sean and i ventured out to austria this past weekend and oh, let me just tell you, those hills are alive. with the sound of music, naturally.
expectations were a little shaky on our way there, but were positively confirmed and even exceeded at the conclusion of our first hour or so there. granted, everything is STUPID expensive compared to prague, but other than the whole arm-and-a-leg thing, vienna was awesome and everyone should get to spend at least one weekend there. as a treat. for being alive.
we took the train for 38 euros/ea.from prague to vienna friday morning, finangled around with the metro, and arrived at hostel ruthensteiner early in the afternoon. this place seemed like a hotel compared to some pretty shady hostels in which we've stayed in the past year or so (..cough.. aqualounge.. cough..). pleasant surprise.
first things first... food, obviously. we dropped by the supermarket BILLA on our way to walk around. for sean, pressed meat that resembled fruitcake with little red and green things stuck everywhere. sick. for me, a normal person sandwich of gouda and salami with coke zero.
after lunch we wandered around vienna in the museum quartier, parliament, the city center, and various gardens. we happend to pass a protest - which we obviously joined until enough police officers joined up - that revolved around freedom to do what you want on sundays/a political candidate that should not be voted for because he's a facist. interesting. moving on, we ended up in the downtown "square" (if it were a square) and watched some woo-big-time-wanna-be-american-white-viennese-male breakdancers. ok, mean. but really. they've seen too much BET. but they were pretty good dancers... just cheesier than cheddar.
we ended the night on, let me just tell you, possibly the best beer i've ever encountered in my life. the guy at the front desk of the hostel recommended a brewery called 7 stern brau (http://www.7stern.at/) for good food and great beer. we were obligated to investigate. sean was on a mission to find wiener schnitzel - which he did - and i wanted something hot and normal and not european - which i did (chilli with garlic bread). the real story, however, lies in the perfection of the beers crafted at this brewery. i ordered the wiener helles, a lighter yet full-bodied half liter of deliciosity. sean, however, received the mother of all beers (so far). the rauchbier - dark, smooth, and... smoky? yes, my friends, smoked beer. reviewed as being perfect for after dinner cigars or to be paired with smoked/grilled meat, this beer was the pure embodiment of hopped perfection. it tasted like smoky barbeque beer and brought me back to bryants (http://www.arthurbryantsbbq.com/) instantaneously. how do i love thee, rauchbier? i literally cannot count the ways.
on to saturday.
since in our prague-living world we obviously never do any long distance walking around the city (lie), we naturally spent the entire day walking the city of vienna. but first, breakfast. apple strudel and a honey/butter roll with espresso did the trick, and we headed along on our merry way to the open air food and flea market downtown. we were originally planning on spending the day in the vienna woods outside the city, but we had not the time and our go-to guy at the front desk said that you could do it if you saved time by cutting through the insane asylum blocking the path to the woods - but not to worry, he assured us, they're crazy people running around everywhere anyway so they won't notice you. though utterly convinced, the market won.
if i had a million dollars, i would have spent it here. first we passed through all of the little cafes that mark the entrance to the mile or so of open booths before we reached the mecca that is the viennese flea market. let me tell you what, grandma waneta would have a fit here and papa butch could sleep for hours.
there were gorgeous vintage leather purses and camera bags and 1000 euro sets of gold and silver tea spoons made with ancient coins and 19th century photographs and jewelry and glasses... and one decanter set that stood above the rest. sean and i both stopped the second we saw it - fate it was, dear friends. the lady selling it told us in broken english that it's a 1930's art deco piece - completely believable because it's like nothing i've seen before and no one else had anything like it. it's in perfect condition, an asymmetrical pale greenish-tiffany blue decanter with a heavy glass top and six matching shot glasses with square bottoms. in otherwords, gorgeous. we bought it. enough said. and you all are invited for a celebratory drink from said decanter upon our arrival. a christmas shot! na zdravi!
our plan was to walk down one side of the market and walk up the opposite on the way back so that we could hit the flea market and the food market in one swiftish/time-consuming motion. on the way back up through the food, we encountered a plethora of sean-approved but abby-hated smells and "delicacies." pig legs, oyster things all stuck together, rotting cheese and the nastiest fish things i've ever seen, huge octopi, and other things that i'd rather not mention. next to the fish stand sean found a guy selling freshly fried fish sandwiches - it took him .3 seconds to decide on his lunch. he loved it and it even looked delicious, but after the riveting display of various animal innards around us, i decided for a more herbivorish-type lunch. it was then, dear friends, that i discovered falafel and hummus and vegetable wraps. <insert heavenly voices> i still have no idea what falafel was (i'll google it now), but it was delicious because it was not a dead thing that i had to smell in the market. p.s., the hummus was fantastic.
after lunch we were exhausted but decided to visit the hapsburg palace/gardens anyway. i was not a happy camper, poor sean, but i went along. sulkingly. the place was gorgeous - 1441 rooms in a building that could beat up any museum, any day, any time. the gardens were incredible though because they were something out of a movie... fountians and sculpted trees to create straight-lined paths, benches everywhere and some of the best people watching available in europe. we eventually found a bench and sean read while i slept, head on his lap, movie scene style, until we realized it was getting cold as cajones and left.
once thawed back at the hostel, we discovered a place via google recommendations called il sestante, supposedly the best italian place in vienna. again, we were obligated to investigate. i had the linguine bolognese because i'm a creature of habit when i'm starving, and sean ordered the "pizza viennese," which the waiter informed us was pizza with meat sausage on top. let me just tell you, vienna sausages do not count as "meat sausages," because sean ordered a hot dog pizza. it smelled like hot dogs, tasted like hot dogs, and was covered with little beanie-weenie sized hot dog slices - not even a five year old would have liked this pizza. it was good without the hot dog parts, though you could still taste them, but the laugh was worth it. dinner was topped off by a trumer pils beer and a starobrno (?) beer, both delightful, and we headed off to the downtown square once again because sean's naive tourist wife thought she could have herself some starbucks to end the evening.
wrong. a: we couldn't find a starbucks downtown though we'd seen like six of them in the past day down there. b: starbucks is freaking six bucks for a tall latte in vienna. no, no, that will not do. the positive part was that on the way we heard a concert cellist play beautifully enough to gather a consistent crowd for hours, a spaniard with a guitar whose fingers were blessed by God, and a crazy man with a set of crystal glasses that owned miss congeniality's talent performance by executing a certain mozart on said glasses. he was special, though also disgustingly talented.
well, friends, i have more to write but i am called to dinner at atmosphere with some good friends, so you'll just have to wait. stomach always wins. i'll be back to post more along with videos and pics tomorrow... ahoj!
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