Vienna

I put off writing a post for a couple of days - it's not fresh in my memory, so probably not worth writing about! But suffice to stay I checked into a new hostel for the last night, slept for 15 hours straight, and then went on a wander round the town before jumping on the train.

I'm ambivalent about Prague - it was absolutely beautiful, and the sun was shining! But it is the high season for tourists, and so as such was absolutely rammed. Also, not being able to read directions was a pain - the centre's fairly large, and so I didn't find getting lost so fun.

I met a cool guy on the train though - a Czech who was going to see his friend in a town a couple of hours ago. We chatted about the Czech and English cultures, and he filled in a lot of what I had missed about his country's history - really fascinating stuff.

Arriving in Vienna, I sorted out my stuff, and headed to the bar for the night. Pretty standard fare, but I settled into the hostel.

Yesterday was pretty cool - walked around with a couple of French-Canadian girls, to get a handle on Vienna. It's laid out with a double ring, the Ringstraße,  running round the centre, on which the traffic and trams live, and within which all the big civic buildings are. Inside of this is the Innere Stadt, with the commerical district and the big cathedral, the Stephansdom.

The centre is pretty standard shopping fare for the most part, but obviously with lovely architecture. The Staphansdom is big and imposing, with a well furnished interior, although to see a lot of it you had to pay - this I did not do!!

I lost track of the Canadians around this point - they said they would wait outside, but I could not find them. Last night they told me they were waiting for an hour!

I have found travelling alone to be pretty good for the most part. You can see and do whatever you want, and there's great scope for meeting people. Almost everyone is very friendly and eager to meet others, and just a simple hello will usually kick things off well. It can get a bit lonely at times however - I have found myself sometimes wishing I had someone to share my experiences with, but this has usually passed pretty quickly when finding something interesting to do.

I made a brief trip to the MuseumsQuartier, a place where lots of young people hang around to sit, chat and drink, complete with trendy art shops and galleries. After this I grabbed a few cans of beer, and headed to watch some classical music on the big screen.

Vienna is really cool - in the summer, films and music are shown every night on a big screen in front of the Rathaus, or city hall. It has a real carnival atmosphere too, with loads of stalls selling beer and food. I had a great time, reading my guidebook before the show, and enjoying some great music.

I must go, I'm off to see the palace and book a hostel for tomorrow too. Bye!