Vienna 1

We arrived yesterday at Westbahnhof train station in Vienna, about a 3 minute walk from our hostel. After dropping our stuff off we walked a ways until arriving at a recommended pizza place - not only was the pizza awesome, but we were able to enjoy Gosser beer and the Simpsons in German on tv. And its true: European commercials are weird.

We went to the official UEFA fan zone to watch last nights games on huge screens (they are being hosted by both Switzerland and Austria but we decided to eat for 3 months rather than paying 900 euro to get tickets). The fan zone and giant screens are set up right in the middle of the city, between Parliament, an opera house, city hall, and near the Hofburg palace. Pretty cool backdrop. Last night we hung out a little in the Wombar - the bar in the basement of our hostel. It serves 1 euro beer and has a foosball table on which I enjoy beating John. We played one game of pool also, but Evan Davies destroyed us. Fun fact: Evan Davies plays pool left-handed.

Today we actually got up early to do a fully planned out sightseeing trip around the city. We went back to the city center to see really cool buildings and statues, walked upstairs around city hall, and saw the Austrian crown Jewels (including an Emerald the size of a softball, a tusk of a narwhal... (really), and Evan Davies baby clothes. Okay one of those may not be true, but two out of those three are pretty impressive). We then climbed up 343 steps in a spiral stone staircase at St. Stephens Cathedral to see nice views of the city and sweat. We also visited Karlsplatz and Karls Church which has massive columns, and finally we went to Schonbrunn palace.

The palace area was incredible. We walked for about 2.5 hours through huge gardens, and we went through a few hedge mazes and labyrinths. There was a house sized fountain (of mermen on top of mer-people) and an inner loop sized palace. Good stuff.

Tomorrow we are going to visit the Jim Ross in Prague... you know that only chaos will follow. Coming soon.. hostel ratings and local beer ratings. Bye Bye