back from graz...The Austrian Alps

Saturday June 16

I woke up at 5am to catch the 6am train to Graz (I think it’s the same train I took to Vienna a week ago, and it was stupid that I spent 3.50 euro to reserve it because it was half empty). I managed to arrive in Graz on time at 8:38am and decided to wander the train station a bit before Johannes from IAESTE arrives. It was here where I had my first experience of a paid bathroom. In order to enter the washroom area you have to go through a sort of money gate and the cost is 50 cents euro per use. So I rendered my 50 cents coin into the machine and went inside. It was a very clean bathroom (later I found out that the money is totally worth it as the bathrooms on the train is just absolutely gross…). After my little bathroom break, I wandered into the SPAR supermarket at the train station and got fascinated by the Milka displays. There were also merci chocolate and I think I’ve had those when I was a kid in HK (will verify with parents later) something that I’m unfamiliar with in Canada. Anyways, then I found a Mcdonalds and decided to try some Austrian Mcdonald breakfast. Again I had difficulties ordering and the lady kept on asking me questions. I ordered a Wien Frushtuck (Viennese breakfast) – which got me 2 croissants a lot of jams and butter and also a drink. I asked for an “Apfelsaft” but they gave me orange instead. Oh well… at least the croissants were freshly baked and they were yummy.

Johannes showed up and we went to the park just outside the train station to wait for the rest of the party. I met another Johannes (graduate from mech eng) from IAESTE (whose place I ended up having to crash at, as he had 2 other housemates, and they were not around, so I got to use Martin’s room for the night). Thomas from IAESTE also, a PHD student in Chem eng, who happened to have done an IAESTE exchange in Toronto at U of T on the 4^th floor of WB in the Pulp and Paper lab under the supervision of a Dr. Tang (Japanese) 3 years ago. So that was really cool when we started talking about Toronto. Then there were a bunch of other Trainees that I met: Alicija from Poland who studies electronics and is working for the electronic company of her dreams since September and will now take up a contract for full time since she has finished school; Emir from Norway who is new in town (only been here for 4 days) and started his work in a mechanical engineering placement in a lab at the technical university in Graz, staying until august; Nevena from Bosnia, who has been here for a month and working for a company and her background is in computer science; there was also a guy named Eddy who is from HK’s Polytechnic U studying Physics and working for another electronic company in a little town called Deutschlandberg, about an hour from Graz.

So the 8 of us took two cars and headed for a 2 hour journey out to the north east of Graz (which I fell asleep most of the way over) to a mountain called Reichenstein for “hiking”. Apparently, Austria calls Mountain Hiking – Hiking, it was a painful “walk”, more like a climb, up the mountain as I was not equipped with the right gear (I miss my hiking shoes!!! I’ll never go hiking without them again). So with my puma shoes, I felt every rock that I stepped on and was really afraid of slipping and rolling off the mountain (there were spots that were super steep). Not to mention that I was not in any good physical shape, it was really difficult to get up to the top. The guys from IAESTE also has this thing about telling us “It’s only going to be another 10 minutes” to keep the motivation going. It was a bit silly but funny at the same time.

So after 2 and a half hours, and a lot of hard work, and also taking a normal route as supposed to the advanced route, because of our shoes (there was a mountain nazi guy who came and said we would be arrested if we were seen with those kind of shoes on on the mountain, we finally reached the hutte ( or cottage) at the top of the mountain. There, we took a nice break, I ate a knodel mit wurstel (some dumpling thing with sausage and kraut (cabbage)), tried to play the local cards game and chilled for about 1.5 until the rain went away. (yes, it started raining) Once the rain went away, the group climbed up to the peak of the mountain. We then began our descent. The descent was difficult for me and Eddy as our shoes really weren’t able to hold us up. My philosophy, from my previous exp in hiking, climbing, whatever experience I had with SJA, told me that as long as I’m willing to get my hands dirty and stay low, I should be Okay. Hence I took my time and really clinged onto the mountain side. We were about ¼ of the way down when it started to rain again, and the paths became really difficult to walk in. It was difficult with rocks and extremely dangerous without the rocks. Puddles, mud slides were not doing us well. A little while longer, the Johannes whose place I will be staying at offered to let me hang on to his backpack, and this really helped save my life a few times. I was sliding down, my ankles were killing me (since no support) turning at weird angles as I try to maintain my balance. I slid a few times and it was not very pretty.. We finally reached the bottom of the mountain about 6 or 7 and we were soaking wet.

There, we warmed up and had soup ( a French onion kind that was a bit too salty) and Johannes took some videos of us, like testimonies. The group decided to drive back to Graz and regroup for the night for some parties. (later on, I realized that I really should’ve checked my ipod, as I have completely forgotten that it could get wet too because that case is not waterproof… ><)

Anyways, Johannes live in a very nice apartment on the ground floor with very spacious hallways. There are 3 rooms in the house and the way the bathroom is set up is kind of strange. The toilette area is separate to the shower+ sink area. (apparently this was the norm, as I saw a similar set up at Alicija’s). I took a nice warm shower and then began to clean up my shoes (they were soo gross and mud drenched). Johannes made Spinnach spaztle with some sort of a paste thing and we got ready to go to the party. I had to borrow his flipflops so I don’t have to wear my gross shoes and head to Alicija’s and borrow her shoes.

Johannes took his bike and I sat at the back. So talk about having first times, I think this was the very first time that I sat at the back of someone’s bike. It was quite exciting and I was impressed that Johannes still had so much energy. As I was wearing flip flops, it was also difficult to keep them on my feet, I came close to losing them a few times. Graz at night was very well lit and beautiful, a lively city full of students. We went through the city and to this pub (Johannes kept on talking and telling me about the places, but I was more concentrated on hanging on than listening). We went to this pub to pick up some of Johannes’ friends (Martin and Thomas who also happened to be the inhabitant of the house, and Martin – was the Iaeste President of Graz who I’ve been in contact with before). We then headed over to Alicija’s and after to the Party.

This club’s cover was 5 euro each and the process to get in is extremely lax compared to Toronto clubs. IT was Balkavian music night (and there was another room that played brazilian music). The music was really interesting, and there was also some gypsie music. I have never heard the music before so it took awhile for me to warm up before I got onto the dance floor (well also needed to wait until it was a bit more crowded). I had a beer for 2.70 and it was a Murauer beer, native to Styria, the province in which Graz belongs to. The rest of the trainees showed up including a girl named Stephanie from Switzerland. We danced until about 2am when Johannes decided that we should leave. (the rest of them stayed until 5am, don’t know how they did it)

Sunday June 17

When we got back to Johannes’s place that night, I found the snail without shell that Martin was talking about crawling on his wall. It was at least 10cm long and it was really gross looking. They were telling me that they need Indian geese to eat these stuff and control their breeding in Austria, but it might take another 10 years before they will get here.

On Sunday, I woke up at about 11am to Johannes’ weird music in the kitchen. I know he has company over at 11:30 am and figured that it’s best I wake up before then to get ready. I managed to get all changed and just had to brush my teeth when the company showed up. It was his friend Sarah and Paul and their kid Moritz who will be 1 in a week. They are to be married in 2 weeks and Johannes is to be Paul’s best man. We had a very full breakfast with lots of food served, Johannes was such a great host – Yogurt that comes in a jar, fried eggs, baked beans, pepper and tomato, 3 kinds of cheese, butter and bread, sundried tomatos, jams of a lot of variety, smoked salmon and ham, and they were drinking champagne for breakfast!

After a big Brunch – yes I guess it was more brunch than anything, I headed out to meet the other Johannes and Eddy (who stayed with the other Johannes). We met up with Martin and began our walk around the city. We went up the Schlossberg hill which used to be a Castle that had a very strong fort. When Napolean invaded Graz he was unable to conquer the Castle, so when he signed the peace treaty, he orderd the Castle to be destroyed because it was such an insult to him. So the castle was demolished and all that remained was a bell tower and a clock tower. So we climbed, yes climbed.. I felt like I was dead.. up to the top of the hill and sat at the café for coffee. It was a breathtaking view of the city of Graz with a lot of red rooftops and historic buildings. I was told that it had the largest network of red rooftops and hence deemed a world heritage city. Across the river of Mur, Graz is a much more modern city, and the buildings are much newer. This was because it was the bomb target in the war and most of the old buildings were destroyed as it was the industrial area. The clock tower was beautiful too and the long hand was actually the hour hand and the short one was the minute hand and added on much later. We enjoyed our drinks and then headed back down into the city by the stairs. We walked by the parliament house, landhaus which was built in the 14^th century, past the amoury area (which I remember Sherlie highly recommended me to go in, but there was no time), ate ice cream and visited the church and kunthaus (space like sea slug, was what lonely planet called it, a modern art museum).

After that, we walked back to the city park and sat at another café where I had a very good mango juice with water “ Mango saft mit wasser”. We talked a bit more about accents, about Iaeste Austria’s set up and maybe we need something like that in Canada, and about my trip plans, Venice or Krakow (Venice won) and things like that. We saw Alicija and I was going to give her her shoes back and it was at that point when I realized I had left them at the café up the hill. Luckily there was still time before I had to catch my train, and so Martin walked me up to the castle again for a 2^nd time. This was so hard.. >< style=""> Luckily the shoes are still there, and I managed to get to the train station for 6pm. On my way there, I ran into Emir on the tram and we said our good byes.

It was on the train when I took out my ipod that I realized there was water trapped between the case and the ipod itself. >< style=""> So I quickly took it out of the case and wiped the water off. It was completely non-responsive and knowing better, I left it as is and decided to go home and look up what I can do to save it. It’s still under warranty as I’ve only had it for less than a month but it might be painful to find a service provider in Europe. I really want to be able to use it for my trips, especially this one to Florence this weekend ><. Right now, I’ve taken it out of the case, and let it sit near the stove to dry it up. Hopefully any remaining moisture inside will be dried up. Soaked ipods have been fixed before, and mine doesn’t even count as being soaked.. just water leaked into the jets probably. Keeping my fingers crossed for the better. If not, I think I might have to take a day off work to go to Vienna and visit their ipod store and try to get it fixed under warranty ><

soccer game

fussball match :P

it's in a town called kercha.. (need to check spelling)
basically fell asleep for a couple of times ... unconscious slept on the ride there, slept on the ride back
a 1.5 hour drive from klagenfurt along the italian border

i had to ask to get the party cut short...

dam this music how am i supposed to sleep with it and wake up at 4:30 to catch my train?

eep ...

anyways more on the soccer game and party after.

*****************************

Friday June 15

Fridays are always great at work as our working hours are only until 1300. I took a break between 1030 to 1100 and took the bus down to haptbahnhof to take care of my Florence Business. It took awhile for the train ticket agent to get me the right trains and that all the couchette and sleepable carts are booked up. So I ended up getting a 2^nd class seat for 40 euro each way. They said it’s possible for me to upgrade depending on availability, just need to talk to the conductors as I board the train. Again, it’s one of those things that if I know I can do it and I didn’t do it. I will definitely regret it later. Once I got back into the office, I was trying to look up places to live in Florence. I finally found one but had to catch the bus to watch the soccer tournament and didn’t have enough time to book it.

A group of us from work boarded the bus that took us to Kercha, a tiny little town/village that is along the Italian border west of Villach, 1.5 hour drive from Klagenfurt. The scenery was beautiful along the way but I really just wanted a nap. When we got there, it was pouring rain but the game still went and it was Kabeg against one of its hospitals – LAAS. Kabeg won in a penalty kick 2-1 and everyone was really happy and partied quite hard afterwards. I was led to believe that we were going to get back at 1900, but we didn’t even leave until2130 (upon my insistence as I had a train to catch at 600 the next day and was falling asleep after 2 shots..) I felt really bad for cutting the party short, but Suzy said that this was already later than last years which made me feel better. Silvia was really nice and offered to drop me off at home afterwards. I got home at 2330 and was dead tired, and managed to book my hostel in Florence so that I was set for Graz and next weekend.

money matters...

loong weekend in Vienna!!

VIENNA - WIEN

Friday June 8, 2007

Bright and early Friday morning, I woke up at 4:45am to make sure that I give myself enough time to walk over to the hauptbahnhof in Klagenfurt to catch my 3 and a bit-hour train ride to Vienna.

At 9:45am I arrived at Sudbahnhof of Wien. I was to meet Jordan as close to 10am as possible at Wombat the Lounge to try to secure myself a bed for Friday night. However, being not very good at printing the map and still sleepy, I managed to climb onto tram 18, only in the wrong direction. By the time the tram looped around, and that I found Westbahnhof and Mariahilfe Strasse on which (To the left of Westbahnhof, is the instruction that I got, extremely VAGUE), I found Jordan waiting for me at the lobby of Wombat the Lounge. He had great news for me and that the lady at the desk was able to secure me a bed in a mixed dorm for the evening. The cost was 21 euro for the night. I wasn’t able to check in until 2pm so I decided to carry my backpack with me for the day (bad move).

I was introduced to Jordan’s friend, Jonah, who finished fire fighting school and was Jordan’s travel buddy. They also met a bunch of people, Katie from UTM, Kristy from York, Katy and Jerry from L.A. who just graduated from U of Michigan with their M.B.As, oh and this guy named Nick from Guelph who is working in France. So the whole group of us wandered onto the street of Vienna, down Mariahilfe strasse towards the city center where all the attractions are. The walk was quite long and it took about 20-25 minutes. This was the street that Sherlie has recommended as a very good shopping spots. You can see a lot of international brand names and places with discounts on it.

We finally arrived on the openring strasse where we were stopped by salesman dressed in traditional Mozart/Victorian clothing (forgot what they are called) and trying to sell us tickets to the concerts in Vienna at night. We had all really wanted to see an opera at the States Opera House and Otello was actually playing that night. However, we couldn’t do it because the prices are too high and that they usually always sell out. Instead, Jordan, Jonah and I decided to watch the Mozart concert at the Concert Hall for 39 euros a person that night. I mean, it’s Vienna!

After deciding on an evening plan, we walked over to the Mozart garden *need to find out the name* where there is a Mozart Statue and a very beautiful treble clef formed by flowers on the grass. We then walked over to the Hofburg palace, passed by the butterfly museum and towards the States Opera House. On our way to the Opera house, the group stopped by a ticket office and the Katie and them decided to buy tickets to La Traviata, which according to Jordan is a very famous Opera, that is being played at the Volksopera on Saturday night. The standing tickets are 15 euros and nosebleed seats were 19 euros. At that point I wasn’t sure if Jasper is interested in it, so I didn’t want to make a commitment for him.

We continued on to our journey and grabbed a kebab (Turkish food in pita like bread, kinda greasy but filling and yummy for 3 euros) prior to entering the haus di musik. Again the group split up because they wanted to visit the Museum of Arts. Jordan Jonah and I visited the Haus di musik for 7 euros each and climbed the 4 stories building. There was a floor dedicated to the Vienna Philharmonic, in which there is a simulation for the game of dice in music for composing the Waltz. The next floor explored the theory of sound and went into some really really nerdy physics terms like Fourier analysis, sine waves, *shudders*. It was also complemented by some high tech computer demonstrations and explanations. The next floor housed the information of some really famous composers in chronological order. Began with Hadyn, to Mozart, to Beethoven, Schubert, Strauss, and then Mahler, an audio guide helped with the understanding of the displays. Highlights included, the painting of the Mozart family was authentic, Schubert’s actual glasses were on display, and there were footsteps to the waltz that you can follow to learn how to dance it.

After the tour at the House of Music, we rested at the giant fountain in karlzplatz and then went home to take a shower and get ready for the night. We met up with the rest of the group and went to a restaurant called Mozarts Tube where Schnitzels were on special for 5 euros, served with Fries or salad. I had a Spiegel beer with my turkey Schnitzels and it was very yummy. Then we headed out to the music theatre by taking the U-bahn (subway) – we got lost, because we lost the map.. and ended up showing up at the office of the Mozart orchestra as supposed to the location they were to perform at. We ended up being about half an hour late to the concert but was still able to catch a lot of it. I have some videos from the concert of night music and some really famous piece. It was a very enjoyable concert indeed.

The concert ended approximately at 10:30pm. We strolled over to St Charles Church and took some pictures in front of it. It was really pretty with the lights at night and the tranquility of the undisturbed pond/fountain thing in front of it added to its peacefulness. Taking the U-bahn again, we went to pratern (spell the rest of it) where we located the Giant Ferris Wheel (Reisenrad) and a bunch of carnival rides that came with it. Jordan and I finally located gelato places and was very satisfied before our Ferris wheel ride. It cost about 7 euro a person to get on a 10 minute Ferris wheel ride, but it was the experience that really mattered. We got our pictures taken but decided against buying any as one cost over 10 euros. The skyline of Vienna at night wasn’t that exciting as it was not lit enough. However, it was still very pretty and the ride was really enjoyable. (That was my first time on a real Ferris wheel, at least from what I remember). I think it is less nice during the day but you’ll definitely be able to take better pictures than the ones I took.

We took the tram back to see more of the city and noticed that the streets are really tight at times, that if you park not close enough to the curb, you will very likely lose your side mirrors by passing trams. We hung out at the lounge until 2 ish until we finally decided we need to go to bed.

Saturday June 9

The dormitory style, 6 bed sleepers at Wombat the lounge was not bad at all. I was lucky that none of the guys in the room snored and I was able to sleep quite well. There was a fan for the room and not a lot of noise outside as we faced an alleyway. I was able to get up at 8:30ish, packed, checked out and when I didn’t see signs of Jordan at 9:10am, I left to go to Sudbahnhof to pick Jasper up.

Jasper and I took the tram back to Wombat to store his luggage and ate breakfast to wait for Jordan and Jonah to show up. Apparently the 3.50 euro per person all you can eat breakfast deal at wombat was really good according to Jasper. We had two types of meat, unlimited bread, orange juice, veggies, and of course the Wien melange (Viennese cappuccino) that I was told to try. So jasper and I tried it out, it taste a bit like French vanilla, but is a much lighter coffee. We took a mental note to try the ones near the palace to see if this was because it was “hostel style”. Jordan and Jonah finally showed face at about 11, and it was because there were 2 girls in their room that disturbed their sleep this morning, causing the delay. Jasper and I headed over to our other hostel (insert name here) and tried to check in. We weren’t able to until 2pm, so we took a locker with a 10 euro deposit and stuffed our stuff in there.

By taking the subway/tram 6, we headed towards the central cemetery of Austria where 25000 Austrians are buried. Jordan really wanted to see the graves of the famous composers and Jasper was ok to do that, he kept saying he’s into music… In about a 20 minute tram ride, we arrived at the Zentralfriedhof. We were able to locate Beethoven, Strauss, Schubert, and Braham. Apparenlty Mozart was really poor about the time of his death and could not afford to be buried in this cemetery. We then took tram 71 to head to St. Marx Friedhof to look for Mozart. After a bit of navigation, we were able to find it and it was definitely much more humble than the rest.

Since Jordan and Jonah had to catch a flight to Israel, we went back to the hostel and said our goodbyes, and Jasper and I set off to look for tickets to La Traviata. First we headed to St Stephan’s church. Stephan’spltaz. It was awespiring and its roof is beautiful as it glistens in the sun. We went in briefly and there were a lot of street performers (and ticket sellers for concerts) just outside in the pedestrian area.

We managed to find the box office for opera tickets, and they were charging us 24 euros for the 19 euro tickets. Apparently there is a handling fee, so Jasper and I decided to just get our tickets at the door, at least it’ll be 19 euros, and if we don’t’ get the tickets we’ll just find something else to do. Boiling in the Viennese Sun, we continued to walk in the attempt to find the other ticket office that the group found the day before. Using my broken memory, we were finally able to trace the path but only to find that the office has closed. We walked around the Hofburg palace and found in a quad area (amongst Spanish riding school, heligengist platz, and the Kaiserhaus and sisi museum) the Hofburg Café. Our feet were tired so we sat down under the umbrella to order a Wien Melange and a desert with yummy strawberries in it. It was so relaxing.

After our tummy was satisfied, we located the Hofburgkappelle where the Vienna Boys Choir are to sing on Sunday. Apparently it is also right on top of the Schatzkammer, where the royal jewellery were stored. We decided against seeing jewellery since Jasper said that I’ll see better ones elsewhere. We walked out into the front of the Hofburg palace (which we missed yesterday) and took more pictures of the magnificence of this palace. It was so grand and the amount of details were breathtaking. Horse carriages, also reminded us of the amount of history that this building represent. We walked through a few more buildings and finally took the U towards Neubaugasse and shopped along Mariahilfe Strasse to find something for Jasper’s sisters.

After showering and checking into our room at the Hostel, Jasper and I set off to locate the Volkstheater on U6. We got to the opera house at about 6:15pm and noticed that there were two lines. Apparently, this theatre sells their leftover tickets (from the best seats onward) to students for a student price. Jasper and I ended up getting student tickets for 8 euro each at a 50-75 euro range tickets. We were on the third floor in stage right’s First Box seats. That is just amazing that we got the experience to be in a Box seat ( it would’ve been better if we didn’t have that weird senior lady looming in the third seat in the box.) We bought the synopsis of La Traviata for 2.40 euro (the ppl pointed to the Japanese page, and I told them I only need English). The synopsis was not very detailed but we got the gist of the story. We managed to find an asian buffet restaurant and convinced them to give us one plate of food (which we piled lots on) because there was no time for 4 euros. The duck was amazing.. even better than Toronto ducks. We managed to inhale our food quickly and then ran back in time for the show to begin.

The music was really good and I was really entertained by just watching the orchestra directly below our seats. It was a bit hard to see stage right but it’s still nonetheless a great experience. The way this opera was performed was very simple. The main character violetta had like one costume throughout the whole thing (a PJ like thing) and the main colours were white, black and red. The stage was simple with not a lot of scenic background. They sang in Italian and the subtitles were in German. It was still very exciting to guess at what was going on and just see the meanings and emotion that the singers were trying to convey through their body gestures and voices.

After the performance, we took the U towards the Donau, got out and looked around. We found a bunch of cafes and beer places along the Donau where people just lounged around. It was such a nice environment. We walked down the main street towards Karlplatz again, and there was a huge gelato store, at which we could not resist and bought a ferrero crème flavour one and also a mango one. They were so good and the mango was soo rich *yummy*. Jasper found on one of the Vienna guide a Chinese Ramien restaurant. Since we were both craving Chinese food (well for me it’s been a week, but I know it’ll be longer, for him it’s been 3 weeks, but in 2 days he’ll get cheap Toronto food again) We walked to the place and the kitchen was closed. The place next door was too pricey – wonton soup was 6 euros…. :\.

So we decided to go back to Mozart tube for cheap schnitzels and I can get the Knodels to try the dumplings. They sold out of Knodels so I ended up just getting another serving of Schnitzels. We drank some warm (which we asked the lady to stick back in the fridge for us) red wine and lots of tap water. It was a good meal and by the time we finished eating, we decided it was time for bed so that we won’t miss the boys choir tomorrow.

Sunday June 10

The sheets at this hostel was very nice, the only problem was that it was off a main street and the people outside (who likely lived in the hostel wont’ shut up). There was quite a bit of noise, and I didn’t want to climb down the bunk bed and wake jasper up (who was in the bottom bunk) or fall and hurt myself just to get ear plugs. So I had to listen to my ipod and block the noises out. I think I ended up sleeping at about 3 ish and woke up at about 6 freaking out that I had forgotten to turn my alarm on on the cell phone. We did manage to get out of the hostel by 7 and ran towards the U to get to the Hofburg by 8. By the time we got there, we were the 3^rd or 4^th in line for standing seats. There was a lady who was trying to sell us tickets for 8 euros to sit and the prices go up from there to about 40 euros. We were smart to have arrived early, as there was a huge line near 9 (the mass is at 9:15am). They only let a certain number of people to go in and it was a good thing that wombat’s map told us to be there early. Jasper and I got the front standing “seats” right behind the people who paid over 30 euros to sit just in front of us facing the front of the church. The mass began and all we saw were the faces of the priests since the Vienna boys were a few floors above us. They sang intermittently in between readings of the bible. It was beautiful. At the end of the mass, they came down to the front to sang one last number. It was totally worth our time to have sacrificed our sleep. I have a video of it, and you can see/hear it here. It was about 10:30am when we got out of the chapel. So we decided to head back to the Chinese restaurant to see if we could get soupy noodle or pho. The restaurant was supposed to open at 11 but the kitchen wouldn’t open until 11:30am. Jasper and I were too hungry to wait so we went across the street and found this really nice place that served sandwiches. We were sitting in leather couches and they were playing music and had nice books. It was a good atmosphere.

After brunch, we hopped on the U to head to Schonbrunn palace. This is the summer residence of the Hofburg family (although it was a 15 minute train ride from their normal residence). It was massive, and we paid 15 euros each to get the grand tour pass which included admission to the full tour with an audio guide, visit to the privy garden (supposedly romantic panaromic veiny garden thing) with lemon trees, visit to the maze and labyrinth and the café at the Gloriette (check spelling) and finally the apple strudel show. The palace was beautiful but it wasn’t actually that old. It was built by a famous empress Maria Theresa (who had 21 children and the youngest daughter was Marie Antoinette) and it was destroyed. It was rebuilt with the Ricocco style and everything was gold plated and there was quite a bit of Japanese and Chinese tapestries on the walls. We walked through the privy garden and went to see the apple strudel show. They gave us a recipe and it doesn’t seem that hard to make. We walked over to the maze and labyrinth, and Jasper said it was the first he’s found on his trip and was super excited about it. We tried to walk through it and got stuck a few times. Then we tried to keep our right hand on the wall and continued to walk and finally found our way to the platform. It was quite a fun experience, I think we were stuck in there for at least 15 minute. The sky dimmed down so we had a break from the intense heat ( there is about a 2 degree difference from the sun and the shades, you can actually feel it). It then started to lighting and thunder and we decided it was time to head back to the hostel and head off to catch our trains.

Jasper was catching an overnight train to Munich then to Paris to fly back to Toronto. And my train’s end destination is Villach, so I actually had to pay attention when going back as supposed to sleep like there’s no tomorrow. I caught the 5pm train and got to Klagenfurt just after 9pm.

Even though I was dead tired, it was still a great trip because I got to travel with Jordan and Jasper. There were a lot of spontaneous decisions but we somehow manage to pack my three days at Vienna, completed with a concert, opera and a choir performance. I also got to know Vienna as a city quite well and use their more-complicated-than-TTC-subway system quite well. Vienna is a city full of history and music inspirations and I’m very glad that I was able to meet up with my friends and spend time with them on this side of the world.

juggling festival today! golf with boss and a sushi yesterday

golfing today in the mountains!

finally internetted