Sorry for the delay...this was my weekend in the capital!
Very interesting, very full weekend in Vienna. This was the third time us exchange students have seen each other this year, and this time it was for a 3 day meeting in the capital city of Austria. Vienna has a population of just under 2 million people and is in the northeast portion of the country.
On Friday the 19th, I didn't have to go to school and instead walked to the Knittelfeld train station to board a train at 8:11. I switched once and on the second longer stretch to Vienna I found the exchange students from Graz. We spent 2 hours getting caught up on each other’s last 5 weeks at school and with our host families. We arrived in Vienna in the late morning (only a 3 hour trip) and had plenty of time to find our youth hostel where we stayed at and explore a bit before the day’s program began. I ate lunch at a quiet pizzeria with Rachel and Laura, both from Graz and we discussed more in depth how our exchanges have been so far. Back at the hostel, everyone came at different times but the greetings were great. Several of my best friends, Jessie, Lauren, and Johnny live in Vienna so they didn’t have to go far to meet us. Anyways, we got our room assignments and had some time to dress up for an opera “Tosca” we went to in the evening. This was my first opera, and I think it will take a few decades before I can fully appreciate one! The music was great though and I appreciated that the most. Afterwards, we ate at a Chinese buffet and got back to the hostel at midnight.
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| Opera |
Most of Saturday consisted of walking around Vienna and touring some of the bigger attractions in the city. We got a tour of the Parliament building and the Schonbrunn Palace. The latter was by far my favorite because by this time the fog had finally cleared and the weather was great. The Palace was interesting but the gardens outside were incredible. We walked to the top of the hill there and got a great view of Vienna and some good pictures. Crash took some juggling pictures of me- thanks a lot Crash! Other than that, Saturday was mostly walking around and seeing some things on our own. I was dead tired, so at the end of the day I didn’t have a lot of patience and really just wanted to sleep. I tried to make the best of it though.
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| 9 States of Austria |
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| Parliament Building |
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| Creds to Crash |
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| Creds to Crash |
And on Sunday, Crash, Jessie, Lauren, Laura, Johnny, and I went to the Stadtpark and some other areas of the less touristy parts of the city.
All in all, it was a good weekend. Seeing the exchange students and seeing the capital of Austria is something I look forward to again at the Rotary District Conference in the spring!
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