Vienna, Austria

Like most times, I was able to get into the hostel I wanted by the skin of my teeth. The words "We have just one more bed available" became music to my ears. Once I was settled, I met up with a lovely Spanish lady named Sara. We hit the town to check the sights.


Sara sitting in the grass in front of a museum. We spent a lot of time just flaking out in parks.	In the Hofburg.


Me just walking like I always do.	St. Stephen's Cathedral.	Playing air violin in the Stadtpark.

While walking through the downtown core early one evening, we found out that we could see get tickets to go to the opera at the famous Vienna Opera House for less than 3 euros. Fortunately, I had the foresight to pack my tuxedo in my backpack. We managed to see a beautiful rendition of Carmen for very little cash. We had a great view from our seats. OK, I'm lying about the seats. We were in the standing-room-only area, but we did have a surprisingly good view. Afterwards, we had some wine in a streetside cafe to complete the evening, where we met up with some Americans we met in the line at the opera. It turned out that not only was the male of the group (Brendan) staying in the same hostel as Sara and myself, but he was in the bunk above me. Small world! The next day, the three of us toured around Vienna some more until Brendan took off to watch the US get beat in the semis of the World Cup. Sara and I just toured around to different parks and spent a lot of time just relaxing.


"What's that up there in the sky?" "What's that way back in my nose?"	The hostel had a big chess set on the patio. Here I use my superior analytical skills to plot my next move, while Sara looks on.

Hanging out at another park.	The Parliament Building

		Sara was moving on to Budapest that evening, so we relaxed in yet another park before we made our way to the train station to collect her backpack so she could get on her way. Unfortunately, she couldn't get into the locker at the train station to get her stuff. We frantically looked around for someone to open the locker (her train was leaving in a few minutes). She was able to get her stuff out with just minutes to spare.
Sara in front of City Hall.	I managed to ride this elephant for several seconds before getting bucked off.

I walked back to the hostel, where I met up with Brendan again. He was going to leave that night, but was looking for an excuse to stick around. There was a big music festival happening on an island park in the middle of the Danube river. That was good enough for him. We collected a whole gang of people and took the metro to the site. The festival was pretty interesting. Lots of bands, from ska to dance to reggae.


Our gang in front of the bar with the strangest name I've seen.	A cool ska band.

At one point, I left to go to the bathroom in some bushes down by the river (when you're a guy, the world is your bathroom). I was enthralled by the lightning display put on by an approaching thunderstorm. I sat on the riverbank to watch for a few minutes. On my return, I found that everyone was gone! I looked everywhere, and managed to find a few of our gang. Apparently, I was gone for much longer than I thought, and everyone was out looking for me. We tried to find the others, but that approaching thunderstorm I was so enthralled with turned into a right-over-our-head thunderstorm that dumped buckets of water on us. We ran along with the thousands of festival-goers to the nearest metro, and had to wait shoulder-to-shoulder with dripping wet people for the metro. We finally met up with the others back at the hostel.

Early the next morning, I took off for Salzburg...