Our European Adventure

So last night we decided to grab a few beers in the common room. We ended up talking to a group of people that were good fun. They included two people from Australia, a German and a Korean. We also got to talking to the bartender who was an Italian from Rome studing music in Vienna. It was a good night and we went to bed ready for the coming morning. The next morning Daniela and I with the two Australians that we met Phil and Jimmy decided to go in and do some more sightseeing. I was hell bent on seeing the big ferris wheel at the other end of town. I was more concerened with seeing the fountain I remembered to be in front of it, a little boy peeing. After some looking around Jimmy finally asked a woman at the gift shop about it. She said the former owner of the park liked the fountain so much he took it with him and it is now sitting in his garden somewhere. I was very sad but we pressed on into the city. It was Daniela's turn to pick the place and she wanted to go to the house of Sigmund Freud. After some problems with the directions we finally got there. It wasn't too big or impressive. Just a bunch of stuff Sigmund Freud owned. It only took about a half hour to see. However I feel much more equiped now to psychoanalyze someone . We finally got back into the main square and we were so tired from walking we decided to sit and drink a couple of beers and people watch. I still love some of the outfits of europeans. They absolutely astonish me sometimes. We caught the metro back to the hostel and had a quiet evening drinking beer and shooting the shit. We're off to bed and ready for our trip into Bratislava tomorrow. It's kind of sad becuase once I get used to a place we have to pack up and leave.

Today we decided to visit the famous Shunbronn Palace. The Palace is only a 20 minute walk from our hostel and is known for it's zoo (the oldest in the world) as well as the botanical gardens. It was the summer palace of Austrain Royalty and has 1440 rooms. The weather was not as cooperative at we had hoped, it was overcast and threatened rain, but we decided to go anyway. The first thing we did is wander around the growns until we came upon the Zoo. Since it is the oldest in the world we decided to take a look. We were glad we did, it was just the right size that you got to see all the animals and were not exhausted from walking. The highlights included two Giant Pandas and Koalas. Unfortunately it started to pour but we're tough and walked through it. The palace grounds are great for me because I got to see beautiful plants and exotic animals all in one place. We did the tour through the private rooms of the royal family in the palace. It reminded me a lot of Versaille in Paris. I guess it was fitting since Marie Antionette, wife of Louis the XIV grew up here. That pretty much took up most of our day. The weather's been crappy so we decided to stick around the hostel and even made dinner. Tonight we are going to take it easy becuase we plan on doing a lot of walking tomorrow, hopefully with better weather. We are going to the north of the main square to the giant ferris wheel and then walk down back to our hostel. We may even go to one of the museums if we have time. Sorry we haven't posted pictures yet. We were going to do that today but I broke the machine that lets you download pictures opps . Hopfully tomorrow.

So we arrived early in the morning in the South trainstation. After an overnight train. It was wierd trying to sleep on a train. I wouldn't recommend it. When we arrived we got a little confused as to where we were supposed to go but we figured it out quick enough. After finding our hostel we decided to head out again and look around in the center of the city. The architecture is really nice here. It's less ornate than in Italy, but has a bigger feel to it. It's really hard to describe. We ended up at St. Stephen's Church. It's this massive church with a really ornate roof. I promise I'll post some pics ASAP. Inside was large and even more ornate than the roof. Daniela and I decided to take a tour of the catacombs. Our guide was really funny and ran around the place and tried to creep us out with the stories of who was buried under the church. We also wanted to take a tour of Mozart's house which is just around the corner from the church but we were out of luck becuase they were rennovating it. Heading back to our hostel we were very tired and very hungry. We stopped at this small restaurant just down the street from the hostel. It was very Austrian. I had a dumpling the size of my head there. Very filling. Tomorrow we plan on going to Shonbrun Palace for a day in the sun.