Day 5 - May 20th - Vienna Woods

   
    Today, since the weather was heavenly nice, we foraged into the Vienna Woods, a very ancient and protected forest. We hiked/walked up a nice trail, taking plenty of pictures along the way. 

  It was so beautiful and such a nice way to spend a Sunday abroad in Vienna. Just as luck would have it, as soon as we were hungry we reached the end of the trail and found a restaurant where we all gratefully sat down outside to eat. 

   I ate a Wienerschnitzel and fries and it was pretty dang good. According to European custom, we all sat around after we were done eating and just talked for hours it seemed like. We’ve done this at pretty much every nice place we’ve eaten so far. 

    After we finally decided it was time to go, we walked back down the trail, barely missed our bus, then caught another one that was wayyy too crowded, so we decided to walk a ways. We actually ended up walking quite a distance, until we finally happened upon an U-bahn station and rewarded ourselves with Magnum bars - my new love. We all decided to head back to our hostel for the night, but on the way we were stopped by ticket inspectors. We all confidently handed over our subway tickets, only to have the inspector start jabbering at me and Nicole about something on it. Our group got off and Alan and Amy came over to figure out what was going on. As it turns out, when Nicole and I bought our tickets, the date was automatically set for the next week since we got ours halfway through the current week. They were determined to fine us, as is mandatory for all subway-law-breakers, but Amy explained how we had no idea that we got the wrong ticket. She then pleaded with them to do us a favor and let us go without the 100 Euro fine, we really didn't mean any harm. Thankfully, her persuasive powers won out and they reluctantly let us go. Whew!! I was sure frantic for a minute there. 

     After escaping the subway system unharmed and unfined, we stopped at a grocery store for some food for breakfasts and snacks. I ended up buying a load of Milka chocolate bars for souvenirs for my family when I got home - best idea ever!! We also happened past our favorite Gelato place, so we couldn’t help but stop and get some; it was wonderful. All in all it was a pretty laid back, relaxing day, which I think we all needed.