I met Bernie when I was studying in Norway. She lives out in the countryside but told us that we could stay with her friend for our two nights in Vienna. Unfortunately, when we met her she informed us that the girl had moved away so…we didn’t have a place to stay for the next two nights! Thank goodness Bernie had done some research and found us a great hostel in the main district of Vienna that was FANTASTIC! We just stored our luggage, and then Bernie became our personal tour guide for the day.
She showed us all around the main historical buildings, the opera house, St. Stephen’s Cathedral (with a great view from the top!) and the King and Queen’s former residence.
Our favourite site that she showed us was the University of Vienna, the place she is most often these days. It was such a beautiful building and Caroline and I were just in awe of how picturesque the entire campus was. My favourite room was the reading room where students were hard at work, studying for final exams. It made me appreciate my summer vacation!
She also took us to the student cafeteria where we had a great, hot lunch for 5 euro! Then, she dropped us off and Caroline and I had a 3 hour nap to catch up on all the sleep we had missed the previous night. We just grabbed some Turkish food for dinner in the Naschmarkt, the famous food market in Vienna and then headed off to the amusement park!
Ok, I know this seems really random. Who goes to an amusement park when they are in Vienna? There is a method to our madness. We had been told by multiple people that the ferris wheel (which Bernie kept calling, the “giant wheelchair”) at this place gave the best view of the city. I love views, and I love amusement parks so we went and were very excited to do something a little silly that night. We were not disappointed with the amazing view we had!
We weren’t planning on going on any other rides until we saw “the swings”.
Nobody was on them and…we thought they would be really fun so we went on them by ourselves and had the best time!
The next day proved to be the best day I have had backpacking in Europe this trip. It was very random, making it awesome and hilarious. It started off relatively normal. Caroline and I went to Schoenbrunn Palace, the only other European Palace rivaling Versailles. It had really beautiful gardens and we were happy we got there in the morning because it looked like it was going to rain!
We stopped for some traditional Austrian Gulasch, and then, the day started to get a little random…Caroline had a friend, Lynsey who studied in Vienna two years ago and had given Caroline a list of things we should see while in the city. One of the first things was visiting an antique shop in the middle of the main district, owned by people Lynsey had become quite close to while she was here. We found the address and decided to make a stop not really knowing what to expect. We were told to ask for Inxi, Anton or Peter and…we were greeted by both Inxi and Anton. After mentioning our connection to Lynsey, Anton invited us for coffee in the back room/kitchen. We talked to him for about 45 minutes and the highlight of the conversation was learning how everyone working there was connected. It was the CRAZIEST love story I had heard so here is a quick synopsis:
Once a man named Reinhold, owner of the antique store fell in love with Inxi who worked for him and knows the story of every piece in the store. Reinhold had a sister, Katrine who married a man named Peter. Reinhold was a soldier in WWII and while he was gone Peter and Inxi had an affair, essentially cheating on the siblings: Reinhold and Katrine. Reinhold came back from the war and was sterile. However, the affair between Inxi and Peter resulted in a pregnancy and Anton was born (the guy serving us coffee and telling us this story). To make things even more complicated, Peter worked at the shop. Inxi and Reinhold got divorced, and Peter stayed married to Katrine. As Anton said jokingly, “He was a very faithful man”. To top it all off, Reinhold was made Anton’s godfather so now Anton is raised sort of by all 4 but with tensions between them all. I’m not sure if this even makes sense as I type it but basically, it was crazy and so random to be sitting in this antique shop kitchen learning about this love triangle…or square…We were so excited to meet them and hear their story!
Then, we headed off to Starbucks. It is so expensive to have Starbucks here but I hadn’t had one in a REALLY long time and I miss coffee dates with my friends so much at home (plus Caroline and I never get to have them because we live in different countries), so we had a great time pretending that we were just having a normal coffee date with great conversation and of course, lots of laughter.
We weren’t staying the night in the city because Bernie had offered her house in the countryside as a place to stay so we took an hour long train ride to her tiny town of Wilhelmsburg. She took us to her house and then she took us on a tour of the area. The main event of the tour was a palace that was being renovated by a family. It normally wasn’t open, but of course we knew a “local” so Leopold let us see the chapel, the reception room and a few others. His son, Lucas showed us around and seemed to enjoy having Caroline and I there because we were very verbal about how excited we were to be seeing all of it. The best part was when we went into a room and I saw that there were pastries on the table. Jokingly I said, “Oh Lucas! How sweet of you to prepare these desserts for us!”. He said “Actually, they were just freshly made and you can take one” so of course, we did. I am not going to turn down home-made apple strudel in Austria. Then, his mom brought coffee for us and we literally had coffee and cake at the table where someone important had sat hundreds of years ago.
Pretty cool…but then it got better! Lucas had mentioned that when they have special events, his family dresses up in medieval costumes. I asked if we could try them on (again, as a joke) but then he said that we could. So all of us went up to the “dress up” room and Lucas picked out an outfit for each of us. Caroline opted for the monk constume…lil’crazy. And of course, we took pictures! The best part was Bernie probably thought this was so weird, but she totally joined in on the whole thing!
Our final stop for the night was a beer garden in a smaller town about 20 minutes away where Bernie was taking us for dinner. In Austria, dinner is always cold food so we tried a variety of bread with cheeses and meats as well as some interesting spreads. We were joined by her boyfriend who didn’t really speak that much English and probably thought Caroline and I were crazy because we got a little hyper. We heard fireworks in the middle of our meal and Bernie explained to us that there was a special event going on that night. It was the midsummer celebration and consisted of fireworks, a bon fire and lots of locals who were very confused as to why we were there. I don’t think they had seen tourists there in a long time. Bernie had about 15 friends sitting out on a picnic table and they invited us to sit with them. They bought us a typical Austrian drink: white wine mixed with carbonated water. They were very infatuated with Caroline and I and their favourite thing was to ask us to say German words that were really hard to pronounce. It would be silent, we would say the word and then everyone erupted in laughter. They were so great to talk to and we all laughed a LOT. I think the highlight was when they asked us to sing something, so I sang the Canadian national anthem while Caroline beat boxed. Then they all sang the Austrian anthem and…well, it was just awesome. It is really hard to explain the awesome-ness of the night but rest assured that it was amazing. We were sad to leave at midnight, but Bernie had an exam the next day so we needed to make sure she got a good night’s sleep!
We were so well taken care of at Bernie’s house. She even made us a wonderful breakfast spread the next day while we listened to the “Sound of Music “ in German with her Dad. We are so grateful for her hospitality and are so thankful that we got to spend some time with the Austrian locals experience what life is life on the countryside!
Next stop, Salzburg!!
Sending hugs and love!
No comments:
Post a Comment