Day 10 - May 25th - On my own in Vienna

        I’m home alone today and have a list of things I’d like to get done, but I won't bother you with such mundane things. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish up the things I still want to do here, since today and tomorrow are my last days here in Vienna. On Sunday morning we’re heading out to Budapest, so then it’s time to say goodbye to dear old Vienna. I quite love it here. 

   Since my itinerary was pretty flexible, I decided to let myself sleep in, so I woke up at 11:30 after the girls left for Bratislava early. It felt good to sleep in, but I’d slept most of the day away by Austrian standards since everything closes around 5 or 6. After getting ready for the day, I took the U-bahn to St. Stephen’s Cathedral and walked around the booths set up around the square. They were selling almost anything you could imagine: jewelry, clothes, food, toys, souvenirs, scarves, hats, etc. 

JFK memorial plaque.... in Vienna...?

These were cool and made to look like Klimt's paintings

           I spent awhile there and bought a bit of stuff. I also went to the Wanner chocolate store nearby and got some Austrian chocolate to take home to my family. Then I wandered down a street a lot of people were walking on, thinking it must be a popular one, but I didn’t find anything worth looking at until I turned a corner and found the same grocery store we went to before where I bought cheap chocolate bars. I went in and bought a few more things to take home, including some Kinder eggs, which I think are the coolest chocolate eggs ever made. 

           They probably won’t make the trip home intact though.  

           Then I kept walking around until I found a U-bahn station, where I went home. Since it was too late to go or do anything else, I hung out at the hostel, eating a pastry and reading my book in the garden. Then I took a little nap while waiting for the girls to come home, hoping they hadn’t eaten dinner yet so I could eat with them. I woke up to them coming in, and they hadn’t eaten yet so we went out exploring for a good, cheap place to eat around our hostel. 

       We ended up at this old, masculine bar and restaurant with hardly anyone there. The waiter didn’t speak a word of English, so we pointed to the things we wanted from the menu. I ordered a chicken cordon bleu, which turned out to be a huge weinerschnitzel stuffed with ham and cheese. Ordinarily it would’ve been great, but at this point, I’ve eaten a few too many weinerschnitzels. Before our food got there, this old guy came in and was trying to tell us something. For the life of us, we could not figure it out. We thought he was trying to tell us we couldn’t sit where we were sitting and needed to move, or that we each had to buy a drink. He eventually left, but then came back carrying a vase full of ice water with an opened bottle of champagne in it and five wine glasses. We were slightly hysterical and desperately trying to explain to him why we couldn’t accept his gift and drink the champagne. Someone finally located a guy who spoke a little English to convey our message. The old guy slowly picked up the champagne and turned around. He looked very angry and disappointed at the same time. We felt so bad and awkward and uncomfortable and we didn’t know what to do. The translator, a young, slightly frightening guy, decided to stay and ask us a few questions. He was sitting right by me and I couldn’t really breathe through his smoking (in a non-smoking room). He asked us at least four times where we were from and why we were here. Then he asked us why we couldn’t drink, even a little (piccolo). Then he asked us if we wanted one of his cigarettes and we had to tell him we didn’t smoke either. I’m afraid we confused him a lot. We just wanted him to leave so we could breathe and eat in peace, but every time we thought he was gone, he would come back and usually ask the same questions we had just answered. Needless to say, it was one of the most uncomfortable and awkward experiences of my life. We got out of there as soon as we possibly could and went home for the night, knowing that we would laugh about this later... much later.