Melissa: Feeling Small

Vienna is really just as I had imagined. I conferred with Elisa and Jesse about what the right word was to describe the majority of the buildings within the city center and "grandiose" didn´t work because there are a lot of grand things in Europe. "Majestic", no. "Royal", no. I think I might just have to settle with the Lonely Planet description of the buildings being "Marzipan-like". Vienna has made Elisa and I revisit our favorite phrase to say in unison from our visit to Rome three years ago "this looks important..." as everything is big in scale and just dominating and ornate.

What are some highlights? Hmmm...learning about the Empress "SiSi" who has a cult following and whose pictures adorn many souvenir shops was kind of cool. She was the beginning of the modern celebrity (but royal so much cooler than the Paris Hilton of today). She dieted like crazy and had her daily exercises, wrote poetry about wanting to be free and was assassinated to make her even more available for idol status. The SiSi exhibit was arguably less cool than learning about the crazy dining habits of the Viennese royals. They had some ceremonial meals where they didn´t even eat the food- all meals lasted no longer than 45 minutes but where 30 courses and everyone´s meal was considered over when the Emperor was done. We were satisfied with our sausage stand lunch...

After a couple of palaces and museums we were ready for some alternative activities. We stopped by a daily market to pass by the dozens of identical Mediterranean stands and happily ate our purchases in a nearby park. It has been pretty hot here so we have been seeing cool shade whenever possible. We have also been doing a lot of walking- at least three miles a day- so yesterday we treated ourselves to a tram ride around the city walls to give our feet a rest and to still be able to see the city around us.

As far as night time activities go:
The first night we chilled and went to bed by 12.
The second night we hung out in our hostel´s bar and chilled with some Brits from our room and challenged some Brazilian guys to foosball, finally gathering a posse to go out with. We went to a club called Flex. We knew that there was a different theme every night and that the theme tonight was Electro. What we didnt know is that the cover was 10 euro and that Electronic music could be so boring. We were severely disappointed because it was a cool space and fully packed with people. Promising, but we just couldnt get into it. We ended the night with a fatty sausage that we could not help blushing at after seeing how the sausage was slid into the bread encasing- so mature, I know.
Last night, our third night, we decided to have a very authentic Viennese meal of Chinese food. I think the restaurant was appropriately named Happy Buddha and I rubbed my belly at the end of the feast and understood why Buddha was so fat and happy. BBQ pork, Cantonese Duck and Bok Choy really hit the spot after so many other greasy alternatives. We took the metro into one of the main platzes afterward to walk off our meal and engage the city night vibe. The coolest thing we saw was probably this spontaneous street performance- two white guys were singing American hits all night but we caught a song where two black guys decided to remix the white guys Dylan song making for a very cohesive, raw performance. These are the moments that remind me why I fly miles and miles away from family, friends and familiarity.

Jesse left us this afternoon after a morning of coffee sipping and ice cream counting and good people watching in general. So Elisa and I are own our own again and planning a meal of 50 cent zucchini that we picked up at the local Penny Store- We leave for Bratislava tomorrow morning so we shall see how tonight ends up going. The great thing about being in a traveling mindset is that you are open to any number of possibilities.