So, because I had to take an overnight train to Rome/Florence, I only had about twenty-four hours in Vienna.  I wish I had stayed at least another half day.

On Friday afternoon//evening I decided to take my guidebook’s advice and go to this Austrian vineyard just outside of town.  Poor decision.  It was almost 90 degrees farenheit and humid, and I had to sit on a tram without air-conditioning for forty minutes and walk around for about a half hour to find the place just to find out that it’s a regular restaurant that sells wine they made in their vineyard.  The wine was great, but no one there spoke any English at all and I ended up just pointing at something on the menu hoping it was food because I was starving.  It turns out I ordered some fancy block of goat cheese.  Great.

Saturday was much better.  I started off right with my first real breakfast in a while and hopped the train into town (my hostel was in like the armpit of the city).  I spent most of the day doing a hop-on-hop-off tour which was nice because I got to see pretty much everything there was to see.  I also walked around and went back to some things I wanted a closer look at like the Opera Museum, Butterfly House, MAK Museum, and Café Central.

The MAK Museum was so cool!  Well.  I like weird things.  So you should take that with a grain of salt.  The MAK has exhibits on things like furniture, porcelain, oriental rugs, metal, architecture, and lots of other seemingly ordinary things that you don’t normally think about.  What I like most about this museum is that it finds the interesting in the ordinary, which is what I feel like I’ve spent my life doing.  I highly recommend stopping by if you have the chance.  It was actually free admission when I went.  (AWESOME)

Café Central is one of the most famous cafés in Vienna, and they have a lot of cafés.    This particular one was once frequented by Lenin, Trotsky, and Freud who were all known to meet here for chess games.  I was just going to get an espresso, but then I saw the word “goulash” on the menu and I was sold.  MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.  Really though.  Who can turn down a good goulash?  It was sooooo tasty.

I also managed to run into another gay pride parade.  It’s like they’re following me haha

Everything in Vienna is beautiful.  Every building is architecturally stunning and ornate.  There are statues on every corner.  There are more public gardens than you can count.  And the city is on the Danube River.  SO PRETTY.

So, I just spent about a half hour going through and putting captions on all these picures, and the internet crapped out when I clicked save.  SO.  Enjoy the pictures for now, I’ll put captions on again when I stop hating European internet connections.

So, about the other things that sucked yesterday:

1)      My Sound of Music tour guide said that the nuns in the abbey sing in the church at half past five every day.  So, I got there at a quarter past the hour and sat there until a quarter to six.  They did not sing.  While I was sitting there, some bike tour stopped by and the guide said the nuns sing at eleven in the morning.  Great.

2)      Then I ran down back into town to listen to the Glockenspiel sing at six.  At about ten past the hour, it still hadn’t made any noise, so I asked some man sitting in a van who spoke very little English why the clock wasn’t going.  Apparently it only chimes from September to like November.  Perfect.

Maybe I’m just getting over the honeymoon phase of this trip, but I think it was just a combination of high expectations, lots of letdowns, and too much time in Salzburg.  You really only need one day, or two days if you do a day-long tour.

If you plan on doing a Sound of Music tour, don’t do what I did.  The bus was hot, I didn’t get to see much, and I felt like a herd of cattle every time we got in and out of the bus.  Try to do something smaller, like a bike tour, if you have the stamina, or a tour with a small van so you can actually get out and see things.

Salzburg has been kind of a bust.

Yesterday, I went on two tours: one to the Bavarian salt mines, and one Sound of Music tour.  At the salt mines, my guide only spoke German, and he kept forgetting to hit the start buttons for the audio tours.

Now, the disappointment surround the Sound of Music tour could have been my fault.  I did prep myself by listening to the soundtrack on repeat for an entire day before I went.  But, I did a bus tour with about seventy other people on a coach bus.  Most of the things we saw were just drive-bys, and they were mostly on the left side of the bus.  I was sitting on the right side.

Today I decided to cancel my last night in Salzburg (tomorrow) and just go to Munich a day early.  There isn’t a whole lot to do here.  I saw everything there is to see in about one afternoon.  And I had time to get a kebob.

My Salzburg map is practically life-size.  It doesn’t take more than fifteen minutes to walk anywhere.  I went to the castle, the abbey, the glockenspiel, and one other place that I can’t think of right now.  Those were mostly busts, too.  I’ll write about that tomorrow, and I’ll post some pictures.  Right now I need to finish packing and go to bed.

Today, I was sitting on the bank of the Salzach River journaling, and I saw an old man whip out his junk and pee into the river.  It’s time to leave Salzburg.

Good night!