Vienna With Love

Have I mentioned already that I cannot sleep on planes? Of course I have tried everything, but my body does not want to play along.  Unless I am laying down, it’s completely silent or ambient noise, and completely dark my body is not having it!  So I had already been up since the crack of dawn, on arrival it is day time in Vienna.  I like to stay on timetable of wherever I arrive.  So no sleeping for me.  Time to find my hostel, drop my stuff off, and start exploring.  No time to waste.

Now...probably my biggest fear about solo traveling was finding my way around.  I have only used public transportation once before by myself.  I’ve lived in Dallas my whole life and couldn’t get around without a gps.  So to go to another country where they speak another language and try and navigate was my biggest fear.  I tried to come well prepared.  The directions were pretty thorough on the site to get to the hostel. Which I wrote down on paper so I wouldn’t have to check my phone so often.  Not trying to get my stuff stolen because people sense I was lost.  I thought  I was set up for success.  So off the plane and straight to the underground tram system I go.  I go to the automated ticket kiosk and just like that I’m lost! NOOOOOOO!!!!  How can this be!?!?!

Long story short- the stop I was looking for was not the main ending stop.  It was a stop along the way.  All I could see were the main stop names.  As my heart started to sink I looked around.  Everyone is of course busy on their normal every day commute.  I don’t see an attendant anywhere.  Then I see a girl with a huge backpack on her back.  Tourist! Perhaps she speaks English.  She does! She obviously has taken public transportation before too, but she finds my stop so quick it was embarrassing.  But, I don’t care!  I am just so thankful to now be on my way.  Moral of the story. Never be afraid to ask for help :)  Which since I am directionally challenged I had to do again upon exiting the train. But, I finally made it to my destination. Phew.

***Quick recap***

I have NEVER ever wanted to stay in a hostel.  I associated them with bed bugs and everything dirty.  In previous travels I either had hotel or airbnb stays with prior friends.  Welp...when you are no longer friends and you have to do for yourself, you have to make sacrifices.  So to stay in budget and perhaps meet other like-minded people hostel it was.  Now of course there are some really nice hostels out there now that I have taken the time to look.  I am so glad that I did.

Upon entering my hostel I met a girl named Jessica.  She was the only one there at the moment.  We got to chatting and soon enough we were making our way toward the city center together.  She wanted to go to a museum that I did not have interest in so we parted ways once we got there, but exchanged numbers so we could meet up and do dinner later.  Day one was off to a great start.  Now I’m a sucker for historic buildings and of course Europe has a ton. It’s just magical to be able to walk around and take it all in at your own pace.  Even if I was dead tired.

My first stop was to the Natural History Museum.  This is always my museum of choice.  I think I have a thing for dinosaur bones lol.  I was in there for a couple of hours.  There is just so much to see and learn. But, by this point I had been up over 24 hours.  I was literally falling asleep while standing and reading.  I have never had that happened before.  You know when you nod off and you jerk yourself back awake.  But, I was standing! Has this ever happened to anyone else!?  It was a crazy sensation to me.  I tried to find a quite area with a bench that I could perhaps take a 5 min power nap.  Yea...not gonna happen.

By this time the museum was getting ready to close.  So I somehow caught a second wind and tried to power through all the rooms.  I get a message from Jessica that she is finished and what time I wanted to get dinner.  I blazed through and off to dinner we went.  Where I had one of the national dishes of boiled beef. It was the blandest thing I have ever tasted.  Sorry if you loved it.  It came with a apple horseradish that gave it a bit of flavor. But, not enough to recommend you try it.  Unless, you are like me and have to try everything.  For the culture.

​I had a wonderful and insightful conversation with Jessica.  She invited me to go to a vineyard the next day with a local girl who she met through a group on Facebook.  How could I say no to that?!  I must say that Vienna at night was really peaceful.  Not a lot of people or traffic.  We had the streets mostly to ourselves. It was wonderful!  I highly recommend going at the end of August.  Stay tuned for day two :)