Tuesday: I arrived very early in Vienna on a night train from Zurich, so I went straight to the hostel to go check out what sights to see. I ended up going to the tourist information center, and they had a self-guided walking tour of the more important sights of the city. It starts off at Stephan's church, takes you to the Hofburg palace, past the square inside (where there happened to be an army demo since it was Austria's national holiday), Museumsquartier, Sezession monument, the Mozart monument and you end up at the Opera. Towards the end I saw brew-pub and stopped for a pint of a delicious IPA and true to style Dunkel (dark malts only). After all that walking I went back to the hostel to find a sports bar showing the German cup (DFB-Pokal) match of Bayern v Bremen. Bayern played their typical poor forn of late, what with all the injured players. Bastian Schweinsteiger was the hero of the match, with both goals, one a real cracker from 30 meters out, yelling beforehand for the ball with just enough space to get a slight first touch before rocketing it past the keeper.
Wedensday: In the afternoon I went to see Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (sorry Nic). In the evening I met up with Andrew, who I met in Hamburg, and who is studying in Vienna. We went to the Travel shack, where we involuntarily started doing the drinking challenge. One of the barmaids told us about it two dribks in: a shot of Viennese blood (a chili liquor which you swish in your mouth for 10 seconds), a fireshot of sambucca, a snuff shot (a eucalyptus aroma something that you inhale) and finally a half-liter of beer through a beer bong. We then got our rewards: our faces painted and writing our names on the wall. After a couple other drinks we left.
Thursday: I decided to visit a few of the filming locations of "The Living Daylights" (James Bond number 15, 1987) in Vienna. I started at Schloß Schönbrunn, before heading to Schwarzenberg palace, then Prater park and to finish off the afternoon I visited Gasometers. I also visited Schloß Belvedere. I then took a one hour train to Bratislava, and checked into my hostel there.
Friday: I walked around Bratislava for the afternoon and saw the important sights, the presidential palace, the philharmonic orchestra house, the Danube river and the Bratislava castle. In the evening I went to a small local restaurant to have supper and try out Kofola, a slovak soft drink that tastes like a less sweet version of Coke with a slight citrus and cardamome flavour. I then went to a sports bar to watch the Bayern Munich match. On the main floor there was a Halloween party, so they were showing the match in the VIP room upstairs, where me and a german man watched the match. Sorry to sound like a broken cassette, but Bayern played their typical bad form of late in the first half. A headed goal from Demichelis (39') right before half-time and most likely one of van Gaal's classic motivational speaches saw a more confident Bayern come out of the tunnel for the second half. Gomez eventually put one of his multiple chances into the back of the net with a simple header from a corner (69'). Freiburg pulled a goal back and the game got tense again. Right afterwards Tymoschuk got Bayern's third (72'), taking his time with his first touch before sneaking it past the keeper in the far bottom corner. Kroos scored his first goal (80') for Bayern with a lovely distance shot and just enough space to put it into the top corner. To end the night, substite Braafheid scored his opener for Bayern, though it was an own goal.
Saturday: I returned to Vienna (since I learned that Slovakia isn't on the Eurail pass, I thought it was better to pass through Austria) to then head to Prague. I met a Canadian couple and we talked for the whole train ride. They invited me to supper with them in a typical Prague pub-restaurant, where we seemed to be the only foreigners. We then walked around the main pedestrian street before calling it a night.
No comments:
Post a Comment