Elisa: Austrian Nights

Elisa and Jesse, alternating navigators of the trip, scour the maps while Melissa sits back and documents


Melissa in front of the giant screen set up for the annual Opera Film Festival


Draped in hanging paper at the newest exhibit at the art nouveau Secession Building


At the summer palace gardens

We have been in Vienna for 3 nights now, and each one has been quite a bit different... The first night was by far the lamest, as we were very tired and arriving from munich. Jesse went to his hostel and Melissa and I went to ours, met our cool British roommates, stayed up late chatting and having a beer, and then went to bed. The next night was a bit wilder. Jesse had checked in to our hostel, so the three of us got dressed up a bit and ready for the night. Then we headed to the bar of our hostel, where there were many people to talk to while drinking...you guessed it, more beer! After playing some foosball, a big group of us took the metro to a club on the edge of the Danube River called Flex. We had to pay a 10 euro cover charge and wait in a long line (on a Tuesday!), but we had a lot of fun dancing once we finally got inside. It was sweaty and hot and the techo music got old, but the people watching was great and it was a really fun time. Around 2 in the morning, we left and got some great sausage at a stand, which really hit the spot after all the dancing excersise! When, after a bus, a walk, and a taxi, we finally got home, we slept like babies...last night was also lovely, but in a calmer, more sedated way. The three of us just had dinner at a very good Chinese restaurant (we were so sick of sausage!). Then we took the metro into the center of town and walked around the old street and admired the lights and beautiful buildings. It was a wonderfully pleasant evening, with people milling about and the air warm and fragrant. A particularly nice moment was when we saw three guys playing Sunday Morning (by the Velvet Underground)on their guitar, and three other ghetto black guy jumped in and rapped very well between choruses. It was so great and spontaneous that people in the street clapped when it was over.

Anyway, Jesse left thise morning to meet his parents in Munich again, and we are leaving to Bratislava tomorrow morning. We are going to cook in the hostel kitchen (green beans and zucchini) and see if we can chat and meet people in the process. Maybe we will share our food? But maybe not! :) Either way, nights here in European hostels are a lot of fun.