The train ride from hell

A week in Vienna. A quick turn around from the weekend in Paris. There was a short 3 hour nap in Bonn and then it was back to the train station to begin another adventure. On that train we slept a little bit, listened to Billy Joel and cried when we watched the sisterhood of the traveling pants. Got off the train, Henning and Alexa told us the wrong tram information, but all is well that ends well because we eventually found the hotel. Then off on the tour, fun fact the plague has visited Vienna 40 times in its past, and because of that Dr. Snable came to give us the tour- to show us the city and how the plague lefts its mark on the place we were in. Along the way he treated us with some classic plague remedies, some better than others but I suppose they worked because we all survived to see another day.

When I think back on the week it is easy to pick out my favorite part, the wax models that we had the privilege to see. These models were amazingly detailed and very accurate for the most part. The collection just seemed to keep going, with one model after another, each one beautifully crafted and preserved after hundreds of years. They were truly something special. The natural history museum would have to be my second favorite place we visited as a class, seeing the venus statue and a few dinosaurs. The statue that we saw was one that surprised me, I knew that it would be small from the lectures but I still underestimated just how small. Getting to see such an old artifact was very cool, I wish that we knew more about why people made these statues and what the meaning behind them was.

The last place we went into as a group was Sigmund Freud’s house. Such a legendary figure that I have learned about in multiple classes, it felt a little surreal to see where he lived, worked and developed his theories. The lecture over Freud was easily one of my favorites because I find him to be such a fascinating and interesting character.

During our free time Kylie and I went out to the Belvedere to see the art collection there, mainly for one painting- The Kiss by Gustav Klimt. The palace itself was impressive, and we almost got in for free because they thought we were part of the staff that was decorating for the fundraiser that was going to be held there that night, we were lucky to see the place covered in flowers and decorations which just added to the grandeur of it all. Walking through the halls we passed sculptures of saints and heroes, renaissance paintings of religion and everyday people, wandering through the halls until we reached the painting we came to see. The room barely had anyone in it and we just stood and stared at that painting, I was amazed by it. It was so different than any of the paintings around it. It was bright, happy and gold; a big contrast from the serious, dull paintings that surrounded it. Out of all the art I saw in Europe, this was my favorite. The Louvre with its crowds and Mona Lisa; its Rafael’s and sculptures by Michelangelo was upstaged by a single, beautiful painting hung in a room with barely anyone in it.

Vienna was a cool city, not what I expected, but still a place I am glad to have visited. The places that we went and the experiences we had were ones that I am very thankful to have had. The nights and memories that were made are ones that I will forever laugh at. Getting shushed on the courtyard, getting in trouble the first night by the little hotel man for being too loud, and the wild night on the town with Henning and Alexa.; watching Kylie try to get through the gate in the bar, for whatever reason, and then finding our way home in the pouring rain.

All too soon we were once again on another train speeding off to another place for another weekend. This time it was off to Budapest for a day then to Prague.

Budapest was an interesting city, not really what I expected. A little run down, not as glamorous as I imagined. We got ripped of by a taxi on the way to our airbnb but other than that we had a fantastic time there. The ruin bar turned out to be one of the coolest places ever. Just a fun lively place where we all met up and hung out for a bit. My favorite part of Budapest would have to be the part across the river (Buda or Pest I'm not sure, whichever side had the castle). This half was more clean, close streets with brightly colored houses- more of what I expected to find in Budapest. Our time there was all to short and soon we were on a train heading to Prague. 

Let me tell you a bit about the overnight train from hell. The series of unfortunate events that took place that night started with the girl in the hallways who decided to start talking on the phone once everyone was asleep. Noe talking would have been ok, but this girl was full on yelling because she was convinced the person on the other end couldn't hear her. After her hour long conversation finally ended she started pacing. Up and down, up and down over and over agin past all the compartments. The entire time looking frantic and half out of her mind. This was the first time I decided that locking the compartment door was a good idea. After pacing she started hitting herself and yelling a bit, I think she was on drugs, I was just happy when some of her friends got her back into their compartment. The peace lasted for all of 2 hours before a family boarded and got into the compartment next to us. It was around 1 am at this time and this family was belligerently drunk. Yelling, hollering and blaring their music as loud as they could. This lasted until about 4 am (we would get off the train at 6 am).  During the hours till the train ride ended these drunk people tried to get into our cart because they thought it was theirs (thank you once again to the lock on the door), and  played their music so our that at one point I got up walked into their compartment, grabbed the phone and turned it off. No one said anything and after that point it was a little quieter - key word being little. The cherry on top of this whole thing was the ticket people banging on our door every hour and demanding to see our tickets that they had just checked not too long ago. SO 6 am rolls around and Madison wakes us up saying this is our stop we groggily get our things together and head to the door. This was our big hop of the train moment. A literal hop off. I fell, Madi didn't and then we realized the other two were still on the train heading off to who knows where. Turns out they were heading to Prague and we were 15 minutes outside of it. So we Ubered in, found a hotel (because Airbnb fell through) and met up with the other half of our party. 

Prague was one of my favorite places that we visited on the trip. It was exactly what I pictured when you think of a European town. It was beautiful and full of cool new places to find. We started at 6 am and were able to wander through the entire city before it became full of tourists. We ate a lot of Italian food and chimney cakes, and found out that we had scored an amazing hotel room on the top floor with a magnificent view. On our last day there we ran into a huge parade, I couldn't tell you what kind of festival it was, there were people there from all over the world marching in it, it just adds to the places we visited that somehow had some strange event going on that we ran into. 

Our time there was amazing and made me wish we had just gone to Prague instead. I could've happily stayed there for as long as possible. It is a place I know I will eventually make my way back to, hopefully when the clock is no longer under construction.