I was up early to pack up and head to McD's for the last time in Budapest. I was excited to be getting on my way to Vienna. The guy at the Hostel (the only helpful one) gave me detailed directions on how to get to the international train via the Metro, sweet, cuz this big backpack was heavy for some reason. I guess I packed it wrong. So I made my way to the train, boarded and headed West. I learned that you don't ask for help at a train station, then employees appear to be helpful, then want a tip. I guess that's typical. I was looking forward to taking pictures along the way, but Hungary kinda looks like a green version of Eastern Colorado/ Nebraska. Lots of corn, energy wind mills and rolls of hay. Nothing to write home about, haha.
I got into Vienna at 12:15 and we hit the ground running. There was definitely a difference in the two cities that are called sister cities. Budapest is the dirty one and Vienna the new and exciting one. The architecture was much different and more modern in some places. There is a LOT of graffiti in both cities though. I met up with Gaby, a lady I met in Mexico in Dec of 2007, she and I both were traveling solo there and we met and had dinner 1 night. We exchanged e-mail addresses and had kept in touch, so I ask if I could visit while traveling in Europe. So, Gaby met me at the station and we set out on our whirlwind tour of her city. She's a fast walker and I was already feeling my legs wanting to fall off. Gonna be a long 2 days. After a quick lunch at her flat we headed out via the Metro to a royal palace called Schonbrunn, it was the home of Franz Joseph and Elizabeth Sisi (she was famous in Hungary). It was a amazing place and we walked around for quiet a while, took a bunch of pictures and stopped for an Austrian beer in the cafe. There was so much to see here and we were dripping with sweat, it was again in the upper 80's, yikes. I was told I must have brought the head with me, not normally like this. At least it's been dry. We then went around the city a little bit, went back to the flat to shower and we were off again to the Wien Film Festival. I was told it was a good place to get "different" foods. All the food was either Greek, Chinese or American... lol, there was 1 stand that was from Iran and another from Australia too. I went with some kebab dish from Iran. All the menus were in German too, I just pointed at the sample. I don't even know what it was called, but Gaby took a picture of me eating it. Then we had Austrian Dumplings! Oh wow, those were GOOD! I could have had an entire plate of those for dinner. Chocolate, Strawberry and Apple, yumm. Each food stand also had a punch bowl with a different alcoholic fruit drink in them, some mango, some strawberry, rasberry and I ended up w/ palmagranet... tasted like a sort of ketchup, uck, I don't like ketchup on my fries, let alone drinking it! LOL. It was a pretty strong drink too. 1st strong drink I've had on the trip, not bad. I surprised Gaby by having a conversation w/ a couple that shared the table with us. She came back from getting a drink and these people had started to talk to me. I guess, in Austria, people don't just strike up conversation w/ strangers. I must just bring that out in people, haha. After we hung around for a bit, Gaby drove me to a hill that was a great place to see the city at night. It was beautiful and I got a really good picture. I was really cool to see the lights along the Danube river in a different city. We had just spent 11 1/2 hours going and the next day was going to be worse! hmmmm
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