Vienna

The train ride to Austria was roughly 5 hours and went by very fast! Blake had never been on a train so it was extra exciting! He thought it was better than a plane and very relaxing despite the fact that all he could do was sit by the window and look out since he gets sick reading in moving objects. When we got to Vienna, we left the train station to head to our hotel before realizing we had no idea where we were going and couldn't read any of the street names. I'd say it was "all Greek to me" but I've been there, done that, and it definitely wasn't greek! We decided the best plan would be to go back to the train station and ask someone who spoke english. The hotel was a couple miles away so we took a bus closer and then spent another 20 minutes figuring out the address system before finally finding it. We were pleasanly surprised by the hotel though! It is 4 star and very nice for costing less than any of the hostels in town... guess a little research pays off! When we checked in, the receptionist was very friendly and gave us a city map with some recommendations of things to do/see/eat. By the time we put all our stuff in the room, it was around 9pm and most of the restaurants in our part of town had closed (apparently there is an Austrian holiday this weekend so everything is closed). We settled on a place called Schnitzel King and ended up being pretty happy. We both had schnityel with fries, it was like Austrian fast food!! The next morning we woke up and started walking around the city. The first place we went was to the Natural History museum, which had the Bodies exhibit. It was sooo cool/weird and disgusting but fun! We then walked around the museum for another hour or so before realizing we didnt eat breakfast and were staring so we left and went in search of food. We found a cute little restaurant in the middle of Graben Street and ate there, nothing special. We spent the rest of the day walking around the city seeing old things and new things but nothing particularly memorable. Our favorite thing was a GIANT park, probably 3 miles long with literally everything in it. There were soccer fields, skate parks, volleyball courts, tight ropes to walk on, amusement park rides, and tons of open space to name a few. The weather was beautiful so we enjoyed just walking around and taking it all in. Around 7 we got hungry and Blake found this AMAZING Indian restaurant for dinner. Dad, you would have LOVED it... be jealous! We got two different kinds of chicken curry and beef curry with roti and rice. After dinner, we decided to walk back to the hotel instead of take the train (another 2.5- 3 mile walk). Tomorrow we plan on heading to Salzburg and either renting bikes or going to the ice caves in Werfen. We also think we found a companty to go canyoning with on Saturday! Love you all! Prost!