Goodbye Europe, Hello Vienna!

              My time in Vienna began with an extremely early cab ride. A cab was sent to pick me up at 4 AM, and I spent the majority of the night before struggling to fall asleep because I was afraid I'd oversleep and miss my cab. Luckily, I woke up with plenty of time. A short cab ride took me to the Old AIB where we then took buses to the airport. The flight went smoothly, and next thing we knew we had landed in Vienna. We spent the first day doing a walking tour, where we got to meet a real plague doctor (of course), and we took various remedies believed to ward off the plague. After the tour, we had free time for lunch. I decided to get a wiener filled with cheese, and it was soo good. At the conclusion of lunch, we went in to see St. Michael's crypts. The crypts were really interesting but also really unnerving. I was scared of bumping into a coffin or accidentally brushing up against bones. After the crypt, we went to the Goulashmuseum and gorged ourselves on beef goulash and wine. 10/10 recommend eating goulash; it's delicious. I was so exhausted by the end of the day that I went to sleep around 10 so that I would be refreshed for the next day.

From the walking tour

              Our second day in Vienna gave us a lot of free time. After an interesting visit to a pharmaceutical museum, we had the day to ourselves. My friends and I decided to visit Vienna's Nachstmarkt. We ate lunch there and strolled around the little stands before going back to the hotel for a quick break. After relaxing for an hour in the AC, we went to get schnitzel for dinner. We didn't anticipate how much schnitzel we were actually ordering. I couldn't finish my plate, but the schnitzel was so good. After eating some schnitzel, we made our way to Prater, an amusement park. We had to endure some trial and error on the transportation, but we eventually made it. There were so many rides and games at the park. I elected to not ride any roller coasters, but to hold everyone's bags. I did end up riding a big swing ride, but I honestly freaked out when the ride started because I kept envisioning my swing snapping and dropping me to the ground. Austrian amusement parks do not have the same safety requirements as American ones; they didn't even check to see if we were strapped in properly. Nonetheless, I still had an awesome time. After riding some rides, we went to a bar and had a drink before heading back to the hotel for bed.

Schnitzel is so good

                 The next morning, we took a trip to a museum that used to be an insane asylum. This museum was filled with anatomical models of various diseases. Everything inside the museum was super interesting, but I can't say I didn't get a little nauseous looking at the models. Just knowing that they were formed off of humans suffering from the diseases made my stomach churn. After this museum tour, we had a group lunch at a buffet. The food was really good and they had a little bit of AC running, which was so nice. Following lunch, we went back to the hotel where we heard a lecture from Dr. Wasser over Sigmund Freud. I knew a little bit about Freud before the lecture, but the lecture was still really interesting. After the lecture concluded, we went to the Freud museum and got to see how his waiting room was set up, and we got to see some of his personal items. Following the museum, we had some free time before our concert. My roommates and I took this time to get ready for the night. After doing so, we met up with the group and headed to the concert. The concert took place in a small Catholic church, and the inside was so pretty. The concert was awesome; it was really cool getting to hear Mozart and Haydn in such an acoustically friendly space. Following the concert, a group of us went to a bar for a few drinks before heading to an underground club. The night was so fun, but we learned the hard way that the underground system closed super early.

Before the concert..

And after when we realized the trains weren't running anymore

              Friday was our last day in Vienna. After packing up our stuff and eating breakfast, we headed to the House of Musik. Our group was split into two smaller ones, so before going into the museum I went to the park with Dr. Wasser where we did tai chi. We got to do it in the shade so it was enjoyable, and the children who laughed at us and attempted to mimic the tai chi moves made it even more enjoyable. Following tai chi, we entered the museum. It was an interactive museum and it was an interesting experience getting to 'compose' melodies while learning about composers. After the House of Musik, we had a quick lunch break before meeting at the Natural History Museum. The museum was massive and had a lot of interesting specimens. After our time at the museum, we were free to go off to our separate weekend destinations. I was headed to Munich.
             We got to Munich around 11 pm so we decided to go straight to sleep when we got to the hotel. The next morning, we headed to the Munich royal residence. It was so pretty but so huge. We got a little lost inside, and had to get help from an employee to find an exit. Once we finally made it out of the residence, we went to get lunch before the tour we had scheduled from 1 pm. We ate a huge lunch and then met up with our tour guide before heading to Dachau. We had debated if we wanted to visit Dachau, but we decided we needed to because we were so close by. I am really glad we did. It was an emotional tour, but an important one. It's always so tragic seeing what the people persecuted during WWII went through. After the tour at Dachau, we went to the Hofbraugarten, which was a traditional biergarten. We ate pretzels, wurst, and drank a liter of beer. After finishing up there, we shopped for a little bit before heading back to the hotel for apple strudel and wine.
          This morning, we had some stressful encounters with the public transport but eventually made it to get brunch. I got a smoothie bowl that was so refreshing and reminded me a little bit of home (I make smoothie bowls alllll the time). After eating, we went to the main train station where we finally caught our train. I'm hopeful that this train ride goes better than last weekends, but I still have about three hours left on this train, so anything can happen.
         As we're headed back for our last days in Bonn, I'm honestly getting a little emotional thinking about leaving on Saturday. Even though I am so excited to go home and get to see my cat, eat queso, and experience AC again, I will definitely miss Germany. I'm planning to cherish my last week here.

*just to clarify for whoever is reading this (MOM), I do know Vienna is in Europe