Onward to Vienna!

This post is continued from "Budapest - West or East Europe?"

I had to get up around 5 to get to the bus station on time. The night before, I was in bed relatively early following my very active day in Budapest. I stayed up long enough to cheer Germany over the favored Portuguese 3-2 in the Eurocup along side a native German at this small restaurant not exactly designed for sports watching. We were crammed in the back corner in bar stools and forced to lean around a line of heads as the TV was hung to the right of us. Of course, the TV was probably only there for the Eurocup, but still, I think it's illegal in the U.S. to not have at least three TVs during the Superbowl in any sporting establishment. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the game and I learned that no one (except for Germans) roots for the German soccer team, because of their seemingly robotic style of play. I normally don't really notice those type of things in a soccer match, rather I focus on the mistakes, especially on defense. I guess I can see Germany's lack of creativity on their offensive attack, while they tend to beat defenses with speed, power, and precision rather than fancy combinations. But my soccer fantasies soon came to rest as I crawled into bed and was out like a lamp. When my alarm went off six hours later, I made my way as quietly as possible across the creaky floor, so as not to stir the heavy breathers bunked along the walls, to clean-up and gear-up for the next trek. I paid my 30 cents for the subway and felt a little reluctant for leaving Budapest so early, yet feeling satisfied that I did all I could in one full day. "Stover" I said to the lady at the counter, "S-t-o-v-e-r." As I attempted to hand her my Passport and the online reservation, she gave me a little chuckle and said, "Oh, it's you." After some puzzlement, it became clear I was the only one to ever make an online reservation for the bus from Budapest to Vienna. She dusted off my poor ticket that was probably sitting there for about a month, being laughed at by every ticket counter attendant, then she handed it to me, "gate 5." As I waited an hour and a half from the starting point of my punctual arrival, I learned that a bus left for Vienna every hour and that they were never full. O, but I already had my ticket and reservation for 8 am, gate 5 made a month in advance - guess it didn't hurt to be extra prepared.

So I made it in 2.5 hours without any bumps or bruises to Vienna with my path already mapped out. I had studied a street map as well as a travel book belonging to one of my coworkers during the trip. My patented Brett Spiral functions as follows:

1. Take a free street map of a city with keyed landmarks - note: must be a city that existed during the Medieval Era because of the radial street grid.

2. Find the approximate center of all the landmarks and designate that as the starting point.

3. Then, with a marker, connect all the important landmarks in a spiral-like fashion until you end at a good spot on the outskirts - note: direction of spiral depends on when you would like to reach certain landmarks - would pertain to hunger or sun angles in my case.

The spiral was very easy in Vienna because most of the old streets are still intact and they radiate out from the center in rings. I started at a good pace and began soaking in the city. To be honest I wasn't really impressed, and I apologize for bringing down the positive nature of most of my city observations, but let me tell you why: the city was washed in white with some occasional pastels, all the paths were paved in cobblestone, every corner was full of obvious tourists, the style of architecture was always the monotonous Classical, there were lots of private fences, few places to sit, and very little green. The only positive thing was the energy from the soccer fans, who were mostly Spaniards, because the final games of the Eurocup were about to take place here. But at the same time I was a little exhausted and tired of carrying my backpack. If you remember from my other post, I mentioned that all the hostels in Vienna were booked, so I didn't have a place to stay the night either. This fact made me a little anxious so I decided to veer from my spiral away from the center and away from the river to look for some possible sleeping grounds. The weather was really nice so I thought I could bum it up somewhere but I really couldn't find any park. I just kept walking until I coincidentally came upon a hostel that I specifically remember being full. But I though at the very least I could ask for any openings or keep my bag there and be more mobile... nope. The lobby was really crowded, people were checking in/out, the workers were all stressed out, and I had to wait in line a while. However, the attendant told me they have a 4pm limit for any no-shows until their room becomes available, so that's what I decided to bank on. I used the spare time to get back to my original schedule, which included a visit to the famous Albertina museum and a taste of the original Sachertorte. The museum was great for its air conditioning and its coat check (where I could leave my bag), but other than that, pretty disappointing. Ok, I don't consider myself that American, where I require places to be big and to stimulate my eye in a million different ways, but man, this museum was small and selective. I didn't even understand the basic curation of the artwork; it just seemed like some rich guy's favorite collection of paintings. I also felt a little out of place with my sweaty gray T-shirt in such a hoidy-toidy establishment, but still not shameful enough to leave my bag there as I moved on to my next mission: chocolate cake.

The Sachertorte is basically chocolate cake with a lucrative story behind it. 175 years ago, two families named Sacher and Demel invented and served chocolate cake. Sacher's cake became famous and Demel's didn't, so he took the Sacher name and started calling his cakes Sachertorte, and that made Sacher mad, and there was lots of fighting and such, then in 1965, the court made Demel change the name to Demel's Sachertorte, which eventually became the more popular cake. Yeah, amazing story, I know. But hey, it worked on me, and I don't usually eat chocolate cake. It tasted ok - kind of dry and not very sweet - costed me 9 Euro including a tiny little coffee - not a bad deal for the Demels. I was hoping to be overwhelmed with intellectual thought as I sat in a cafe in Vienna, like many of the great thinkers one century ago, but I mostly thought about how much I was ripped off, and then I just turned my attention to the pretty girls sitting around me.