IM DONE! Which is good news for all of you because that means you get more reading material. And I know many of you have been looking forward to it because I’ve had several comments over the last few days, but hey I had exams! But here ya go. Part 2 of the European backpacking adventure.
Saturday March 29th Day 9- Vienna, Austria
After a 12+ hour train ride, we arrived in Vienna at about 8:30 a.m. and bought our tickets for the next leg of our trip: Prague. Then we went to the hostel and checked in. After we went exploring for a bit, but honestly I felt as though I was going to fall asleep standing up. And while as backpackers, we learned to sleep just about anywhere, this was not fun in the slightest. I was exhausted. 9 days in and all I wanted to do was sleep. But we saw Parliament and went to the Opera House to see if we could manage to get some tickets but unfortunately we weren’t able to snag any. After a nice lunch of Subway, I swear I’ve had so much Subway in Europe, which is funny because I never eat it back home, and don’t plan to when I return. . .I’m a Togo’s girl at heart. But anyway, back to the story. . . We headed back to the hostel to wait for our friend Adrienne who was on her way from Barcelona. But on the way, we had to get some necessities. Sarah’s shoes were dying and I had already run out of socks . . . so we took care of those issues and awaited the return on our dear Adrienne. Once she was in we tried to buy our train tickets to Switzerland, which was difficult because three of us had a Eurorail 3 country pass. No one knew how to book it so we had to wait til Prague.
Once we sorted ourselves, we went exploring a bit more. We went to Karlsplatz Church Place which was really nice. There was a man made pond/fountain-ish thing in front of the Church in which the image of the church was reflected. Gorgeous. We then decided to head to the palace (Schonbrunn) for our night exploration. After that we went to the Hundertwasserhaus. That was pretty cool too. Except for the walk there. First of all it was very long. . .and second. . .well I should warn you that the next bit is a bit sad. . .
. . . have you decided to continue?
Well you remember what happened to me my first day at Royal Holloway? Yes that right my ankle. . .Well I sprained it again in Vienna on the way to Hundertwasserhaus. Yea I’m a genius. No I’m a klutz.
Anyway we continued on as I limped and made it to the Hundertwasserhaus. It was really cool. It was constructed with no straight lines. And since it was night I didn’t get a great shot of it, but it was the idea behind it that impressed me most. After we headed back to the area by our hostel and got some bratwursts from a street vendor. They were yummy. And for dessert I tried the chocolate torte, a speciality of Vienna according to Adrienne’s guide book. Yea it wasn’t heavenly but it was good. Pretty satisfied, we headed back to the hostel and claimed our free glasses of wine and then went to sleep. Only 9 days down and we were feeling it.
Sunday March 30th-Day 10- Vienna
We tried to pack in the activities on our second day. We woke up early just to see Vienna’s Boys Choir perform. We were supposed to be there by 8 for a 9:30 performance at mass. We were running late and couldn’t find the exact location. We ran into a man looking for the same place. It was about 8:25 at this point, or so we thought. As we were trying to figure out the location, the man mentioned how late he was and how little time he had. So we gave him a funny look. Then he told us “Well it’s 9:25”. DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME! We had completely forgotten. We rushed and finally found the place and caught part of the performance . . . on a TV. because the church was so crowded and the boys choir was in some random place.
We then decided to get breakfast. We went to a cafe and had a pastry and a Wiener Melange (Vienna’s famous coffee) and planned the rest of the day.
We went back to the area we had been to the day before and explored a bit more. Then we went to find the famous clock that uses figures for each hour and cycled through them all at noon. But we arrived too early so we decided to find the Stadttemple which is the only synagogue in Vienna to have survived Kristalnacht. It was a bit tricky to find. And we had quite a good time trying to explain what we were looking for to a person who was cleaning up the plaza we were in. He spoke English but really had no idea what we were referring to. When he finally got it he directed us in the right direction. I really enjoyed seeing something that withstood all the trials and tribulations that Europe and the Jewish people were put through. But it was nearing noon so we headed back to the clock. Let me say: best clock ever! Each figure had a different song as it passed. It took a while but was kind of cool.
We continued our cultural day by having wienerschnitzel at a local restaurant. It was pretty good. But I learned yet another lesson: Never use those nice colored paper napkins to clean a stain. I spilled ketchup on my jeans. So I grabbed my napkin and some water and luckily got the stain before it set. It wasn’t until about 45 minutes later that I realized I still had a stain on my jeans. Not from the ketchup but from that festive yellow napkin I had used to clean myself up. Oh no! And this one wouldn’t come out either. . .yea it’s official. I was pretty much a mess this entire trip.
But after lunch we headed to Stephanplatz and climbed one of its towers. We didn’t go as high as we thought we were going to, but it was a very claustrophobic experience. It got narrower as we ascended its spiral steps and it wasn’t just in my head. But we climbed over 300 steps to get a view of Vienna. Back on the ground, we encountered a B-Boy group who performed. They were really good and hilarious. It was kind of like a boy band gone wrong.
Then we went back to the Schonbrunn and explored the grounds. We wanted to find the hedge maze (or labyrinth) but had a bit of difficulty. So we asked a man who was walking his dog. He didn’t speak much English so I went over to help as much as I could, but of course, my German flew out of my head and I tried to explain to him that we were looking for a game of some sort. On the way into the grounds he spoke to me a bit in German and I responded with a few laughs and very little German. When we got inside we pointed to what we had been looking for on a map and laughed. Had we just said labyrinth he would have known what we wanted. But the labyrinth was actually pretty lame so we just explored and enjoyed our afternoon.
We had another sausage for dinner and went back to the hostel. Since we assumed our train would be an overnight one, we didn’t book the hostel for the night. Our train was leaving first thing in the morning, so we decided to spend the night out. We went to the hostel and hung out for a bit and then went to an area they had recommended. Turns out it was Vienna’s red light district. So we left and proceeded elsewhere. We found a club that was highly recommended but got a little lost along the way. Eventually we found it, and hung out there. It was a Sunday night so no one was around. We sat on the couches and waited it out. I actually fell asleep about 10 minutes before we left and the girls had to wake me up to leave. By that time my ankle was throbbing and I could barely walk. We went to catch the bus back to the hostel and then grab our bags and head to the train station. Which is technically part of . . .
Monday March 31st- Day 11- Prague, Czech Republic
Well I limped through the train station and seriously began to consider cutting my trip short. I could barely walk, how was I going to backpack around Europe? We took the 4 hour long train to Prague and I sat with my leg elevated the entire way. We got to Prague at about 10 am and had to withdraw money, since they use “crowns”. But the money only came out in 2000 crown bills. And no one wanted to break it for us. So we bought our train tickets for Switzerland to break our bills (The people in Prague knew how to book our tickets since our passes covered Germany, which we had to travel across to get to Switzerland) We bought our metro tickets and headed to the hostel. Once we arrived at the hostel we took a nice nap before adventuring out. We had a late lunch at a local cafe/restaurant, which went a bit awry since the woman gave and charged us for bread we asked not to have. But we walked around Prague, found me an ankle brace, and ran into a few people from Royal Holloway while we walked across the bridge towards the castle. Of course we did as we always did. . .budgeted it by walking around and exploring on our own. We even found another “cool” clock that represented life and death. . .but it was actually incredibly lame. It did not impress us in the least after Vienna’s. We ended up finding a place for dinner that had a good deal on a set menu. It was soooo good. I was incredibly full by the end of it that I actually waddled out of there. And it only cost about 10 euro. For once the exchange rate was somewhat in our favor. We head soup, dumplings and beef sirloin with a cream sauce and cranberries (yummmm) and apple strudel. . soooooo good! After we headed back to the hostel to wash up a bit before going on a pub crawl. We were the only people who turned up so we ended up just hanging out with the person running it who was from England. We chatted and had a good time hanging out before we left to have a nice sleep.
Tuesday April 1st (APRIL FOOLS!)- Day 12- Prague
We woke up pretty early and went to see another “cool” clock that represented life and death at 11 a.m. ( I think. . .). . .but it was actually incredibly lame. It did not impress us in the least after Vienna’s. We walked along the river and saw the “dancing building”. We were all completely exhausted by this time. We found a park and enjoyed the sunshine. We then went for lunch and found a grocery store to find food for our incredibly long train ride to Switzerland. It was amazing how much food we got for only 4 euro. Prague can actually be really cheap! Just don’t go near a Starbucks or touristy area. We explored and headed back the hostel to hang out before catching our train.
I think this upcoming bit was the scariest part of my backpacking trip. As we were waiting for the train to arrive, 3 girls came up to us asking if we were to going to Frankfurt. We told them that we were going on to Switzerland. And they then proceeded to warn us to be careful and told us how they has been gassed and robbed when on a train into Germany. So of course, this scared us all. The train arrived and we got into our cabin. It was kind of like a summer camp experience. Bunk beds with very little space. We got all of our important stuff locked away or in money belts or somewhere on our persons. But there was a lock on our door and only one other person was to join us in our cabin. For the first few hours the other girls were making a lot of noise. They were trying to open their window and were freaking out. But who could blame them. We are pretty sure they didn’t sleep that night. But since the door had a chain lock (like in a hotel room) and the other woman in our cabin just slept, we were safe. We concluded that they must have had seats and not couchettes and therefore would have not had a lock on their cabin. This trip in total took us 17 hours. We ate our dinner and gulped down water and multi-vitamin juice (We were not going to get sick). But of course, we accidentally bought fizzy water, because we can’t read Czech and even after shaking it in the store we thought it was flat. . .yuck.But the sleep was good, oh man so good. We definitely needed that. We had one transfer on our trip and it was within Switzerland. Although there were two stops with the name Basel one in Germany and one in Switzerland, so that caused a great deal of confusion as you might imagine. Overall, it was a pretty uncomplicated train ride, outside of the scary story part and the 2 Basels.
Wednesday April 2nd- Day 13- Interlaken, Switzerland
Welcome to Interlaken, Switzerland where you can do pretty much an extreme sport you have ever wanted to do and enjoy beautiful scenery and the cleanest, freshest water you will ever set your eyes on or drink. If I were to live in another country, it would be Switzerland. It’s really expensive. The Swiss Franc is basically the dollar’s equivalent but the numerical value assigned to things there just blows your mind. But I think Interlaken is where we had the best time even though things didn’t work out as planned. We originally planned to go paragliding, which is a little like hang gliding except with a parachute. You basically run down a hill and get lifted up and sail over the scenery. This of course scares those who are afraid of heights like me. I was so unsure about it. I’d much prefer to go white water rafting . . . and still would. However, we booked our trip for a time just prior to the actual ‘season’ so we were a bit limited in our options.
Once we arrived in Interlaken, we bought our tickets to Milan which is when Adrienne would be leaving us . . . but fear not she rejoins us later in the trip. We found our hostel, but I really enjoyed the walk to the hostel. We walked along side a stream. The water was so incredibly clear that you could see every rock on the bottom, and even a few CDs. There were snow-capped mountains everywhere we looked and we found ourselves constantly saying “Oh! Look at that one!” AMAZING. We checked in and found we had a room to ourselves. SWEET! We had amazing views out our windows. Basically this was just what we needed: a gorgeous place to relax a bit. Just because we wanted to relax didn’t mean that we had nothing urgent to do. Laundry topped our list. Laundry throughout Europe is so expensive and hard to find. We went to an information point to get info on parasailing and looked at swiss army knives.
Once we found an acceptable laundry place, aka the only one we could find, we went back to the hostel to change into our laundry clothes. Which actually wasn’t too bad for me, I found a shirt at the bottom of my bag which was perfectly clean and I had my gauchos which I had packed for Greece. It ended up costing us 11 Euros for laundry because the dryers just would not dry our clothes. But during the laundry time we got ourselves some cheese and bread. Yes that was a main staple. And guess what came in handy in cutting/spreading our cheese? That’s right ladies and gentlemen: the trusty backpacker’s spoon. Speaking of, I got my spoon in Switzerland. . that’s another story for another time though. After our “snack” which actually was more like a meal, we went to collect our laundry. . and of course it wasn’t dry. We spent so much time and money in that laundry place. And we realized that it was getting awfully close to Happy Hour. So we rushed and ran back to the hostel (the laundry place’s owner was just outside and must have thought we were crazy). We put our stuff in our room and grabbed a half pint of the local beer (yuck) and played some cards. Yes cards. . .see how handy they are?
We then began to debate what to do. We ended up hanging out with some of the people who worked at the hostel or had worked at the hostel. They took us to a kebab place. That was one expensive kebab. . .and that’s when you know it’s expensive to live in a place- when even their ‘cheap’ food is pricey. We ended up in the attic portion of the hostel, which had been transformed into a bouldering room. Basically you could ‘rock climb’ on the walls and ceiling. It was really cool. We just hung out and listened to one of the guys play this really cool instrument that is kind of drum like. I’ll have to ask someone the name of it. It was nice to just hang out.
Thursday April 3rd- Day 14- Interlaken
We woke up just in time for breakfast, which was pretty much gone by the time we got there. . . just one of the many reasons to get out of bed a bit earlier. But we had clean clothes to wear so I was content. We called the paragliding place to check on the status of our ‘flights’ only to learn that due to the weather, we wouldn’t be able to go. So we decided to have a laid back day. We got our souvenirs. We had fun shopping for swiss army knives, which are actually decently priced. We got all of them engraved and between 4 girls we walked out of the store with about 15 knives. Later in the day we went to the post office and I shipped a package home with souvenirs for my family and my Venetian mask. A few weeks later it arrives in San Jose. . .oh sunny California how I miss thee. My mom described the condition of the box to me in these words: “It looks like it has been attacked by a pack of wild animals”. Thanks Swisspost/US Postal Service. Some things fell out of the box, but the majority of it made it home. That still frustrates me. . .
We then decided to explore. We walked across Interlaken and saw some people paragliding. What?! It was a bit frustrating to see, but we still ended up having a good time on our trip.
That night we decided to hang out with everyone from the night before. But first we decided to have a good dinner. We ate at a recommended place, and while a bit expensive, it was completely worth it. The waitress placed bread on the table and gave us water. We asked her how much the bread was because you never knew in Europe. She told us it was free. Let’s just say that the restaurant made some Americans very happy. We filled ourselves on free bread and unlimited water-the best tasting I’ve ever had. Switzerland- free water AND bread! That is so hard to find in Europe. Usually you ask for water and they charge you 3 euro for a little bottle that lasts all of 15 seconds. We had a nice 3 course meal with coffee ice cream to end it. Yum! I must say we ate a lot of good food on our trip. And for 3 courses the price wasn’t so bad since the franc = the dollar.
After we ate our yummy dinner we went back to the hostel and met with the group. We ended our night early though and like most other nights: slept.
So this is where part 2 ends. I am just under half way through my trip. But it is getting late here in England and I have a lot of sleep to catch up on. I’m just glad to be done with exams. One more year of school left. Just over 3 weeks left in England. I will be back soon enough.
Keep watch for part 3 coming soon!
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