The Golden Apple

So what did we do in Vienna?

saw some churches

saw some hundertwasser

drank expensive hundertwasser coffee

took illegal photos of Klimt's 'the kiss'

umm im not sure why we put this one in but who doesnt love horses and men in carriages?
am i right?

Met a group of Germans, living in Vienna and Camped on their lounge room floor for a few days

Underground student establishment with really old music such as old offspring and
well you get the idea

Friday 5 June 2009

The flight was fast and Munich airport and morning came all too soon. Munich airport was stunning and had free coffee and newspapers so I was happy. Then we had the pleasure of flying Austrian Air to Vienna... it made us glad our flight from India had been changed to Lufthansa. Nick got Manner (google it) thrown at him by an air hostess :) And I thought the Austrians were supposed to be overly polite?? The view from the plane was awesome though because we had no cloud at all so we watched quaint villages roll by and eagerly awaited our arrival in Vienna....


Vienna:
Our first day in Europe!! Vienna was quite the culture shock. Where are all the people?? Where are rickshaw drivers and the chai wallers and the cheap food stands? I think I was on the ground for 5 minutes before I missed India. The thing I instantly missed was the people scrambling to help you/ sell you something. Sure, it was irritating when you didn't want to buy something but at least somebody was talking to you....

We put our bags in lockers and headed out to explore Vienna. We accidently hit one of the biggest sights straight away, the Belvedere, which is a beautiful Palace and grounds which also happens to be a art gallery which is home to Klimt's 'The Kiss'.... oh yes.... But we were in Euro shock still so we decided to do free stuff only until we'd sat down and decided exactly which museums/ art galleries we wanted to peruse. Next we strolled around Vienna and came across St Stephens, one of the other must-sees in Vienna. It was spectacular. We were feeling rather jet-lagged so we headed to a big park and laid around on the grass for a while. Nick got bored and rented a city bike (free for the first hour of course) and went exploring. Eventually we headed back to get our bags and go and meet our couchsurfer hosts (they'd been at uni all day which was why we didn't go straight there). We met Laura and Maria and found out there were four other couchsurfers staying too! These guys are great hosts! Nothing was a problem and it was great hanging out with the other couchsurfers too, James from Australia, Wendy from China and two Canadian girls (I think their names were Kat and Katrina- they were too similar). We headed out for dinner at this cool Brewery for some local food and beer, the schnitzel was fabulous! There was a music festival on a barge on the Danube but Nick and I were seriously tired by now and after the 2nd best icecream in Vienna, we headed back for some much needed sleep. Everyone else wasn't far behind actually and were back before we fell asleep.

Saturday 6 June 2009

After our 'International sleep over' the night before the Canadians left for their next stop, and Wendy was up and gone before I woke up so us 3 aussies headed out for some sightseeing. We went to Viennas massive cemetary where all the famous people are buried. We saw Beethovens grave, Schubert, Strauss, Brahms, and a monument to Mozart but apparently he's not actually buried there. We also saw one that just said Klimt so I've decided that is his grave :) We also explored the old Jewish quarter of the cemetary. Its all overgrown and falling apart, perfect for a cemetary... its telling though, there were a few graves that obviously still had family tending them but most families must have died out. Most dates didn't go past 1935 either, I think we saw one for '44 but it said 'died in Auschwitz' . I loved all their names though, lots of Maxs', Iras', Zuckermanns' and Schwarzkopfs'. The cemetary over all was really interesting, they are much more creative with gravestones here! Theres a huge variety, natural rocks, glass, tall pillars, funky fonts, pretty much everything you could imagine. On the way back we checked out a flea market and then we headed off to a festival that Laura had told us about at her Uni. We caught up with Laura and friends and eventually headed inside to a brewery on campus to watch the soccer, Austria v. Slovakia and Slovakia won. After a couple hours there and a very heated coaster flipping competition (they managed to flip 40 coasters at once!) we left for a another bar, one that is underground under a student dorm. James didn't let down the drunken Aussie sterotype (we put him in charge) so we spent the night playing foosball, talking with Laura's friends, and encouraging James to do embarrassing things. One of the most productive things that night was meeting Laura's Turkish friend Toygun who lives in Istanbul... and will be there when we're there! Hooray, he told us we could stay with him (once he found out it was just the two of us- he had originally thought James was my twin brother!!) So now we have a couch to surf in Istanbul and an extremely friendly, enthusiastic host!
We walked home at about 2am and discovered (while trying to rent city bikes) Nick had lost his Visa card (not that night,he hadn't used it)... that makes 2 lost cards for him! He's fired!

Sunday 7 June 2009

We slept in! whoops, we had meant to go to a service at St Stephens or somewhere but oh well they're catholic anyway! We hit the Belvedere today (I couldn't not see the kiss in real life!) and it was fabulous and I saw several other famous Klimts as well. Then we headed out to see another famous church, St Peters, which has had a church on that site since like 400AD or something ridiculous like that. It was a Baroque wedding cake of a church, all gold and intricacies. Very nice though, and much quieter than St Stephens. Nick headed back then to cook up a storm for our hosts (we were having a little dinner party that night) and I went around and saw the Hapsburg Palace, the National Library, the Natual History Museum and the Parliament, all very nice, all very Vienna. Then I headed back to offer my help with dinner but I wasn't really needed :) We had a lovely dinner with Laura, Maria and Helene (the housemates) and Peter, and Toygun were there too, and Wendy cos her train wasn't til 10pm. It was lovely and after dinner our hosts 'the Germans living in Austria' gave us a german vodka shot, which is as follows: you pour this sweet and sour lolly powder stuff then you have a shot of vodka. Its like their alternative to the shot of schnappes after a meal that the Austrians have, quiet tasty even if you dont like vodka.

Monday 8 June 2009
We headed out to see the Hundertwasser house and his art gallery today! It was really, really good... He was a champion. He designed alternative flags for New Zealand and Australia (he loved NZ, and is buried there) and the flags are really cool and they should be our flags! Plus his artwork was really fabulous, but I liked the earlier paintings better than his later screenprints but nick was the other way around Which is funny because he said the screen printing allows him to do what he imagines but can't do with paint. Anyway it was great and we also saw a Picasso exhibit there as well, which was all sketches.
We headed back to Lauras to get our bags and head to the bus station. It was all very sad cos we'd grown fond of their little group. Off to Prague though!