There are no kangaroos in Austria

Well after my time in Prague, I headed over to Vienna.  And once again, I was blown away by the city.  Completely different from Prague and Berlin, the city was still as magnificent as the first two.  This time, I was actually couch surfing, not staying in a hostel, so when I arrived I headed over to my host Jasmin’s house, where I was greeted with a smile, Swiss coffee and chocolate, and musical theatre.  At this point, I should inform you that although living in Austria, Jasmin is Swiss.  She is also studying musical theatre.  See, now everything makes sense again.

Unfortunately there were no walking tours so it was up to me to wander around the city getting lost.  But getting lost in a good way.  Because I had been left a map, I had a 48-hour public transport card, and I knew I could somehow find my way back if I just got on enough trams. :-D  My first sight of Vienna was the capitol/congress building…

Gorgeous right?  I couldn’t get over it.  As I continued I made it to the Cathedral…

In front of here was a HUGE ice skating rink/track/fun fair thing going on.  It looked amazing, but unfortunately I didn’t have time to join.

Then I continued on to the theatre…

I also saw some other gorgeous buildings and statues…

 

  

  

  

 

And then the palace…

I mean this place is ginormous!  And gorgeous!  So absolutely beautiful!  I couldn’t get over it.  And there was a park, and lots of buildings, all a part of it.  I wandered around there for a good hour.  Unfortunately the museum containing the Crown Jewels and other cool things that they recommend you do while in Vienna was closed, so I had to find another museum to check out.

That’s whe I came across the Historical and Natural History museums….

 

 

They were across from each other and almost looked like mirror images.  Since I love natural history, I decided to visit that one.  It was also half as much as the historical museum.  But I think the best part was being inside such old and highly ornate buildings…

They had a whole exhibit on Darwin since it’s like the 200th birthday or something like that…

They also randomly have the actual shed where Ben Franklin discovered electricity.  I thought that should be in an American museum, but it's still a cool concept (even if the legend was partly busted on Mythbusters)…

And the original Venus…

Pat this one’s for you…

Oh and look it’s my favorite animal the Red Panda!!!

Of course the entire time I kept thinking about “Night at the Museum” and how cool this place would be at night when the entire upper floor (which was all animal/dinosaur displays) came to life…

 

 

Yes call me a nerd, but I’m pretty sure there’s another sequel in the making, so they should take a page outta this blog.

Across the street, you could also see the Heldenplatz – or Hero Square – the place of Hitler’s great (by great I mean huge, not awesome) speech welcoming Austria into the Third Reich.  There’s nothing really saying that around there…they're not too proud of it (for obvious reasons,) but I had done my research ahead of time so I knew...

 

 

After exploring the entire museum, I continued on to find the opera house…

Now the opera is EXTREMELY famous here.  As is Mozart…seriously…they love that guy I tell you.  There is an entire store dedicated to opera, Mozart, and all things to do with music.  Jasmin and I were going to try and see “Tosca” that night, But it was four hours before curtain and there was already a long line with a very small chance of us getting any tickets.  Which was really too bad.  But I was still able to buy postcards, a t-shirt, and take pictures as if I’d been there.

So since we were unable to go to the Opera, and since we’re both musical theatre nerds, we instead decided on a night of karaoke!  I was so excited because it has been too long. We made an event on couch surfing, so we were joined by a couple other people, which was nice. The place we went to was small, but full.  It was nice because we were able to sing a couple songs.  I busted out my usual “Cabaret” as well as “Ironic” by Alanis Morissette, a duet of the Moulin Rouge version of “Lady Marmalade,” and just to show off my rapping abilities, a little “Yea” by Usher…

So after a long night, we settled down, only to wake up in the morning for class.  I myself ventured over to Prater Park, the famous amusement park and Ferris Wheel.  It’s the one featured in that James Bond movie with the cello playing girl.  The only thing was, it was completely empty!  It looked like a deserted park.  Fortunately, I had my dad’s fancy camera, and I spent a good two hours snapping some artsy shots. I didn’t actually go on the Ferris Wheel though because it wouldn’t have been that fun by myself, plus it was like 10 euros.  But I still took pictures of it.  Here’s one of my favorites…

You can see the rest of them here.

After my trip to Prater, I headed back to my host’s house.  There we went and got the traditional wiener schnitzel and watched High Fidelity (as mentioned in the Top Ten Tuesday.)  But then it was time for me to catch a night train to Zurich.  And so I bid my host and this beautiful city farewell, hoping to return again.

Word of the Day: entwicklung - evolution (German)