Friday June 1st

After an eventful night of travel from Italy to Austria, we arrived early in the morning to cooler weather and very pretty scenery. We ended up finding our hotel, a Marriott, around 9:30 and searched around the neighborhood for something to eat for breakfast. If there’s one thing I have learned this trip, it’s that most cultures do not place the same importance on breakfast as Americans. True to form, I wandered the streets of Vienna and was unable to find any shops or restaurants serving breakfast so I settled with a can of Pringles, a Snickers, and a Coke to wash it all down. While I’ve actually been impressed with how healthy I have been able to eat while traveling, this breakfast was not one of my finer meals of the trip.

Schonbrunn Palace

Following my breakfast of champions, the group met up to begin our sightseeing in Vienna. Our hotel is conveniently located a few hundred yards away from the Schonbrunn Palace, so we began our day visiting the Palace’s gardens. The Schonbrunn Palace is a former Habsburg summer residence and is filled with beautiful gardens. I couldn’t help but think of how many of my family members would enjoy visiting the Palace’s gardens as I weaved my way through. What stood out most to me about the gardens was the massive amount of maintenance that must be involved with the upkeep of the acres of gardens. I cannot imagine how many workers it must take to trim all the bushes, weed the flowerbeds, and cut the grass. The Schonbrunn Palace’s gardens were a sight to see.

A small taste of the many gardens

After walking around the well-manicured grounds, the group separated for the afternoon to eat lunch, shower, and rest after our long night. We met back up at 7 to head to downtown Vienna to walk around for a while and a find somewhere to eat an authentic Vientiane meal. One thing I noticed on our walk around Vienna’s most urban area was the cleanliness of their downtown. Unlike a few of our previous stops, there was hardly any graffiti on walls or gypsies begging for loose change. Another difference from pretty much all of our previous stops was the lack of tourists. While Vienna might not be the most well-known city in Europe, our walk downtown alone made me a big fan of the Austrian city. We followed our stroll around downtown with a great meal at Weinerwald, a restaurant highly recommended to us by one of our professors. I ordered skillet full of roasted chicken, potatoes, bacon, and onions. While it was not the most flavorful meal I’ve eaten on my trip, it was definitely one of the most hearty and filling. After our late dinner, I headed home for the evening to call it a night after a long day.