Vienna, AUSTRIA

Vienna, AUSTRIA

Lovely, beautiful, gorgeous... all of those descriptors and more. The first night I stayed in a hostel located up in the hills by the Vienna forest with the ultimate view of entire city. On par with my standard routine I took myself on one of Rick Steve's self-guided walking tours to get an idea of the city. When I left on this journey I put Jack (my hand held GPS device) in a drawer and left him at home for safe keeping. Over the past several months I have really honed my sense of direction and become quite a proficient map reader BUT I guess all those skills were lost when I arrived in Vienna because despite which way I turned the map I was lost as all hell. I suppose I wasn't doing a good job of looking cool as I paraded my self back and forth along the same streets several times over with my map pulled out in front of my face. After watching the spectacle, which was me, a local man asked if he could help. I was apparently in the complete wrong direction... sad, because I really pride myself on my excellent map skills... well, this is a pride that until now I kept to myself... He was kind enough to shed a bit of light on my where abouts and to point out a few of the standard tourist site before sending me on my way. Somehow the tours from locals are so much better than Rick Steve's. Eh, go figure! The next couple days were spent walking all over this beautiful city, taking pictures, window shopping and exploring the numerous churches... All-in-all a lovely time.
Ohh but how could I forget to mention the hostel experience!!?! I was so excited to stay in this place called Strawberry Hostel because there were no bunk beds in the rooms! How could this be that the prices were affordable, there were only 4 to a room, bathrooms were in the rooms AND there were no bunk beds? I know, I know... a 26 year-old girl should never be sleeping in a bunk bed with 3 strangers in the room but that is the way they roll here in Europe... or that is the way I have been rolling since my travel partner left... But really, it isn't usually bad. I am pretty selective when it comes to hostels but there are times when you have to make sacrifices in the name of travel... it is all for the experience! ha! Ok, back to the bunk bed-less room. I was so excited about it until I got in there and realized that instead of bunk beds they had just set two twin beds right next to each other. I mean literally RIGHT next to each other. You would be lucky if you could manage to get a piece of paper between the two beds! The first night I was mildly ok with the jumbo bed because my bed buddy was some gal I had made friends with earlier and she was a pretty quiet and still sleeper. But when she left that morning I made sure to push that bed a good foot and a half away from mine! Thankfully I did because some random, slightly strange dude came to take her place the next night... ohhh weird! From now on I am ok with the bunk bed sitch because I know that no one can roll over and accidentally share it with me!