Vienna, Austria!!

On Wednesday, April 11, my group piled into our bus a little after 8 am and we made it to Vienna around 11:30. We grabbed our bags and made it to the hostel. Since this was the beginning of an almost two-week trip, "just grabbing my bag" was not an easy task. I had all my things jam packed into a navy hiking backpack. We stayed at the Happy Hostel in Vienna, which was honestly the best hostel that I stayed in. It was clean, modern, and we all had enough space to spread out a little.  Abby, Lisa, Katie, Alyshia and I shared a flat.

The girls and I in our room.

 We all walked to the city square to see the basilica before we broke for lunch. The roommates ate outside in a restaurant off the square. We shared a bottle of wine and I had an amazing lunch - creamy chicken and rice. It was a beautiful day out, and everything was going great. We met back up with the group and walked around to see some of the historic sites. We had free time, so the girls and I went to Starbucks for frappes, and then we sat on the lawn of the Hapsburg Palace for awhile and people-watched. We shopped our way home and made plans to go out that night.  I had a headache, and Abby didn't feel good, so we both took naps. We ended up not waking up until the next morning! Vienna is exhausting!

Lunch. Yum.

Habsuburg Palace

Touring Vienna with Dr. Clark! 

The next day we woke up to rain. Good think I had my rain boots, right? We walked to the metro with Dr. Clark and Jan and it was freezing, really rainy, and windy.  We went to the Hapsburg Summer Palace and took an audio tour. It was really interesting to explore the palace. The audio tour was really nice too, because we were able to go at our own pace. I was excited to see my last name "Herzog", in front of so many things in the palace, because Herzog means "duke" in German! For lunch, Lisa and I went to another Starbucks and had sandwiches and I had chai tea. It was nice to get inside somewhere warm for awhile. I could tell I was beginning to get sick.

Austrian Starbucks. Still delicious! 

That night, a bunch of us went to Inge's, which was a restaurant near our hostel. Inge herself was the owner, and she was an adorably sweet 73-year-old German woman who was married to an American man named Gary. Gary was home in California visiting family, so we didn't meet him, but we chatted with Inge for most of the night. We shared some of her favorite apricot liquor with her and a plate of goulash. Inge told us her and Gary's love story, and it was the cutest thing. She said when they first met, she didn't speak a word of English, and Gary didn't speak a word of German. They fell in love at first sight though, and they began to write letters. They turned to friends and family to help them understand the letters, and now they've been married for 20 years. We were all sad to leave Inge. It's amazing to meet such sweet, kind people like Inge.

All of us with Inge in her restaurant.

Just a fraction of the notes on the walls in the restaurant.
All of the notes were from people all over the world, thanking Inge for her hospitality.
She was a Saint, I'm sure of it!