Hanging out and hanging clothes

One of the consequences of watching bleeding palms dance at the WomBar until the wee hours of the morning, you're pretty much guaranteeing that your Monday is going to be pretty low key. Which was a-ok.

We decided to do some of the shopping around for chotchkies and bratwurst from the vendors around Stephensplatz, the square surrounding St. Stephen's Cathedral:

I kid you not when I say that this was the most significant event of the day. We returned to the hostel and continues our daily reading/napping extravaganza, but with added benefit of all my clothes hanging from any possible post and wall hook, since the dryers in the basement were somewhat sub-standard.

Cue the nightly drinks at the WomBar, but with a marginal amount of excitement, as compared to Sunday night. Which was again a-ok.

A day of museums, a night of ridiculous

Here's the most important thing to remember about Vienna on Sundays: it shuts down.

Museums and McDonald's are about the only things that are open. Which is halfway ok. And when the museums to be seen are the Belvedere and Mozarthaus, it makes up for the fact that a Royale with Cheese from McDonald's is still there to be had.

The Upper Belvedere is an amazing art museum in the former summer palace of Prince Eugene of Savoy, built after a successful campaign against the Serbians (can't argue with that). It has a good proportion of Austrian artists, including more Schiele and Klimt, which made us all happy, especially when considering what is perhaps Klimt's most famous painting, The Kiss:

After a pastries and coffee break, our little rag-tag group split off for some individualized Vienna-ization. Connor headed for the local churches, Wendy to the Freud Museum, and I was able to complete my pilgrimage to the Mozarthaus. This unassuming little building of flats houses the apartment that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart rented from 1784 to 1787, during which time he wrote some of his most famous pieces, including "The Marriage of Figaro." Needless to say, I was dorking out. Bigtime.

I even bought a copy of the libretto from Don Giovanni. It was amazing. And when I found a postcard that advertised where Mozart's grave was, at the St. Marx Cemetery, I knew that I was on a Blues Brothersian "mission from God" to find his gravesite.

Unfortunately, the weather, winding roads, and a poor map all conspired to send me wandering around a most residential part of Vienna for 30 minutes before I returned to the Metro, soaked and succumbed to the fate of my unsuccessful mission. Such is how it goes. Time to head back to the hostel and do the laundry that I so desperately need to wash.

Vienna shuts down. Except for the best Chinese restaurant I've been to in quite some time. Wendy, who taught English in Shanghai for a year, said that we ate the most authentic Chinese meal she's had since she left China. I think that's high praise.

Vienna shuts down. Except for the hostel bar, the WomBar. And you'll have to excuse the pay-channel language, but the only way to describe Sunday night was a shit show. Here's the cast of characters:

Vaughn - named in homage to the character on NBC's hit show, Community. Dreadlocks, cargo shorts, steals sandals from girls in bar and then promptly holds them hostage.
Ransom = 1 kiss.
San FranCISco!!! - as soon as he found out we were from California, those words were all we could get out of him. Dancing fool. Going crazy and drops his drink and glass shatters all over floor. Staff does nothing to clean this up. Continues dancing. Slips and falls and in breaking his fall, gashes his hand open on the glass from his dropped drink. Goes to bathroom and returns with hand wrapped in paper towel. Continues dancing.
Serb - really doesn't have much to say to us once he finds out we're Americans.
The Pantsless Wonder - shows up into bar in boxer briefs. Friend has shorts. Doesn't bother to get shorts from friend. Just makes out with girl who he didn't seem to know 30 seconds before walking into bar (pantsless).
The Object of Affection - 30-ish woman being danced around by pretty much everyone else already mentioned. Several men are trying to spend some quality time with her. She's just there to have a drink and maybe dance a little bit.

Also of note, the WomBar is nothing even remotely close to a place to dance. Dancing is not the best idea there. It may go without saying that we just sat back, laughed, and played "Your Team." That is, until the blood splattered one of us and we decided that biohazardous materials were not worth the entertainment.

Old music and old Vienna

So when you hostel right across the street from the expansive Saturday flea market that the Naschmarket becomes, you start your first Vienna exploration day wandering the stalls. And when you find old piano sheet music of Chopin, Liszt, Strauss, and Beethoven, among others, for only € 1 apiece, you grab four of them in a mad dash of excitement.

Vienna is replete with museums. It's hard to throw a stone without hitting some old palatial building that has been turned into a museum (although that would probably result in a fine). We took the metro, which was quite nice, as far as metros go, to the Museumsquartier. Guess what they had there.

This would be the Leopold Museum. This museum has been set up to showcase the best and the brightest of Austrian artists, most notably Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. I'd heard of Klimt before, but that was as far as my knowledge of either of these artists goes. Both are fantastic artists of the highest caliber, and I would have to say that they add to an already impressive curriculum vitae that Austria has amassed when it comes to the arts. I was particularly taken by Klimt, but there was no let down when a Schiele would be next on the wall.

We thought we were going to be the artsy lucky ones, as there was another museum, the Kunsthalle, which was boasting a Salvador Dalí exhibit as well as a space exhibition. The Dalí was decent, especially sketches that he drew for a surrealist book. There were also some pieces by followers and disciples of his but nothing nearly as impressive as the man himself. The space exhibition definitely got off on the right foot. As we climbed the stairs, we could hear the strains of The Blue Danube and turned the corner to be greeted by a large projection of the scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey the song plays through, while the spaceship spins in Earth's orbit like a majestic metallic ballerina. Unfortunately, this was the best part of the exhibit. The rest was interesting at times, disappointing at others, and a bit odd in between.

But with two museums under our belts, we were famished. The prosciutto and cheese on baguette picnic that ensued right in front of the Hofburg Palace really fit the bill:

The rest of the evening provided a smidge more relaxation and reading. That night, I somehow managed to finish my 4th book of the trip. And I only brought 5. I've never underpacked on vacation books. But something about these afternoon relaxation sessions really let me plow through the printed word...

Old markets and young faces

Well, Bratislava is a beautiful city. That we knew for sure. We also knew that there isn't a whole lot to do there, so it was a one-night stay.

So we threw the packs on our backs and headed to the train station, past the presidential palace and gardens,

intent on hoofing it to Vienna. We found our way back to the train station from whence we came not 20 hours prior. While waiting for our train to arrive, I did find a tasty little morsel that would become a staple for the trip, fried cheese. Imagine a mozzarella stick, but in the shape of a burger patty, on a bun with mayonnaise and ketchup, and you found my lunch for the day, as well as several meals later on in the trip.

Upon getting to Vienna, we quickly discovered that the Wombat's City Hostel in immense. It has the feel of a hotel to it, with a bar downstairs, 5 floors with hundreds of rooms, and tons of young travelers milling about.

Well, this was day 12 of the trip. We were all pretty wiped out and decided that, once again, that afternoon staple of our ramblings, the three-hour nap, was in order.

When we emerged from our haze, we stumbled upon the Naschmarkt for the first time.

It's a cool little outdoor market right outside the hostel, with tons of stalls with everything from fresh food to cheap sunglasses, soccer (sorry, football) unis to fine dining. We settled down for a nice meal at a Vietnamese restaurant, as the Naschmarkt is apparently in a fairly predominantly Asian neighborhood of Vienna. Some delicious phở later, we descended on the WomBar, the quaint little drinking establishment off the lobby of the hostel, for a free beer with a bunch of kids that seriously made us feel like the old crowd in town. No big deal. Drinking age is 16. Rock on, Vienna.

Bratislava joins the party

It's time to leave Budapest. Train departs for Bratislava, and we're on it. Heading to the land of the EU and quotes from EuroTrip. Full disclosure, I haven't seen the movie. But after traveling with two people who can basically quote the entire script from when they were in Bratislava, I feel like I know those scenes very well, at least.

We arrive at the Backpacker's Downtown Lounge, and after settling into our tiny 8-bed room, find ourselves at the bar with a complimentary shot of Borovička, an absolutely atrocious juniper berry liquor. But it is a very traditional Slovak drink. And after all, we were in Slovakia. And it was free. And it was a drink we would never indulge in again. Ever.


Our hostel was situated very close to the Old Town of Bratislava, but we did get some cool looks at the Bratislava Castle, overlooking the city from the hilltops:

Walking around Old Town was a little interesting at times. Connor commented that it was a bit of a "Disneyfied" eastern European city, which was pretty legit. However, there were a lot of very neat buildings to walk around amongst, some cheap panini to eat, and some winding roads to get lost on.


One of the plagues of the trip has been our inability to find the nightlife. We struck out in Budapest, were shot down in Belgrade. But Bratislava. This would be our town.


After all, they have a KGB bar where you can drink near authentic Communist-era propaganda and memorabilia. Thank you, Lonely Planet, for that find. Only problem being that the bar is not there. At all. Can't find it.


But bless our stars, at least Hacienda Mexicana is open. They even had Herradura Tequila for Wendy. And how do these lovely people take their tequila shots, you might ask? Well, with cinnamon and an orange slice, naturally.


Well, we missed the nightlife again in Bratislava. But at least our server was kind enough to teach us the Slovakian world for "thank you," which happens to be "dakujem." And then we promptly forgot it again.


It had become a bit of a running gag to butcher the words for Thank You in the other languages, when it was just the three of us. Of course, by running gag, I mean a joke I totally killed to the point where I had to stop because it was confusing us as to what the words really were.


But here's a primer:
Bosnia and Serbia
     Thank you to the natives: Hvala (pronounced va'-lah)
     Thank you from me: Valhalla
Hungary
     Thank you to the natives: Köszönöm (pronounced coh'-za-nome)
Thank you from me: Kosovo (or Cocomo)
Slovakia
Thank you to the natives: Dakujem (pronounced day-coo-yem)
Thank you from me: Dagobah


And we wonder why we Americans weren't always the most warmly received...

A brief gaming interlude...

So the game is simple. It's called "Your Team." We've been playing it constantly for three weeks now, and deserves some sharing.

THE CONCEIT: It is the Apocalypse. (Zombie, Nuclear Winter, however you conceive the end times.) You and your group of friends have survived and now must scramble to make a living.

THE RULES: This is where it gets easy. You have a team with you that has survived the Apocalypse. The only stipulation is that your fellow survivors get to designate your team members. As you are walking past indubitable individuals, you lean over to your fellow survivors and inform them, This person is on "Your Team."

Simple enough, right?

It's a great game for people watching. You can play amongst friends, travel buddies, or people you meet at hostel bars. All the fun in the world.

To give you an idea, if you are reading this:

Meet your first teammate.

Day trips and trekking

Having consummately conquered both ends of Buda and Pest, we decided to take a train, a little day trip to Esztergom, a city cuddling up to the Slovakian border in northern Hungary.

Esztergom boasts the largest church in Hungary, the Esztergom Basilica. This serves as the seat of the Roman Catholic Church in Hungary, and is a truly magnificent structure.

We disembarked from the train and began the long trek up stairs and hillsides to get to a vista and view truly worth walking towards. The top of the hill gave us a wonderful view of the city of Esztergom, as well as a sight across the Danube into Slovakia (see ya tomorrow in Bratislava...).

We also got to step downstairs into the catacombs, which was worth the 200 florins just to cool off for a few minutes. They have many tombs down there, including the final resting place of Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty, who strongly opposed the spread of communism in Hungary, to the point where he was tortured and received a life sentence, forced to live out much life after World War II in exile.

A train brought us back to Budapest, and back to the hostel for some more much-needed napping. I had things to do, but they were contingent on staying awake on the south end of dinner. I couldn't manage that, so the beard will have to be trimmed tomorrow.

We decided to have our "final meal" before going on the economic death sentence that is the Euro in Slovakia and Austria. Appetizers all around, including the best beef tartar you could ask for, and plenty of wine. We finally got around to trying the most famous red wine in Hungary, Bull's Blood. Turns out, it's delicious. And not blood. Or from a bull. Who knew?