It's Boxing Day and I'm NOT watching soccer, shocking I know

Saturday, December 26, 2009

Today is travel day for the three of us. We woke up at a decent hour and checked out of the hostel by 11am. Our train was for 1:50pm so we had plenty of time to get to the train station. Well we got there and decided to go to the information desk to find out what platform we were going to be at. Well, turns out our train doesn’t exist. HAHA is that a joke? The lady told us that during the holiday season the trains change all the time that it’s almost better to book your tickets closer to the day you want to leave. What is wrong with Europe??? What do they let you purchase a ticket when they plan on changing the train??? Good grief.

The lady was nice enough to change all our tickets and give us a new plan of action that required changing trains 3 maybe four times. So instead of a 1:50p train we had a 2:40p train. It gets better, the first train we needed ended up being a half hour late so it was impossible to make the second train on our list of transfers. We asked the ticket man on the train what he thought we should do. He told us to just get off at Fulda (our original destination) and just try and make the connection. Well we spent at least 2 hours on that train until our stop came up. We ran to the info desk in Fulda and the man was very nice again. However he had bad news. He told us it was impossible to get to Vienna the way our ticket said. He told us we had three options: 1. Stay the night in a near by small town that was close to the Austrian border 2. take the train to Munich and stay the night there 3. Take the train to Munich and try to get a seat on the overnight train to Vienna. We chose option #3. None of us had a problem going on the overnight train, but the issue was making sure we could get a seat. We couldn’t book seats because it was after 6p and apparently you can’t book seats for trains after 6pm (wtf??). The only thing we could do is physically go to the conductor of the train (pray that he knows English) and ask if he can let us abroad. Sounds full proof right?

We all had good spirits about it. We just crossed our fingers and hoped for the best. Worst case we stay the night in Munich, a city both J-M wanted to visit. So instead of panicking and worrying, we ate our last currywurst and just waited patiently for our train to Munich. The nicest thing about the train people was that they made all of these changes in our tickets for us without us having to pay extra. Our original ticket cost around 34 Euros and I’m fairly certain that with all the transfers and changes in our plans our tickets could have been really expensive. So in a way Germany made up for our non-existent train by not making us pay extra for their error.

We got to Munich and relaxed in a cafe until we saw our train enter the station. Well we asked every train person on the platform where the conductor was and each person told us, “keep going, it’s the last car”. We got to the last car and knocked on the window to the conductor’s compartment. A man came out and we explained our situation. He told us that if we could find a compartment with a free seat we were more than welcome to get aboard. Out of the entire 20 car train only 2 cars were designated to the destination of Vienna. the first car had one open seat in a compartment of 6, so worst case we got split up but at least we would all make it on. The second car turned out to be better. We found a few compartments that only had 2 reservations in a 6 person compartment so we were in. YES!!!!!! We somehow managed to get our heavy ass luggage on top of our seats, got settled in and prayed that we wouldn’t run into and more issues.

We ended up only having one German guy in the car with us so we had some extra room to spread out. That was short lived. Apparently this American mom and her daughter didn’t have tickets either and didn’t know where to go so they got kicked out of their original compartment and asked if they could have our extra seats. This was at 2am, I was half-way asleep so i drearily moved to the side as they put there luggage in our compartment and occupied the two then empty seats. Now it was cramped. Well later on these obnoxious American guys were being loud so the conductor kicked them out of their compartment so they just hung out in the hallways making more noise. ugh, typical Americans. Later on Julia said when she went to the bathroom she found those same guys sprawled out in their sleeping bags in the area between cars. That’s actually really dangerous but she did’t feel like bothering them.

We limited sleep and a long day of train hopping we finally arrived in Vienna at around 5:30am. We made it to our hostel without much problem thanks to Julia’s printout of the metro system and my map with the location of our hostel. What a team we made. We tried to settle into our hostel with as little noise as possible and just passed out. Well to our delight we got roomed with some go-getters who were up at 7:30am to start the day. I’m okay with people getting an early start but these girls were not quiet. They ruffled numerous plastic bags, turned on the lights, and slammed the bathroom door. At least we had the courtesy of making our beds in the dark and not unpacking or changing our clothes to be considerate of the sleepers.

So i couldn’t really sleep so I was up at 9:15am. I showered, finished making my bed, caught up on my journal, and unpacked slightly. J-M eventually woke up and we were out of the hostel by 11:30am. Once again J-M hadn’t researched Vienna so they were relying on my research for things to do. Anne had told me in the airport about how she went to the Opera for 3 Euros when she was in Vienna in the beginning of December so i decided to do a little research into that on the computer in the lobby of the hostel. Well i found the website that listed the shows playing and I was ecstatic when I noticed the Nut Cracker ballet was playing the next night. It would be the last performance of the ballet for the year. I told J-M about it and they were all for it. It made them really excited. We were all in agreement that if is was possible we would try and get actual tickets to the ballet verses just standing room (3 Euro seats, or more like place holders).

Our first destination was The Schonbrunn Palace, an impressive 40 room palace complete with a zoo and two tiergartends. We got a pastry at a cafe and then walked the streets of Wein in search of the illusive Palace. We eventually found it and worked our way around the grounds. With the advice from the receptionist at our hostel we decided just to see the free parts of the Palace. We toured the upstairs wing and the gift shop. We read the books in the gift shop to figure out why the Palace was famous and who this lady we kept seeing in portraits was. After the gift shop we made our way through the barren gardens and to the top of this hill to get a great view of the entire Palace and Vienna. It was very pretty. Next we took the metro to Stephenplatz and explored the free St. Stephen’s Cathedral. It was quite impressive but freezing inside. After the Cathedral we just walked around the city center and tried to find the Jewish Quarter. I was rather disappointed with the Jew Quar, not much there really. We needed a “warm” break so we found this cozy little pub and got some more gluihwein.

Our next plan of action was to head on over to the Opera House and ask about tickets to the Nut Cracker. we thought the earlier we inferred about it the better our chances. Along the way I pointed out the best ice cream or rather gelato shop in all of Austria. When Julia heard gelato she stopped, reversed, and geared it into the shop. She found was she was looking for, Nutella flavored gelato. She told me that she has only ever found it in Rome and loves everything and anything nutella. Not only did the guy dish out all of us very generous portions of the gelato he scooped from the top so we got a decent amount of swirls of nutella. You know how some people dish from the bottom and end up giving you mostly the core flavor without the extra treats in it like caramel swirls, chocolate chunks, cookie dough, ect...well this guy was NOT like that. Despite being freezing we all thoroughly enjoyed our gelato treat. Julia proclaimed at that moment that this was her favorite part of the trip so far hahaha. See, I’m not the only one that associates cities by the food they eat there.

After the gelato we found the world famous Vienna State Opera House. We tried to find a ticket window but all we could find was the waiting line for standing room tickets. We came to the decision that we didn’t have anything else to do tonight so we might as well see an Opera. So we did. I can now say that I’ve seen a real Italian Opera: La Forza del Destino. In order to get standing room seats you have to get in line around 5ish and then the ticket booth opens 80 minutes before the show starts (7pm) and once you’re in you can’t leave. We had three choices of places to stand: The front and center but far back section (4 euro), the balcony section (3 euro), or the very top section (3 euro). We decided to try out the balcony and if we liked it we knew what to get for the Nut Cracker. It turned out to be a very good decision. Once inside we asked a ticket counter about the Nut Cracker and were saddened to learn that it was sold out. Standing Room it is!

We met this girl Alana while waiting for our sections to open. She was also teaching English but in France, Dijon to be specific. This was her third standing room Opera so we deemed her the expert. She gave us some helpful hints about tying your scarf around your standing spot so nobody takes it if you leave for the bathroom and about how the balcony is better than the front section because everyone tries for those “seats” and only the people in the first row get to really see anything. I informed her about the Nut Cracker, which she was not aware of, and told her that we would be back here at 5 to ensure good “seats”, and she decided to join us as well. Besides a small portion of one of the corners of the stage, i could see everything from my spot, yeah! We decided to save our legs as long as possible so we tied up our scarfs and found a bench to sit on while we waited for the show to begin.

I had no idea what to expect. You see movies and tv shows where the male characters talk about how boring it is and how its for high class citizens, so had no idea what to expect. I’d been to The Phantom of the Opera, but I considered that more of a musical that a real Opera. I noticed these mini screens on every seat in front of us and figured that was used to translate the Opera. How smart. I now hoped that the people who sat in front of us would need the translation in English, at that moment Julia pointed out that we had mini screens as well. I’ll be darned! This was great, I was a tad worried that I was just going to have to watch the actors to figure out what was going on in the Opera. If I had done that it would have been a lost cause because the actors don’t really move much on stage. They basically stay in the same spot and they don’t change scenes that often. The Opera was THREE HOURS LONG with a 15 minute intermission. My legs were shot so I had to sit for part of the second half. The funniest part of the entire Opera was that the climax scene, where the leading lady gets shot, occurred in the ONE corner that none of us could see. We all heard the gun shot so we searched the mini screened and stretched as far forward as we could before hitting the people in front of us, but it was no use, we had missed the moment haha. That’s Opera for ya.

I’m not going to say I loved it but I can appreciate it. The leading guy was this short, fat asian guy and he was really good. The lead lady was this fat, black lady and she had a great voice as well. It didn’t pain my ears or shatter glass like i thought but their voices were very impressive across the board. There isn’t a whole lot of “action”, it’s all in the words they sing so it’s really important to know what they are saying. I found it a bit annoying that a sentence like “you have deceived me!” takes 5 minutes to sing. That kind of bothered me, but I’m open to seeing another Opera in the future. Any takers?

Afterwards we were starving so we hit up this awesome mediterranean restaurant right around the corner from our hostel. The waiter was super nice and we were pretty much the only ones in the restaurant. We ordered humus, vegetables, and salads; things we don’t get much in Spain. We were all in agreement that we could live off of Med food for the rest of our lives if we had to. When we got back to our room at a reasonable 11:30p our Asian roommates were once again fast asleep. I was really hoping to shower that night but again, out of courtesy, I just brushed my teeth and went to bed.