Vienna, Austria

The second stop Si Yue and I took on our little adventure was to Vienna. Austria is a very small and unassuming country since the war, but having heard so much about the city I was really looking forward to getting to see it.

Vienna is known for bringing coffee to Europe when the invading Turks were ousted, leaving bags of the stuff behind. For this reason, Vienna is the home to many fancy coffee shops! (For the record, coffee shops here are not like the coffee shops in Amsterdam.)

Vienna is also known for being the home to many famous composers. (Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert, Schumann, Strauss… etc.) Si Yue and I caught a concert that played most of the typical Viennese tunes: To be fair and honest, though, we did get caught in a tourist trap, but it was still rather pleasant, even if it was cheap.

We went to the main cemetary in Vienna to visit all of the famous composers:

To the right is Boltzmann’s tombstone – Boltzmann is actually a famous physicist who is known for having his famous equation for entropy on his tombstone – Si Yue and I just happened to stumble upon this gem.

The cathedral in Vienna has been one of my favourite so far:

Every day at noon, a famous clock chimes and life-sized figurines do a little dance. Wow, that was really over-selling it, but I wanted you to feel as disappointed as I felt when I finally saw the thing:

Vienna has a Jewish quarter (Judenplats) which has a memorial commemorating all of the Austrian Jews that were sent to all of the concentration camps:

The famous palace in Vienna is called the Schönbrunn Palace: Again with the ominous clouds…

It has a huge garden out back, though I found it less impressive than the one in Chateau Versaille. Another fun fact is that the colour the palace is painted is now known as “Schönbrunn yellow”. As if anybody in their right mind would order that in Rona.

Again, I went to a market (the naschmarkt):
 
and then it started hailing:
Don’t get me wrong – this was actually pretty awesome!

I was recommended to catch the Hundertwasserhaus (hundred water house) before I left. It’s similar to Gaudi’s style, though much less awesome, unfortunately:
Apparently, this is an actual house though, with actual people living in it and everything. I don’t see why anyone would think that this would be a cool place to live, though. Maybe the insides are cool too. I dunno. I didn’t ask.

Viennisms

-Si Yue and I’s favourite coffeeshop:

-Newspapers:

-Cool door handles:

-Beethoven statue:

-My street:

…

-Everything is called something like this. Try reading this out loud, see how many confused looks you get:

-Instead of an actual shop to sell you magazines in front of every metro, people just… pile them up into little stacks on the floor:

By the way – way to frickin go, Habs!