Can you believe we’re already to Friday?! Man, that time has flown by.
The first order of business Friday was to get checked out and stow the luggage for the day. Some lockers at the hostel handled that well. We also got on their computers for a little Internet access. Once we had caught up with the world, we caught the subway down a few stops to a shopping center. I was after another memory card for my camera. I had filled up the existing card, and since I didn’t bring my laptop, I had no way to empty it! 🙁
The shopping center just happened to have a store Joni had been planning on stopping at called Butlers where Joni’s mom could find an egg cup and spoon, so we took a minute to look through that. They had pandas at a little table!
There was a toy store right next to that, so we stopped in there as well. They had a ton of really cool all metal toys. *drool* They also had bins of Lego pieces. You’d just fill a little baggy with what you wanted, then I think they charged you by the pound… I mean, kilogram.
We popped into a Saturn and I got my card. We got back on the subway and went into the city center. We quickly took a peek at the cathedral (I still think Linz’s is nicer), then decided to take our big carriage ride! We had been planning this for some time, and it was time to do it.
The carriage ride took us from the cathedral all the way over to the government buildings and then back again. It lasted about 45 minutes. One of the more interesting things (for me at least) was that there was this government building (we forget what was in it – parliament?) that looked like a church! Crazy!
We arrived back at the cathedral to end the ride. Almost immediately Joni had to stop to pay a street performer. She really likes those.
We walked down the main street and looked at shops. We stopped at an ATM to get a little cash. We ran into a bit of a problem though when the ATM ate Dennis’s card! We had to go inside, get someone to fish it out, then show her his passport! Stupid ATMs. As we said though, at least it wasn’t an unmanned ATM!
We worked out way down and found ourselves at the Sacher Hotel, home of the famous Sacher Torte. Being tourists, we stopped in for a snack. Between the four of us, we got 1 piece of Sacher Torte and 3 pieces of strudel…. I never said we were good tourists! I also tried an ice cream coffee. it was interesting, but not worth the 7! Euro. Yeah, that place is spendy.
We had covered everything we wanted to do in Vienna in record time. We didn’t really feel like looking at anything else, so we decided to head back to the hostel to grab our stuff. Due to incorrect signage and changes in routes, it was a bit of a challenge getting back there!
We arrived back at the hostel and did a little repacking before heading out. That hostel is pretty neat. They have a couple of nice courtyards.
We got to the train station and found that there was a train leaving in 10 minutes or 30 minutes. We elected to wait the 30 minutes. It worked out really well because that train was already at the station, so we got on, found seats where we could all sit together (some of the last ones available already too), and waited for the train to head out. The trip back to Linz was uneventful.
You also might have noticed that I’m wearing a hat in a few pictures. Yeah, I’ve wanted a hat like that for a while, but couldn’t quite bring myself to get it. Since we were on “vacation” though, I got one in Salzburg. Here’s the hat without me ruining the picture:
We arrived back in Linz and got back to the apartment. We made some salad with chicken nuggets, played some more cards, then got the parents checked back into the same hotel and turned in (to sleeping people).
[…] Day 05 – Vienna […]