Vienna

I've wrestled with the question of whether I should post stories and photos of trips outside Slovakia on this site, as you, the reader, likely clicked on this to get info on the Slovak way of life. In the end, I decided that I don't care, and what else am I going to do with all of these pictures?

Vienna is sort of Slovakian, because it's only about a 45 minute drive from Bratislava. During the Cold War, Vienna was a buffer zone between the East and West, where all kinds of James Bondian stuff occurred. Now, it seems to be all about the Schnitzel. More about that in a minute.

Consider this your photo tour of Vienna. Right this way...



I went to Vienna at the end of October, I think. It seems like a long time ago. For you fans of euphemisms and innuendo, Vienna is commonly known in these parts by its German name "Wien".

I went with some people from the program, who are always a hoot. Standing next to me in this picture (assuming you know who "me" is) is Peter from Bratislava, who was allegedly an excellent pro water-polo player in Vienna a few years back. I see no reason to doubt him.



Viennese people on the whole seem friendly, which isn't obvious from this picture:



There were, however, some disturbing reminders of times that the Viennese forgot to be nice, such as this monument to the "Victims of National Socialism":



There was also this political poster, which basically says that non-German speakers shouldn't be welcomed in Austria.



But enough politics. What about the big buildings?



If there's one thing we've all seen a lot of in Europe, it is big cathedrals. And Vienna has about the biggest cathedral I have ever seen.
I didn't realize that it was tacky to take flash photography in a church, so here is a view of the inside. It was incredible, and incredibly big.



We soon came upon this big palace in the center of the city:



At this point I would like to admit that yes I am ignorant when it comes to remebering the names of important places. I want to remember, but when you see so much in a day it starts to blend together. I will try to improve.

In front of the palace there were some incredible sculptures. I refer to these two as "The Scared Man" and "Women Where's My Dinner?!"






Speaking of dinner, we had a very nice meal at a place called "Centimeter", where you can actually buy food, like sausage, by the meter. Here's us with a meter of beer:



Instead of ordering a meter of anything, I went with the local favorite, the Weinerschnitzel, which as you can see is named after Vienna. I always thought a Wienerschnitzel was a hot dog, because when I would visit relatives in New Mexico they had a fast food place named "Weinerschnitzel" which just served hot dogs. Very confusing:



In order to further the educational purpose of this blog, here is a wienerschnitzel recipe from Wolfgang Puck, which I'm sure is authentic.

Boy was I stuffed, but probably not as much as these people who ordered the restaurant's signature "Food in a Wheelbarrow":



Jane, our group's vegetarian, ordered this. It is tough to be a vegetarian in Central Europe:



Next we went to the giant open-air market, where the eating continued. It sells all kinds of interesting food, such as this assortment of olives:



We were guided around by these two nice Viennese people, friends of one of the group from school. The girl is holding a coconut drink, which comes in a carved coconut:



I had my first "Sacher Torte", the famous cake shown below. It was pretty good, not as sweet as I am used to. I unfortunately never got to try Vienna's other famous dessert, the "Mozart Balls".



Everyone was enjoying the market, especially this guy:



I also saw a couple ads for some shows, which I bet would have been rad:





After all this eating we took the subway to the former imperial winter palace. It was very impressive:








I really liked Vienna, it is a beautiful city. I even thought it was my favorite Central European city, but then I went to Budapest. That's for another day.

I recently found out that I get over two months off from school, which doesn't begin again until the end of February. I'm thinking of just getting on a train and going somewhere picturesque, so that I can take more pictures for you all to see. Any suggestions?