After relaxing at the hostel in Berlin, Mitch, Hannah and I headed to a tapas bar that was relatively close to our hostel. I don't know that I can really express how amazing the food and wine were. Seriously...it was incredible and will be hard to beat on this trip. After that, we walked around for a bit and eventually headed back to our hostel to watch the World Cup at the bar there. We hung out for a while and then went down to the lobby and played cards and chatted for a bit. It's great to meet new people while traveling and staying in hostels has truly been a wonderful and surprising experience so far. Hopefully our luck with hostels continues! In the morning, Mitch, Hannah, and I went to a bakery down the road and then went to the Reichstag dome and Parliament building. We had to wait in line for quite a bit, but as soon as we got near the front, they told us we could go in right away instead of scheduling a time hours later. The dome was great! It was so beautiful. We got some food after that, and I had some currywurst in order to try some typical German food. It was really good, and I was happy with it. We went back to the hostel to charge phones and whatnot and then we saw Mitch off! Hannah and I ate some pizza at our hostel's bar and then headed to the train station for our first night train experience of the trip!
To say the least about the night train...it was exhausting. We had two connections throughout the trip, and it was our middle train we got to sleep on, so we were constantly making sure we didn't miss a stop or anything. However, at the place where we were supposed to get our first connection, an older Russian woman informed us (in German) that it would be an hour late. Therefore, our train didn't come until 12:30 am instead of 11:30 pm, which wasn't awesome. We made it to Vienna though and slept pretty hard, even if for a short period of time, on the train. Once we got to Vienna, we dropped our stuff off at the hostel and made a long trek out to the Museums Quarter. We had a delicious brunch at Cafe Leopold in the Leopold Museum. Then we headed into the actual Museum and checked out some pretty cool, more contemporary art. We walked around a bit and headed back to the hostel to shower, cause we were feeling pretty gross and relax from walking and traveling a ton. That night, we made the wonderful decision to get standing room tickets for the State Opera House. Before that, we got dinner at 1516 Brewing Company, and I had some amazing grapefruit beer (my first craft beer of the trip, and I was quite happy). There was a ballet at the Opera House last night, and it was wonderful. It was seriously such high quality, and the final piece had a female opera singer accompanying the dancing, which I loved. We also met some cool Americans in line for the tickets, Katie, Samantha, and Connor! I love bonding with so many people while traveling, even though it is tiring to always be on the go and socializing. Anyway, we crashed last night after that.
On to today! We woke up and met one of our roommates in our hostel room, Laura! She was born in the UK, but she grew up in the US and went to school in Seattle. We invited her to breakfast with us and chatted a bit. Let me tell you, the food here has been beyond all comparison. Literally everything has been amazing. It's going to be rough when I get back to the US, and it's a nice change from the smørrebrød, pizza, and hot dogs from Copenhagen. Anyway, after breakfast, we had a BUSY day. We went to the Spanish Riding School and watched their morning exercises, which was really cool and professional. Then we headed to the Palace and Gardens, where we had a nice little snack/lunch and white wine/rose mixture. Again, the food was superb.
As we walked to St. Stephen's Cathedral, we encountered the Aida bakery, so we had to stop, and I tried this strawberry shortcake type thing. We climbed the South Tower of St. Stephen's Cathedral, which was real intense with all the stairs. However, the views were great. We checked out Mozart's House and went to the Kunsthistorisches, or Art History, Museum. It was crazy beautiful on the inside and out and reminded me a lot of the Met in New York. We ate some dinner, where I had a potato and sausage goulash, and now we're back at the hostel charging appliances and relaxing until our night train to Interlaken, Switzerland later tonight! It's definitely been a busy trip so far, and we're real tired, but we're also super excited to be in a more natural and relaxing place! Can't wait.
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