped off, I wanted to understand why, because the numbers just weren't tying out. He understood my question and went away for a second. He brought me another menu, where my exact same meal was listed at 7.9 euros!!! I told him that was a little weird, because I bought my meal with the understanding that it was only 6.5 euros (yeah, I'm frugal, I know). He explained to me then that what he was showing me was a "new" menu and I had been looking at an "old" menu. As politely as I could I told him, "You should really consider putting the "new" menus out on the table, so that people know what they're paying for." SERIOUSLY. After that I dropped it - I was full and 1.4 euros is nothing to get too upset about. I was just very confused.
To prove that we went to Slovakia, even if just for a day trip, I got my plate and Laura her shot glass. I've never seen a plate like the one I got in Slovakia, it's really cool. Their traditional ceramics are really pretty so I was excited about that. Then we ended up having a few extra minutes and I needed to mail a letter back to the States. We found Bratislava's post office which was quite hidden and through many series of dark double doors. The lady spoke no English and I played charades with her and managed to get an envelope and a stamp to the United States. Success.
Then we headed back to our bus, which again, came and left right on time. So impressed with everybody's public transportation EXCEPT for Seattle's. Blah. We went back to Veronika's flat in Vienna to regroup and get ready to meet up with Heather. She was able to pawn off adorable little Hegan to the Husband for the evening so she could come and have a girls' night out on the town with us. We met up with Heather around 10 as dressed up as possible (i.e. jeans and a clean shirt, cute shoes optional). Heather wanted to take us to some "beach bars" along the Danube River but they were all closed because it's not late enough in the year. It wasn't cold out and we had a great stroll along the river at night. It took us about 45 minutes to figure out where we wanted to go that would be open - a Mexican place in the city center area. It took us about 45 minutes to get to the city center, but Heather couldn't remember exactly where the restaurant was. The area is so full of tourists that asking people wasn't very fruitful. Obviously Laura and I had no idea. We knew we were close by and in the right place, but somehow it took us another hour of wandering to find this place!!! The good news is that I really loved walking around such a busy, people and light filled area on a Saturday night in Vienna, it was very, very pleasant. Also, since we didn't order our first drinks until 12:30, we saved quite a bit of money since the bars close at 2 AM (we thought they stayed open later, but we were wrong). Laura and I split a pitcher of a deliciously fruity strawberry daiquiri and we girl-talked for the next hour or so. Then we went to a couple of other bars but since they were all closing Heather hopped in a cab with us and helped us get home (so we avoided any more Night Line drama)! It is always a treat to have other people go out and about with you and show you around and help speak the language for you...:) So we had a good time paling (is that a word?) with Heather - she is full of interesting stories, and since she is an American living in Vienna she has some different perspectives that are also really fun to learn about.
Quotes:
"You should really consider putting the new menus out on the table." - Me, to the Slovakian waiter.
Accomplishments:
Day trip to Slovakia - CHECK!
Travel Tip:
Keep an eye out for awesome day trips!
[I think these are getting lamer and lamer as this trip goes on...]
We read that the buses were hourly and knew that there was a bus at 930 and 1130 AM, so naturally we assumed there would be a 1030 AM bus as well. We get to the station at 10:10, buy our tickets, and the lady informs us that the next bus is in fact at 11:30 AM. So with some time to kill, we ask for a suggestion of what to do. She tells us about a mall that is 'one stop away', but she didn't specify a direction. So we took the U-bahn one stop in the direction that we had just came from, wandered aimlessly, didn't see any mall, and then took the U-bahn forward two stops to go one stop in the other direction from the bus stop (hope that makes sense). There we found the mall as soon as we got up the escalators. We got some breakfast food, which usually consists of yogurt and maybe something else. I finally found my Kiri cheese and bread stick combo snack packs. Probably designed for 8 year olds but I LOVE Kiri cheese and I only ever see it in Europe (and Egypt. That was unexpected). Then we went on a search for spoons, and ended up taking miniature ice cream spoons from some ice cream shop that was just opening up and had their spoons out. Very thrifty of us.
By then it was time to head back to the bus. The bus left right on time and literally took exactly an hour to get to Bratislava. It dumped us off at the city center, and we spent the day...guess what....wandering! What do we always do? This all must sound so incredibly repetitive. Sorry.
Bratislava was sweet though! Such a cool day trip. It started off by me really having to go to the bathroom. For the first time on our whole trip I paid to go to the bathroom; it was only 20 cents so it wasn't bad. It's worth writing about though because apparently my 20 cents rented me a Western toilet AND - AND - literally 3 pieces of single-ply toilet paper. Excuse me, but honestly, who can accomplish anything with 3 single-ply pieces of toilet paper?!?! What a joke. Luckily, yours truly ALWAYS carries toilet paper with her, for reasons like this. Enough bathroom talk...
It was hot and sunny and it was a weekend day so there were lots of people out walking, eating ice cream, selling stuff, performing, touring...it was very lively. In the city center there was some kind of event going on where there was a big stage set up at one end of it. People and groups took turns singing, dancing, and playing music. The best was this dance troup of young to adolescent girls performing to...Michael Jackson. It seemed somehow a little inappropriate, but downright hilarious to watch. They adolescent girls were in all black with one white-gloved hand, and the seriously young girls were in all white with one black-gloved hand. It was outrageous.In the middle of the square were tons of stations for kids that basically were like coloring-book stations. Some of the tables also had chess sets on them for the big kids. On the outskirts of the square were all the touristy vendor shops selling everything under the Slovakian sun. After the city center, we walked through a restaurant/cafe area and under St. Micheal's Gate, which is one of the last original gates to the old city. Then we walked around the outskirts of the Old City and eventually ended up at the castle. You can walk into the castle grounds and get really great views of the Danube River and of the Old City of Bratislava. Other than that, there wasn't a ton to see in the city, it was really just a fun place to walk around for an afternoon. The city does have a lot of statues up around it which are neat to see. One in particular, called the Working Man, is very famous (somehow...? I think just because people liked it the most). It is a man coming out from the sewer resting his chin on his hands and smiling. I have to admit I haven't seen a statue quite like that before.
After our self-guided and thoroughly uneducated tour, we went to go sit at a traditional Slovakian restaurant in a sunny cafe area. I got something called Devil's Toast which was really interesting and delicious. It was a big, thick piece of bread with some kind of tomato sauce on it, chunks of pork, and then cheese over the top of it. It was very filling. We also tried traditional Slovakian beer (of course) which tasted terrible. OK not terrible, just plain and watery, and, well...terrible, compared to Belgian or Munich beer. The waiter also brought a bread basket which we happily attacked especially after I found olive oil and vinegar on the table. When we got our bill it was more than what we were expecting. Our waiter seemed really nice and explained to us that the bread actually cost a euro. Ok, not a big deal, we did eat it all...He walked away and I was redoing the math again in my head and it just wasn't tying out. I grabbed a menu and saw that what I ordered was 6.5 euros. So I walked up to our waiter who was in a group of 2 or 3 other waiters and asked him very nicely to please explain it to me again. It was a little awkward but if there is one thing I hate when traveling it's getting ripped off. And if I somehow wasn't getting ripped off, I wanted to understand why, because the numbers just weren't tying out. He understood my question and went away for a second. He brought me another menu, where my exact same meal was listed at 7.9 euros!!! I told him that was a little weird, because I bought my meal with the understanding that it was only 6.5 euros (yeah, I'm frugal, I know). He explained to me then that what he was showing me was a "new" menu and I had been looking at an "old" menu. As politely as I could I told him, "You should really consider putting the "new" menus out on the table, so that people know what they're paying for." SERIOUSLY. After that I dropped it - I was full and 1.4 euros is nothing to get too upset about. I was just very confused.
To prove that we went to Slovakia, even if just for a day trip, I got my plate and Laura her shot glass. I've never seen a plate like the one I got in Slovakia, it's really cool. Their traditional ceramics are really pretty so I was excited about that. Then we ended up having a few extra minutes and I needed to mail a letter back to the States. We found Bratislava's post office which was quite hidden and through many series of dark double doors. The lady spoke no English and I played charades with her and managed to get an envelope and a stamp to the United States. Success.
Then we headed back to our bus, which again, came and left right on time. So impressed with everybody's public transportation EXCEPT for Seattle's. Blah. We went back to Veronika's flat in Vienna to regroup and get ready to meet up with Heather. She was able to pawn off adorable little Hegan to the Husband for the evening so she could come and have a girls' night out on the town with us. We met up with Heather around 10 as dressed up as possible (i.e. jeans and a clean shirt, cute shoes optional). Heather wanted to take us to some "beach bars" along the Danube River but they were all closed because it's not late enough in the year. It wasn't cold out and we had a great stroll along the river at night. It took us about 45 minutes to figure out where we wanted to go that would be open - a Mexican place in the city center area. It took us about 45 minutes to get to the city center, but Heather couldn't remember exactly where the restaurant was. The area is so full of tourists that asking people wasn't very fruitful. Obviously Laura and I had no idea. We knew we were close by and in the right place, but somehow it took us another hour of wandering to find this place!!! The good news is that I really loved walking around such a busy, people and light filled area on a Saturday night in Vienna, it was very, very pleasant. Also, since we didn't order our first drinks until 12:30, we saved quite a bit of money since the bars close at 2 AM (we thought they stayed open later, but we were wrong). Laura and I split a pitcher of a deliciously fruity strawberry daiquiri and we girl-talked for the next hour or so. Then we went to a couple of other bars but since they were all closing Heather hopped in a cab with us and helped us get home (so we avoided any more Night Line drama)! It is always a treat to have other people go out and about with you and show you around and help speak the language for you...:) So we had a good time paling (is that a word?) with Heather - she is full of interesting stories, and since she is an American living in Vienna she has some different perspectives that are also really fun to learn about.
Quotes:
"You should really consider putting the new menus out on the table." - Me, to the Slovakian waiter.
Accomplishments:
Day trip to Slovakia - CHECK!
Travel Tip:
Keep an eye out for awesome day trips!
[I think these are getting lamer and lamer as this trip goes on...]
Friday, April 23, 2010
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.
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.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Schonbrunn
We woke up to Nathalie making us a wonderful pancake breakfast. Do you know how nice it is to travel and have the luxury of waking up to a nice breakfast? It's incredible!
Then Nathalie came with us to a copy shop literally next door to her flat. She spoke to the people in German and helped me figure out how to get online, print a reply form I needed to fill out, scan it, and email it back to the States. That would have taken me FOREVER to figure out how to do by myself using chirades. I really lucked out having her by my side and being so close to a copy shop.
With that errand done, Nathalie went to go get ready for school and Laura and I headed off to go see the Schonbrunn. It is the #1 thing countless people have recommended to us, but they all said only go if it's sunny weather. Well, today was gorgeous. Not a cloud to be forecast, and it was predicted to be 56 degrees fahrenheit. A long sleeve shirt should do the trick - but at 56 degrees I didn't think of sunscreen. That turned out to be a mistake. I now have super touristy sun burn lines where my backpack was all day. LAME. And Laura has a white strip across her nose. And of course my face looks a little like a tomatoe. Oh well.
The Schonbrunn was WAY easier to find that the Schloss Nymphenburg so Austria: 1, Germany: 0 haha. I loved it. It was so beautiful. And it was so huge that if you wandered to the right places, you didn't feel like there were a million tourists there.
The gardens, flowers, sculpted trees, scultped statues, fountains - everything was just gorgeous in our perfect-weather day. We paid 2.4 Euros to go in the kid part of the garden. We did a maze, a labrynth, and played some kid games and with some kid toys. We like acting like small children...Then we walked around for a few hours. It all looks the same in a way but it was so pretty that didn't really matter. We walked up to the Glorietta, which is a kind of panoramic viewpoint where you can look down at the Schonbrunn palace. You can also walk behind some of the huge fountains there and it feels like you are behind the scenes! It was a really incredible sight.
We met up with Nathy at a restaurant named Kolar that Meredith recommended to me. She told me they had good beer and good flatbread sandwiches, and she was not lying! The beer I got was darker and suprisingly sweet, but really good. And the flatbread (pita) sandwich I got had melted cheese, sour cream, ham, and asparagus on it. It sounded interesting and a little unusual so I ventured slightly out of my comfort zone and went for it. It was great!!! And so filling! In Vienna, everything moves pretty slowly, so our late lunch took about 2 leisurely hours. Then we moved locations to this great people-watching indoor cafe connected to a hotel. Nathy told us that we had to try this amazing chocolate marmalade cake (no complaints there) and of course I wanted to get some coffee with it :) I drink way more coffee when I'm in Europe. The cake was a bit dry but the 'crust' was chocolate and it had layers of apricot marmalade in it to help with the dryness. It was quite yummy, and by the time I'd finished that and my coffee I was stuffed! I tried to share with Laura so that we would each only have half but Nathy made us each order our own :)
Over coffee and cake and people watching while looking out at the Stephensdom we talked a lot about the difference in coffee and physical education between the U.S. and Austria. It is little things like that which makes conversing with CouchSurfers so much fun and so educational. Really sharing minute, random things about your culture. It's always fun to see what I can teach other people, what they don't know or what they thought they knew about our culture sometimes surprises me. It is really enjoyable to give them other points of view and some other facts so that they can alter their perceptions. CouchSurfing is great :)
Eventually it got to be around 6 PM and Nathy had plans to go to a movie. Laura and I didn't feel like going so Nathy walked us to the U-Bahn stop. On our way, we passed by the gorgeous Opera building and inquired about 4 Euro day-of tickets that you can get! We might do that another day. By the way, they have tons of paid men dressed up in fantastic costumes out and about in the touristy areas to sell Opera tickets. They are a lot of fun to watch :) Then Nathy showed us the "Opera Toilet". That is the WC in the Opera U-Bahn stop. It plays Opera music and the wallpaper looks like an opera house. It is really hilarious, probably the most amusing WC I've ever seen!
Laura and I had a quiet night at Nathy's flat during which I got super caught up with blogs, pictures, random CouchSurfing stuff, etc. It feels so good to finally not be behind!!
Quotes:
None today :/
Accomplishments:
Found the hole-in-the-wall restaurant that Meredith recommended to me!
Travel Tip:
Maybe if you look up the weather and see that it's going to be pure sunny the whole day and you're planning on walking around outside you should consider putting on some sunscreen. Maybe.
I feel like there is so much to do in Vienna! We are planning on leaving Monday but I'm not really sure if that will happen...
Then Nathalie came with us to a copy shop literally next door to her flat. She spoke to the people in German and helped me figure out how to get online, print a reply form I needed to fill out, scan it, and email it back to the States. That would have taken me FOREVER to figure out how to do by myself using chirades. I really lucked out having her by my side and being so close to a copy shop.
With that errand done, Nathalie went to go get ready for school and Laura and I headed off to go see the Schonbrunn. It is the #1 thing countless people have recommended to us, but they all said only go if it's sunny weather. Well, today was gorgeous. Not a cloud to be forecast, and it was predicted to be 56 degrees fahrenheit. A long sleeve shirt should do the trick - but at 56 degrees I didn't think of sunscreen. That turned out to be a mistake. I now have super touristy sun burn lines where my backpack was all day. LAME. And Laura has a white strip across her nose. And of course my face looks a little like a tomatoe. Oh well.
The Schonbrunn was WAY easier to find that the Schloss Nymphenburg so Austria: 1, Germany: 0 haha. I loved it. It was so beautiful. And it was so huge that if you wandered to the right places, you didn't feel like there were a million tourists there.
The gardens, flowers, sculpted trees, scultped statues, fountains - everything was just gorgeous in our perfect-weather day. We paid 2.4 Euros to go in the kid part of the garden. We did a maze, a labrynth, and played some kid games and with some kid toys. We like acting like small children...Then we walked around for a few hours. It all looks the same in a way but it was so pretty that didn't really matter. We walked up to the Glorietta, which is a kind of panoramic viewpoint where you can look down at the Schonbrunn palace. You can also walk behind some of the huge fountains there and it feels like you are behind the scenes! It was a really incredible sight.
We met up with Nathy at a restaurant named Kolar that Meredith recommended to me. She told me they had good beer and good flatbread sandwiches, and she was not lying! The beer I got was darker and suprisingly sweet, but really good. And the flatbread (pita) sandwich I got had melted cheese, sour cream, ham, and asparagus on it. It sounded interesting and a little unusual so I ventured slightly out of my comfort zone and went for it. It was great!!! And so filling! In Vienna, everything moves pretty slowly, so our late lunch took about 2 leisurely hours. Then we moved locations to this great people-watching indoor cafe connected to a hotel. Nathy told us that we had to try this amazing chocolate marmalade cake (no complaints there) and of course I wanted to get some coffee with it :) I drink way more coffee when I'm in Europe. The cake was a bit dry but the 'crust' was chocolate and it had layers of apricot marmalade in it to help with the dryness. It was quite yummy, and by the time I'd finished that and my coffee I was stuffed! I tried to share with Laura so that we would each only have half but Nathy made us each order our own :)
Over coffee and cake and people watching while looking out at the Stephensdom we talked a lot about the difference in coffee and physical education between the U.S. and Austria. It is little things like that which makes conversing with CouchSurfers so much fun and so educational. Really sharing minute, random things about your culture. It's always fun to see what I can teach other people, what they don't know or what they thought they knew about our culture sometimes surprises me. It is really enjoyable to give them other points of view and some other facts so that they can alter their perceptions. CouchSurfing is great :)
Eventually it got to be around 6 PM and Nathy had plans to go to a movie. Laura and I didn't feel like going so Nathy walked us to the U-Bahn stop. On our way, we passed by the gorgeous Opera building and inquired about 4 Euro day-of tickets that you can get! We might do that another day. By the way, they have tons of paid men dressed up in fantastic costumes out and about in the touristy areas to sell Opera tickets. They are a lot of fun to watch :) Then Nathy showed us the "Opera Toilet". That is the WC in the Opera U-Bahn stop. It plays Opera music and the wallpaper looks like an opera house. It is really hilarious, probably the most amusing WC I've ever seen!
Laura and I had a quiet night at Nathy's flat during which I got super caught up with blogs, pictures, random CouchSurfing stuff, etc. It feels so good to finally not be behind!!
Quotes:
None today :/
Accomplishments:
Found the hole-in-the-wall restaurant that Meredith recommended to me!
Travel Tip:
Maybe if you look up the weather and see that it's going to be pure sunny the whole day and you're planning on walking around outside you should consider putting on some sunscreen. Maybe.
I feel like there is so much to do in Vienna! We are planning on leaving Monday but I'm not really sure if that will happen...
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Nathalie - CS #11 | Run
Our hopes of waking up at 7 and catching an 830 train to spend the day in Salzburg was a wonderful idea in theory. In reality, we were incapable of getting up before about 11. We spent the morning packing and cleaning up after ourselves. We had to catch a 1:42 train to Vienna. We didn't end up leaving until at least 1:05. At this point I was freaking out. We had to walk with all of our stuff to the subway station, buy our tickets, take the subway a couple of stops, transfer, get to the Central Station, get our Eurail tickets validated, find out if we needed reserve seats, and get to the train. Pretty much impossible.
We speed walked to the station and I tried paying with my 20 Euro note. Nope, the machien doesn't take bills that big. So Laura finds her change and we get our tickets. We scramble down to the platform, luckily a subway was already there and we hopped on. We got off two stops later and frantically tried to find where our connecting S-Bahn was. We found it, but it was too packed to get on. A few minutes later, another one came, but it was empty and nobody was allowed on. Confusing. A few minutes later, another one came and we got on. We arrived at the Central Station and went to the first ticket information counter. It was probably 1:25. We waited in line for 5 minutes but it felt like forever. We asked them if they could validate our Eurails here and they said no, we had to go upstairs. We go upstairs, find another information booth. They send us to the ticket center which is somewhere else. We run over there, and nobody speaks English. Finally they got it that we needed a stamp, and told us that the conductor on the train would stamp it. It must have been 1:38 by now. We asked them if we needed to reserve seats, and they said it was recommended not required. So we sprinted with our bags to our platform, and somehow made it on to that blasted train. With literally one, maybe two minutes to spare. I still can't believe we made it.
We had to switch trains in Salzburg, where we almost spent the afternoon (oops), and we got our Eurails validated there with ease. Then we waited for our train to Vienna. It was a very smooth transition...I'm so glad we made our trains!
Nathalie was waiting for us at the train station. She is 20 years old but has been SUPER involved in CS since she was 18. She goes to CS meetings regularly here in Vienna. She is a student and lives with 4 other people. She is the only person I have ever met that admits to hating to sleep! She speaks 4 languages (English, German, Spanish, and Russian) - sooo jealous.
After we dropped our stuff off we went to this bar/restaurant to go to one of her CS meetings. This meeting (read: a bunch of people hang out at a bar together) was focused around practicing speaking German. But since we spoke English most people just spoke English for us :) I was in a very quiet mood which was too bad because there were lots of very nice people there. Everybody was so loud and energetic - it was a great vibe. I wish Seattle was as on top of their CS meetings as Vienna is. Nathy (her nickname) says that nearly everybody in Vienna has at least heard of CS though there are only a few hundred active users. At this restaurant we got cheese dumplings which were amazing! We also tried a dumpling soup (they love their dumplings here). I didn't like the dumplings as much but the broth was really good, though very, very salty! We finally left around midnight and walked through the city back to Nathy's place. The city is described as a "big small town" and is extremely quiet, especially compared to Munich.
Today was just not my day so I went to sleep soon after we got back to her flat so that I could make tomorrow better!
Quotes:
"These are my CouchSurfers." - Nathalie, this was our introduction
Other CS guy: "These are my two CouchSurfers."
Nathalie: "Want to take them all for a walk in the park tomorrow?"
Haha, we are like pets to them...lol
Accomplishments:
Slept through our train to Salzburg.
MADE our trains to Vienna.
Tried two different dumpling dishes!
Travel Tip:
I recommend not putting yourself in a situation where you need to run with 30 pounds on your back to catch a train.
I think I am going to really like Vienna. Meredith studied abroad here for a semester so I've heard a lot about it. Meredith loved it, and I love Meredith, so I am pretty sure I will love it too :)
We speed walked to the station and I tried paying with my 20 Euro note. Nope, the machien doesn't take bills that big. So Laura finds her change and we get our tickets. We scramble down to the platform, luckily a subway was already there and we hopped on. We got off two stops later and frantically tried to find where our connecting S-Bahn was. We found it, but it was too packed to get on. A few minutes later, another one came, but it was empty and nobody was allowed on. Confusing. A few minutes later, another one came and we got on. We arrived at the Central Station and went to the first ticket information counter. It was probably 1:25. We waited in line for 5 minutes but it felt like forever. We asked them if they could validate our Eurails here and they said no, we had to go upstairs. We go upstairs, find another information booth. They send us to the ticket center which is somewhere else. We run over there, and nobody speaks English. Finally they got it that we needed a stamp, and told us that the conductor on the train would stamp it. It must have been 1:38 by now. We asked them if we needed to reserve seats, and they said it was recommended not required. So we sprinted with our bags to our platform, and somehow made it on to that blasted train. With literally one, maybe two minutes to spare. I still can't believe we made it.
We had to switch trains in Salzburg, where we almost spent the afternoon (oops), and we got our Eurails validated there with ease. Then we waited for our train to Vienna. It was a very smooth transition...I'm so glad we made our trains!
Nathalie was waiting for us at the train station. She is 20 years old but has been SUPER involved in CS since she was 18. She goes to CS meetings regularly here in Vienna. She is a student and lives with 4 other people. She is the only person I have ever met that admits to hating to sleep! She speaks 4 languages (English, German, Spanish, and Russian) - sooo jealous.
After we dropped our stuff off we went to this bar/restaurant to go to one of her CS meetings. This meeting (read: a bunch of people hang out at a bar together) was focused around practicing speaking German. But since we spoke English most people just spoke English for us :) I was in a very quiet mood which was too bad because there were lots of very nice people there. Everybody was so loud and energetic - it was a great vibe. I wish Seattle was as on top of their CS meetings as Vienna is. Nathy (her nickname) says that nearly everybody in Vienna has at least heard of CS though there are only a few hundred active users. At this restaurant we got cheese dumplings which were amazing! We also tried a dumpling soup (they love their dumplings here). I didn't like the dumplings as much but the broth was really good, though very, very salty! We finally left around midnight and walked through the city back to Nathy's place. The city is described as a "big small town" and is extremely quiet, especially compared to Munich.
Today was just not my day so I went to sleep soon after we got back to her flat so that I could make tomorrow better!
Quotes:
"These are my CouchSurfers." - Nathalie, this was our introduction
Other CS guy: "These are my two CouchSurfers."
Nathalie: "Want to take them all for a walk in the park tomorrow?"
Haha, we are like pets to them...lol
Accomplishments:
Slept through our train to Salzburg.
MADE our trains to Vienna.
Tried two different dumpling dishes!
Travel Tip:
I recommend not putting yourself in a situation where you need to run with 30 pounds on your back to catch a train.
I think I am going to really like Vienna. Meredith studied abroad here for a semester so I've heard a lot about it. Meredith loved it, and I love Meredith, so I am pretty sure I will love it too :)
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