Train from Prague was late by about 1.5 hours due to heavy snow, so I arrived in Wien in the cold and dark. Arrived at the hostel in one piece, and was greeted by a very unfriendly guy who speaks English like Ahhhnold. The hostel was pretty empty and dead, very institutional and sparse, and a bit creepy like The Shining. I murmured 'Redrum' as I rolled my luggage down the long corridor to my room. I was the only one in the 4 bed room, or so I thought. Despite having the room all to myself, I started craving for company because the place was just so empty. About an hour later, my roommate shows up. Turns out she is about my age and lives about 45 minutes away from me in California. We searched the streets for food, but Wien is very dead on a Sunday night, and later we discover that most places close quite early.
Next day, we do a tram tour (the announcer on the tram speaks German with a very funny, serious, and calculated voice, very different from the German I heard in Berlin) and walk around the center of town, then check out the Hofburg Palace, which was the home of the Habsburg rulers of the Austro Hungarian empire for hundreds of years. The sheer amount of kitchen utensils and silver plates used on a daily basis could make your head spin. This is probably where the notion of dining on a silver platter was derived from. Later on, we got tickets to see an Italian opera at the grand opera house, a real treat.
More walking today, then checked out an English mass at the Votive Church, and visited the Koonst Museum, which had a fabulous exhibit on Titian the Venetian's works. Interesting to learn that Titian replicated his own works in his studio, sometimes painting 3 of the same image at the same time with some minor modifications. He also kept changing things on his paintings, as revealed through x-rays. Had a decadent dessert at Demel Chocolatiers, which is THE chocolate shop in Vienna with some very lively window displays (sometimes with busts of famous people made with cake, lots of lights and bright ribbons), and they used to make chocolate for the royals. Their shop is filled with scrumptuous little sweets inside equally scrumptuous wrapping.
Off to Rome tomorrow!
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