Day 2 - Saturday

I guess I should continue my narrative and bring you all up to date.

On Saturday I met up with 2 of my co-workers who are also IAESTE students, Carolina and Wilson. They are both chemical engineers who have finished their Bachelors in chemical engineering in Columbia (the country, not the American university). Carolina has been here since last October but Wilson has only been here since March. I'm sure they'll be in the majority of the photos I post in the future, I'll be sure to point them out. We walked down Mariahilfestraße which is the main shopping street in Vienna to one of the bigger subway stations 'Westbahnhoff' which means "West Train Station". There I bought my Subway and Train passes for the week and we traveled the path to the train station which I would take on Monday so I knew exactly where to go.

From the train station we took a streetcar to a market where they bought a bunch of groceries and I bought fresh strawberries. One odd thing about the market was the butcher stands. Everything else looked like your normal market with fresh food, baked goods, some mall nick-nacks, but then there would be a stall of steaks, chicken, and skinned rabbits. After the market we went to a Discountmart which is basically the Austrian version of Giant Tiger. Everything was cheaply made and cheaply priced. You could get everything from religious pictures printed onto plastic golden frames for 7 euros to an alarm clock. I bought the alarm clock, but passed on the 'art'. I also picked up some cups and some Tupperware.

We decided to meet up with some other IAESTE people for supper, but first we parted ways to take our stuff home (they live on the other side of the city). We met at Nußdorferstraße station which looks out over the city's garbage collection facility and incinerator. However, it was designed by a famous Austrian architect named Hundertwasser, and it was like something out of doctor Seus! Lets see if I can add the picture from Wikipedia...


This place is something you really have to see for yourself, its hard to capture it in a photo. There is even one part where there is a full sized tree growing out of on of the recessed windows, it's really cool.

We took the subway to a bus which climbed one of the small mountains outside the city. We passed giant old homes now sadly turned into apartments and vineyards where the land was too steep to build. When we got off the bus no one's cellphone would work so we wandered around trying to find the people we were supposed to be meeting. Long story short we wandered around this mountain, stumbled onto the grounds of some elite country club/spa, and found no one. As we were really hungry, we took the bus back into town and went to a restaurant. I let them order for me because I could only understand half the words on the menu. We ended up getting really good pork chops with fries and salad, and it was only about 3.50 euros!

With new found energy from our amazing meal, we decided to tour the inner city so they could show me all the sites. I won't go into detail until I go back and take photos, but it was beyond belief. This city is stuffed with hundreds of buildings all of which are far nicer than anything you would ever see in Canada. You pass between two enormous, but perfectly identical museums, through the gates of a gorgeous palace which looks onto the meticulously manicured gardens in front of city hall. City hall resembles the Canadian Parliament buildings, but is a little smaller with much more ornamentation. From the lawn in front of the palace you go through another giant 'doorway' topped with a giant dome and come out to what is actually the 'nice' side of the Palace, with marble fountains and more sculptures. In front of the main entrance they have the ground cut away to reveal the 2000 year old ruins of the ancient Roman town Vienna was built on.

Most of the streets in the central part of the city are pedestrian malls with cafés and more marble monuments and fountains. Right in the very heart of the city is Stephansdom (St.Stephan's Cathedral). We went in, but because they were going to close in 5 minutes all the lights except the wall of votive candles were out. It gave the medieval cathedral a very eerie yet impressive feeling. It's hard to believe that where I was standing had so much history. That cathedral was the place of Mozart's wedding and funeral as well basically every important religious event in the past 800 years of Austrian history. As we were leaving Carolina pointed out that for a small fee you can tour the catacombs beneath the cathedral and your can climb the touring steeple to see the entire city.

From Stephansdom we passed the enormous marble Opera House, if you line up 2 hours before the show every night you can apparently get into the standing section for only 2 Euros! From there I took the subway home and had a well deserved night's rest.