4. Wien and Budapest

Vienna is absolutely gorgeous, it’s classy, maybe a bit snobby and totally lovely. My host mom, Bibiana is from Austria and she told us that we had to check out a traditional Viennese cafe, where you can order one coffee and sit there for 5 hours and the waiter will not bother you once, whereas in Germany they will bother you after 20 minutes. The first day in Vienna we visited the catacombs, it was really interesting to see and there were a few mummies on display. Then we went to the goulash museum for dinner, it was one of the best meals I’ve had in Europe. The second day we had a free afternoon. So taking Bibiana’s advice Nicky and I found this little cafe right next to a park, it was completely made of glass and looked like a greenhouse inside with live plants, and they even have a butterfly garden next door. The waiter was really sweet and brought me my sunglasses when I forgot them in the cafe. He quickly walked out, because I think that man is too posh to run anywhere and said: “madame your sunglasses” We also checked out the national Library it was gorgeous, like the Beauty and the beast library but in real life, with the ladders and books to the ceiling. They had some really neat displays set up as well, including an old book that was one of the first at the library, it had gold-leafed illustrations and letters, and the man behind us in line told us that we had really luck timing because it was the last day it would be on display probably for another 100 years. That night Nicky and I went out to dinner with Katie, I haven’t gotten to spend a whole lot of time with her yet and it was really fun to get to know her, we all clicked really well and bonded over embarrassing stories. We went to Tunnel after dinner to watch some live music, it was Syrian which was really cool, but after about an hour it all started to sound the same so we called it a night. The next morning I got my animal fix when we visited the Spanish riding school morning practice, it was incredible to watch those guys work, they are very disciplined. We had a free hour so Katie, Nicky and I went back to our café again for lunch, it didn’t disappoint. My favorite part of Vienna by far was the Natural History Museum, I could have spent 3 full days in that place and still not gotten bored. The entire upstairs is taken up by animal collections. There are 1 million items on display and an additional 4 million in the basements, I’d love to get into the basements. Anyways this was basically a biologists heaven. So, while everyone had their moments at the Medical museums, I was nerding out at the natural history museum. One thing I learned this week: I definitely did not make a mistake in knowing that I do not want to be a Dr. the medical museums were not for me. The very visual representation of every disgusting disease you could possibly think of on display was a little nauseating, everywhere you looked there was something worse than the last thing. At the Josephinum I talked to our tour guide, she was from Vienna but studied Jazz music in Amsterdam, she was super cool and added me on facebook, and told us about an open air market to check out if we liked vintage things. Our last night in Vienna we went to tunnel

At the end of the week we were off to Budapest. Budapest was awesome, it was super cheap (win) we had amazing food (double win) and the city was gorgeous, especially at night. The first night we were there Austin, Nicky and I wandered over the river to grab some snacks at a kiosk, we got to enjoy the Buda castle, the parliament building and bridges all lit up. The next morning we went to the hot baths. We would stay in the hot baths, go to the sauna and then plunge into an ice cold bath. After the hot baths we went and grabbed dinner at a café that our Airbnb host recommended, it was delicious (and so cheap!!). That night we walked all around Budapest, I think we walked 14 miles that night. The Parliament building is breathtaking at night. The Buda castle was open to the public even at night, so we didn’t fight any crowds while we explored it. I also fell down a really muddy hill and got mud all over my pants, I am super clumsy so this really isn’t a surprise. One of my favorite parts of the Budapest trip was our last meal. We treated ourselves to a really nice lunch in this French restaurant (also recommended to us by our host) I had the best cocktail there and the bartender took one look at Austin and said and you want a big beer. Austin agreed. I also dropped my knife on the ground and it made a pretty loud clatter but our waiter wasn’t even in the room, and yet here he comes carrying a tray with a knife, fork and spoon because he didn’t know which I had dropped, it was like they had a secret network to pass on this stuff. Suffice to say the service was impeccable and he got tipped really well.