I met my mitfahr on the edge of Budapest, and she was perhaps the slowest driver of all time. It took about twice as long as it should have to get to Vienna, but I guess I can’t complain because it was half the cost of the train. I was running out of minutes on my phone, and I needed to top up so that my friend Megan, who was meeting up with me in Vienna, would be able to get ahold of me when she touched down.
It turns out that vodafone doesn’t exist in Austria, which isn’t true of any other country I visited in Europe, so I was in for a small shock. After asking around I was able to find an affiliated phone company where I could fill up my phone, and I made it back to the train station after two hours of searching with little more than 5 minutes to spare before meeting up with Megan at our scheduled time. Megan and I made our way around Vienna, stopping to check out various epic buildings, statue, and squares, of which Vienna has anything but a shortage!
In the evening we met up with our couchsurfing host who lived in a nice part of Vienna pretty near the center. Our host Johann was quickly in the kitchen whipping up a big batch of crepes for dinner, with a good combination of savory and sweet toppings. It was quite delicious, and was only the first among many nice things Johann did for Megan and I during our stay in Vienna.
In the morning we had another batch of crepes left over from the night before, and worked out our travel plans for the following few weeks, which would send us through Munich, Padova, Venice, Roma, and Stuttgart. We had another day walking around the city and checked out the main downtown area, including the old cathedral. Vienna truly may be the most beautiful and clean city in the world, as nearly every place we went was beautiful and clean. We were about to pick up some food when I got a text from our host Johann saying dinner was already on the stove, so we put back the food we were about to purchase and headed back to Johann’s house for a surprise dinner. We had some delicious pasta, and then we all headed out to the Vienna Opera House, where we were going to see the world premiere of a new ballet.
The ballet was called Neues Welt des Ballets, or something similar to that, which means “The New World of Ballet,” and the title seems appropriate! The ballet was great, and took many opportunities to poke fun at the traditional form ballets take. The auditorium was literally laughing out loud at several parts during the show, and it was full of fun and bewildering surprises! Afterwards, we went out for a beer and met a friend of Johann’s who had studied at UCLA several years before. It really is a small world.
Megan and I woke up late the next day, and capitalized on some crepes with nutella and strawbeery jam that were waiting for us. We took a tram around the city in a search for some wifi, and did a tour of the natural history museum which had a pretty impressive collection. We headed home early to get in the kitchen in our attempt to return the favors Johann had already afforded us. We made some delicious thai chicken curry, which was followed by a pretty serious youtube sharing session.
We had to get up really early the next morning to catch our bullet-train to Munich, and Johann was up before us to walk to the station! It all went by quickly, and as per usual my blog entry about it seems somehow deficient. Johann really made our experience in Austria a special one, but once again I was on my way to a new city, but this time accompanied by my friend Megan.