Saturday October 20th 2012

We woke up at 7 today, and had a Semmel breakfast (just like at home). Then at 9 we began our tour of the city. I am ashamed to say, that I have no idea which buildings we saw. We hauled through Wien looking at as much as possible, but never learning much about the buildings we saw. From what I could tell, the first building was a museum (?). Out front there was a metal elephant, and many-a-picture were taken on it. Next we moved on to the National Library (I caught that name!) which was enormous. It spanned in a large horse-shoe shape all the way around and then went straight out for probably a 1/2 km into the city. We walked through one of the arches, and I think next we saw a Maria-Theresa monument. Unexplained ruins ensued, then we continued on into the fashion-strip, complete with Gucci and other big names. A spontaneous group picture grew, then afterward we turned around and pretty much followed our same path back toward the Parliament building, passing through some breath taking gardens along the way. At the Parliament building we got a tour. We were separated into the German speakers, English speakers, and Spanish speakers, then got to see the main halls and corridors of the building. The first hall was the Hall of Pillars (?) and was absolutely incredible. Next, we moved on to the old Parliament chambers, when Austria was a huge empire, requiring many more seats and a larger room. The room is no longer in use, but each column represents a nation, so you can get an idea of how huge Austria use to be. The next room we saw was the new Parliament chambers. It is a lot smaller and more modern, but had the same basic style. The last room we saw I don't remember the use of, but it looked similar as well. We grouped back up, then walked back to the fashion area of Wien. Stephans Dome (I think) awaited us, and I was astounded by it intricacy and monstrosity. Mark, Liam, and I decided to risk being late and climb to tower (for 3.5 Euros) and it was worth it. After what seemed like forever climbing the winding staircase we finally got to the top: a tourist shop. We were able to stick our cameras out of the windows, but were surprised by the lack of grandeur at the peak. My camera was working hard, and died soon thereafter, but I was glad it made it long enough to capture the landscape of Wien you could see from up there. When we descended the others had already left, so we called a friend and Walter came and found us. He took us to our lunch place, and we had shish-kebab. After fueling up, we took the train to the Hapsburg Palace, and took a tour of the ritzy mansion. My camera was able to snap on and off and grab a few valuable pictures, but I was not happy with how few I was able to get. We had some free time, so I walked the gardens with Juliet, then we found a couple other exchange students and took the train to Maria-Hilfer Straße (a major shopping street). We spent the remainder of our free time looking around, then returned to the hostel at 6 for dinner at, ironically, the Bier Factory. We had to have Wiener Schnitzel of course, and I loved it. From 8-12 we had more free time, so I rounded up some friends and we wandered through the city at night. We went back to Stephans Dome, and visited more of the historic section before turning in for the night. Although, we took a late train to Maria-Hilferstraße to return to the hostel, and in our rush we got completely lost. Our deadline of 12 came and went, and we called Walter. Some how we ended up a long ways away on the wrong side of Maria-Hilferstraße. We finally made it back at 12:35 and expected a mad Walter, but we weren't even close to the last ones back, and I think one girl even ran away to her uncle in Wien, so we had nothing to worry about.

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