Spring Break: Vienna

February 29

Once we got off the bus, after a 4 hour bus ride, we took a metro to a stop close to our hostel and then walked through the rain to get there. The lady at the front desk actually gave us an upgrade, as upgraded as one can get in a hostel, and put the 4 of us in a private room for no extra cost. Knowing we had less than 24 hours in Vienna we broke out the maps and planned our path. We got dinner and then walked around the museums, Parliament, and City Hall, which had a huge ice rink in front of it. At City Hall there were vendors selling goodies so Emiy and I bought a bag of almonds that were covered in crushed Raffaello, they were pretty spectacular. The weather was really nice this night so we ended up exploring a bit more than expected and we got a little lost. We made it back okay, though, and called it a night around midnight.

Step count: 30,305

March 1

The first day of March was absolutely terrible for weather. I actually mentioned how it felt like track weather and my southern friends were appalled. It was sleeting and super windy, it was dreadful. We walked to this market, which I had hoped would be inside, early in the morning. Lia and Emily were dragging their feet a bit with the free samples they kept getting offered and tensions were rising. It was freezing cold and Jacqueline and I couldn't have been more that 500 yards in front of them, but we were in that same spot for over 10 minutes until Emily and Lia finally caught up.We decided then would be a good time to get breakfast, at a coffee shop across from the half empty market.


At breakfast, Jacqueline checked her e-mails, and good thing she did, because our departure time had been moved. We now left at 5 instead of 3 in the afternoon, so we didn't have to hurry as much, but that meant we were in the cold much longer. Once we finished eating we walked to the palace, and stopped at a bookstore along the way. I actually bought as well, it is very large and really expensive, but I figured I'll enjoy it and I'll have 50 days to read through it. When we got to the palace we found out we'd have to pay, and it wasn't a little bit, they wanted us to pay 18 euros...that's not worth it. The gardens were free, however, so we walked through those. I'm sure they are much more beautiful in the summer as opposed to the rainy, snowing, windy day we were having. We made it back to the hostel for our bags and took the metro back to the bus station. There were about 20 people on a bus that could fit 50, so they must have changed our time because there was no point in sending 2 buses.

Step count: 24, 972