Wir Tanzen!

The past two days were packed with touristy exploring, so I’ll get right to describing everything I did and saw! Saturday morning I embarked on my first venture into Vienna itself. I met up with two other W&Lers, Christine and Nico, at Schoenbrunn which is often called the Versailles of Austria. It’s a Hapsburg palace with huge gardens, a zoo, a hedge maze, fountains, and everything else you could possibly ask for in a palace. We wandered the grounds and even took on the hedge maze, which I was horribly unsuccessful at, but didn’t go into the palace itself. We even had coffee at the café on the top of a hill that overlooks the palace. It was just lovely. Going back on a sunnier day and exploring the inside of the palace as well as the outside is definitely on my to-do list.

That afternoon, Christine had to go to an Austrian Folk Dancing lesson for one of her classes, so she dragged me and Nico along (well, I didn’t need any convincing). It. Was. Awesome. We took the street trolley out to this super adorable area of the city and met up with the rest of the group and our “instructors” inside a church. There were about 10 American students, 2 older Austrian women wearing Dirndls, and 2 older Austrian men, one of whom played the accordion and sang while we were dancing. Everything about it was fantastic. We learned about 5 or 6 dances, some partnered and some with 1 guy and 2 girls. They weren’t as hard to pick up as I thought they might be, and they were SUPER fun. I’m ready to take on any American dance floor with these moves.

After our dancing lesson, we tried to wander the city some more but it started raining and we had worked up quite an appetite dancing so we went to a Pakistani restaurant buffet with delicious food, which was super cheap because you essentially pay what you want. There are no prices, you just give what you feel like giving. So we each paid 5 Euros and ate a TON of great great food. I like this city.

Today I had some errands to run in Vienna so after I got those done I decided to do some more touristy exploring on my own. Well, I wasn’t really on my own, because I had Rick Steves accompanying me, and he’s the best companion any girl could ask for. I started by walking down Mariahilfer Strasse, which is a huge shopping street that leads from my train station to the city center. I kept stumbling upon beautiful churches and statues and fountains. At one point I realized that no matter what direction you walk, there is something awesome ahead of you.

As I got closer and closer to the city center the buildings got more and more beautiful, even those that were just drug stores or bakeries. Whenever I’m in a new place I like to just wander and see where that wandering takes me, so I didn’t really have a set plan other than eventually I wanted to end up at Stefansdom, the big cathedral in the middle of the city. Some of the things I stumbled across on my way were: part of the Hofburg Palace which I will surely visit and describe in great detail at a later date, the museums quarter, the Albertina museum with a very interesting sculpture garden outside, the Augustinian Church (where the Hapsburg weddings took place), the stables for the famous Lipizzaner horses, some Roman ruins, the Jewish Museum of Vienna, and tons and tons of statues and beautiful buildings that have less significance.

[Augustine Church, Central Bank, Jakobsplatz]

[Hofburg Palace, way to Lipizzaner Stables]

[pretty church]

Stefansdom itself was breathtaking, but kind of sad because there are some restoration projects going on on one side so there’s all this scaffolding set up, and the scaffolding has really tacky advertisements on it, which is just depressing. Taking that bit apart from the rest, though, the cathedral is gorgeous and huge. I didn’t get a chance to go in because there were some services going on, but Rick has a whole chapter devoted to a self-guided tour of this place, so I’ll be back. One of the best parts of the Stefansdom plaza, though, was a group of men dressed in Mozart-esque attire chatting with tourists, trying to get them to come to some kind of concert. I was entertained.

 

   

 

My last stop of the day was an islet on the side of the Danube river for the Red Bull Flugtag, which is a huge event where people get together in teams and attempt to create flying machines and then compete to see who can fly the furthest. The “planes” these people created ranged in design from glider-like to nothing resembling anything that could ever fly. Some were very decorated, molded to look like birds or ships or the red bull logo, or dragons. Others were accompanied by teams dressed every costume from kilts to aliens (tin foil in the hair, blue skin, etc) to fighter pilots to many things unrecognizable. The furthest a “plane” “flew” while I was watching was 17.2 meters, before it went crashing into the river. The place was absolutely packed and people seemed to be having a grand old time. I thought it was pretty ridiculous and hilarious, and definitely an experience worth having. I then saw a report on TV later on after I got home. Apparently this is a big event here.

Tomorrow morning I leave for Graz, a city south of here, for my orientation. I’m really excited to meet the other TAs and spend a few days hanging out in a castle, learning about teaching. Nothing about that sounds bad. Thanks for reading!!