the city of spies

After going in circles around the city for what seemed like days, we finally arrived at our hotel in Vienna. Our hotel accommodations were incredible. Apparently numerous diplomats, artists, and composers have stayed here. Our hotel room in particular was a reserved room for a famous Austrian composer whos name I cant remember right now, but the room is 2 floors, 2 bathrooms and includes a balcony as well. Not only that but we are right in the heart of the city next to the St. Stephens church with one of the biggest pedestrian roads in the city. We spent the day just walking around the pedestrian side streets and enjoying the city life. That night we ate dinner at a world class oriental restaurant and had some of the best food in my life, the curry I got was so spicey the waitress had to go into the kitchen and get me a glass a milk because I thought I was going to burst in flames. The Austrian wine we had was unique. It was a blend of 3 different types of grapes used to make 3 different types of wines and I had never tasted anything like it before. We got to bed somewhat early which was a nice change of pace considering I had been up till at least 5am 3 nights in a row with very little sleep.

We woke up the next morning finally rested and ready to go. We booked a private tour of the city for 2 hours. The tour was extremely informative and I was engaged the whole time. The city of Vienna itself is very clean, next to Madrid I thought that it was the cleanest city I had traveled to yet. The city itself was beautiful, a majority of the architecture was in the style known as Art Noveu and it stands out. All of the buildings seemed whitewashed with tall pillars towering in every direction; the facades of the buildings are ornately decorated with heads, leaves, and intricate designs. The city design really reminded me of Paris in the style of architecture and colors used throughout the city. One thing that really caught my eye was the public housing project here in Vienna. A famous Austrian artist and architect named Hundertwasser designed these apartment complexes in Vienna and around the world that are just jaw dropping. The architecture is strikingly similar to that of Gaudi but with a twist, all of his architecture incorporates nature. There really is no way to explain it without seeing pictures because it is like nothing ive ever seen before, definitely one of the coolest monuments ive seen in Europe and I highly recommend that you look it up on Google or Wikipedia, the name of the projects is called the Hundertwasserhaus, you wont be disappointed. That evening we went to a restaurant recommended by the reception and it was fabulous, I have yet to be disappointed by a meal thus far with my family, we have gotten very lucky with our choices of restaurants. After enjoying some traditional Austrian sausages and fondue we headed to a bar for a few drinks and then headed to bed. The next morning we packed everything up into our station wagon and hopped on the Autobahn towards Salzburg, once again driving in the city was impossible and the journey took about 2 hours longer than it should of, but once we got out of the city and into the Austrian countryside the ride was awesome. more on that later….

this is family business

So the trip is winding down and Im headed to Prague to meet my family and nanny of years before. I flew into Prague late Friday afternoon and headed to my nanny’s condo to meet her and my family whom I hadn’t seen in nearly 3 months. The homecoming was wonderful as we ate dinner and caught up. Emma my nanny and her husband Kieran wanted to go out that night for drinks so my brother and I decided to join them. To make a long story short we stayed out till nearly 6am going from club to club and slept in until about 2pm and missed an entire city in the city. For the remainder of the day we decided just to meander through the narrow streets of Prague and just shop and sightsee for a bit. That evening we had dinner on the river which ended up being one of the best meals I had in Europe to date, it was some Czech duck I think, its been a while. Once again we decided to go out and it was a late night again, I swear this city never sleeps, as a bunch of the clubs here are open 24 hours a day.

I am writing this nearly a month after having come home so things are a bit hazey, but I promised everyone (mom) that I would finish it so im gunna finish it. Prague turned out to be one of my favorite cities in Europe. The beauty of untouched architecture, the vibe of the city, the shopping, the food, and the beer are all unparalleled. Prague is one of the few historic cities in Europe that weren’t bombed out during any of the world wars and it shows, everything here is beyond old. In addition to all this, it is also one of the cheaper cities. Granted I was with my parents, the exchange rate and general prices of things here in Prague are way cheaper than a vast majority of the other cities I have visited in western Europe. Just being on the streets of Prague was an experience in itself, you cant help but to gaze over the river at buildings and monuments that are thousands of years old and just be awestruck. Being in the Czech Republic has jumpstarted my interest in eastern Europe, and I hope that I have the opportunity in the future to make a trip to the hidden gems scattered throughout eastern Europe; Slovenia, Poland, Croatia, Serbia, Lithuania etc etc. Monday morning my dad I got a taxi to the airport to pick up our rental car. Oh my god what an experience that was driving back into Prague. To begin with, the Czech language is extremely confusing, they use a different character set than us and all of their words seem like they are 20 letters long with all consonants. It took about double the time to get back including going the wrong way on some one way streets, and this seemed to be the common theme for the rest of our journeys via car. Oh well, we hopped in our station wagon and headed into Austria to the capitol city of Vienna, the city of spies.

p.s. some things i forgot....we went to a bar named The Beer Factory that had a very unique idea. All of the tables have beer taps at the table with a computer, and posted all over the bar are big tvs displaying the scoreboard of the tables. It keeps track of the beer your drank and then puts you up on the scoreboard with the rest of the bar, a very fun concept. We also took a tour of prague on a speedboat through the river which was a blast ripping down the river going 40mph and taking in the sights.

odds and ends

ok ok ok SO IM DOING IT IM REALLY FINISHING THIS BLOG....after Switzerland i arrived back in london for my last week of classes. The last week was pretty uneventful except for one thing, the Great Britain Beer Festival. My buddy james and I headed to this monster of an event and it turned out to be one of the most memorable experiences London. there was literally thousands upon thousands of beers from not only all over the UK but all over the world. It cost 10 pounds to get in and you paid 3 pounds for your pint glass. from there you were free to go to any of the various brewers and get either a 1/4 pint, a 1/2 pint or a full pint of beer. the beers were incredible. not only that but they had other various stands that appealed to drunk patrons as well. there was about 5 or 6 hat stands, solely for the purpose of selling "funny hats" for people to wear. i myself picked up a giant balloon hat that was about 4 feet tall. They had henna tattoo stations, pub gear stations, and t shirt stations. they also had pub games and pub food, i was in heaven. we stayed for like 4 hours and hopped on the tube back to kings cross to go out for the evening, i decided to bring my balloon hat along which got mixed responses, some loved it, others thought it was obnoxious. by the way sorry this is written so shitty, i am trying to get this portion done with so i can get to the other cities that i want to write about. My overall experience with London was mixed. I enjoyed being in a big city but at the same time felt very overwhelmed by the sheer size of London. With the exchange rate being what it is this place is just so expensive that it is depressing, the cheapest beer you'll find in town is a 3 pound pint which still is the equivalent to a 6 dollar beer in the states. I dont think i'll be returned to London but it was a great experience none the less. ok ok ok....onward and upward, im going to meet my family in prague and i am elated as i have not seen any of them in nearly 3 months...