30/60 Trip, Day #1: Thursday, September 15, 2011

My mom and I started planning this trip 5 years ago. We decided we wanted to do something grand for my 30th birthday and her 60th birthday (hence the "30/60" title). I've always wanted to go to Europe, but more specifically Austria. I don't know what it is about Austria, but between the music history and the culture and the Alps, it just seemed like a great place to be. Luckily my mom agreed!

We booked our plane tickets in January, which turned out to be a very good thing because ticket prices rose $200-$300 over following months due to a hike in gas prices. I booked our hotel rooms online in the springtime. When I stayed at my parents' house in June, my mom and I booked our tickets to the shows we wanted to see and also roughly outlined what other sights we wanted to see.

We were lucky to book our airplane tickets so that we would be on the same flight from Washington D.C. to Vienna. Brian took me to the airport for my 12:30 p.m. flight to Washington D.C. I got there with no problems, but the airport is a maze so I had to take a bus and a train to the international terminal. When I got to the gate, my mom was already waiting there and had informed the gate agent that she was worried that her daughter would get lost in the airport and wouldn't be able to find the gate. Mom, how embarrassing! I guess once a mom, always a mom! It's not like it was my first flight or even my first solo flight. And no, I didn't get lost!


We went to a couple of book stores to buy magazines and candy before sitting down to wait for our plane. This is a picture of our plane:



On my way to the international terminal, I followed the flight attendants to the gate. I knew they were going to be on my flight because of their bright red suits and bright red pantyhose. Where in the world do you buy red pantyhose nowadays?

Our flight left at 5:30 p.m. and we were blessed with good wind direction because our flight that was supposed to take 8 1/2 hours only took 7 1/2 hours. We got on the plane and found out that our seats were not next to each other - I was sitting across the aisle by a guy who had the window seat, and my mom was sitting on the end of the middle row that has 3 seats across. The seat next to my mom ended up being empty, so I moved there, probably to the dismay of the girl sitting on the other end. Shortly after we took off we got a drink and a snack, and then after that we got our dinner. I got the pasta carbonara, which came with a roll, chocolate cake, and salad. It was during dinner that I started to panic. I'd taken a Xanax before my first flight and I'd felt completely fine, but sitting here with dinner in front of me on a long flight with no way to escape got my anxiety going. I tried to distract myself with a movie ("Something Borrowed", which was terrible - talk about a way to rationalize being slutty), another pill, and crossword puzzles. My mom did her best trying to distract me, too, by talking to me (sorry, girl next to me - I think we were talking too much for her). I finally fell asleep, but I'm pretty sure that my mom and I only logged a couple of hours of sleep the whole flight.

Not long before we landed we were served breakfast. I was already feeling cautious because of my anxiety, but there was no way I was going to eat the sandwich the was placed in front of me: processed cheese and ham. My mom didn't touch hers, either. Luckily the meals also came with orange juice, a muffin, and yogurt.

We arrived in Vienna around 7:30 (the only way I know that is because my airport train stamp in stamped with 8:08 a.m.).

30/60 Trip, Day #2: Friday, September 16, 2011

Our flight from Washington D.C. took less time than planned - just 7 hours. We arrived in Vienna around 8 a.m., got our luggage, and found the CAT (City Airport Train). Here's my mom waiting for the train. Doesn't she look perky for just flying halfway around the world? Later on the trip I would dub her suitcase "Barney" for the color. That thing had a mind of its own! We were at a train station on our trip and my mom put me in charge of her luggage while she went to the bathroom. I took our luggage out on the front step, and the next thing I knew, her suitcase had jumped off the step and started rolling away before crashing to the ground. Oops.


The first thing we did when we got dropped off just outside the Ringstrasse (inside the ring is the heart of Vienna) was go to the train transportation office (OBB). I wanted to get our train tickets for our travel to Mauthausen, Salzburg, and Budapest, but didn't want to bother with ticket machines or trying to decipher German online. It ended up to working out fantastically. We didn't have to worry about tickets for the rest of our trip and we knew exactly what trains we were supposed to be on and when.

After getting our train tickets, we got our 72-hour transportation passes and took the U3 subway to the Herrengasse stop to get to our hotel. We stayed at the Best Western Hotel Das Tigras, which Brian made fun of us for. "You're going to Austria and staying in a Best Western?" To be fair, this Best Western was completely different than the Best Westerns in the United States. It wasn't some stinky, old motel. It was modern and just right for us.

This is the hotel on the right, and the second picture is looking up the street from the hotel:




We were too early to check in, so we left our luggage at the hotel and set out for a walking tour around the Ring. This image was almost a daily scene: My mom, looking thoughtfully at dirndls for the granddaughters. Step away from the window, Mom! Those dirndls are $200 each!


For a minute, we thought this was St. Stephan's Cathedral. Oh, how turned around we were for just coming in on an all-night flight and landing in an unfamiliar city! This is the Votivkirche, completed in 1879. It was constructed as a votive offering for the saving of Emperor Franz Josef's life after he was stabbed in the neck by a Hungarian national. The church is built on the very spot where the emperor was stabbed.













We continued walking and came upon City Hall next. It's the building with the pointy spires.








These two buildings are almost identical. The first one is the Kunsthistoriches Museum, and the one directly across from it is the Natural History Museum. The statue of Empress Maria Theresa is in the large lawn in between the two buildings.




These next pictures are of the Hofburg palace complex. This first picture shows the Burgtor, the only surviving gate of the old town wall. The emperor was the only one who was allowed to use the center arch to enter and exit.


This part of the complex is named "New Palace". It was where the music museum, the Greek and Ephesus museum, and the armor museums are.




A statue in the palace gardens with the imperial apartments in the background:


This is where the treasury is:


The interior courtyard of the imperial apartments:


The outside of the palace:



This is Kohlmarkt, the luxury shopping street in Vienna. We passed by the Valentino store a couple of times and admired this classy navy blue dress, and my mom said she would buy it for me if it was a good price. We asked the stuffy saleslady the price, and it was 1200 Euro! Gah! No dress for me! (1200 Euro is about $1700.)


We got hungry so we stopped in a little pastry shop to eat. The shop had a great name: Der Mann. It also had the best apple strudel that we ate during our entire trip.



After eating, we went back to our hotel room to check in, take showers, and get ready for the shows we had booked for the evening. Here's our hotel room:



Our first show of the evening was the Vienna Boys Choir (they have the funniest name in German: "Wiener Sangerknaben") at the Musikverein. We took the U3 to the U1 and got off on Karlsplatz, and once again, turned the wrong direction coming out of the subway and had to ask for directions. We passed by the Karlskirche on the way there:


The performance was only an hour long, but it was so good. Those boys are so talented! You can tell by the height differences that some boys are new to the choir and some boys are nearing the end of the time in the choir.





After the choir performance was over, we had tickets to see the Lipizzaner stallions perform at the Spanish Riding School at the Hofburg. On the way there, we passed by the Opera:



This is the Albertina Museum:



The streets surrounding the Hofburg:


There was this cute little clock shop across from the Hofburg. I sent this picture to the kids, and they declared it "freaky".


This is outside the Spanish Riding School:


This is the performance arena. No pictures allowed during the actual performance.


I think the Spanish Riding School performance is one thing I wouldn't go to again and wouldn't recommend. For one, it's really expensive for an hour-long performance. It was also a very dry performance. The narrations were given in German and English, which was nice, but it was hard to understand the English because of the German accent and because the noise was bouncing off of the large arena. The horses kept doing the same things over and over, too. I mean, it was impressive how well they were trained with high-stepping, straight lines, and at one point they showed how their trainers train them by standing right by their rear-ends (scary, if you know what horses can do with their hind legs), but all in all, it was just a dry performance.

Then again, we could have been unimpressed because we were so tired. This was one of our biggest mistakes, booking two shows for the day we arrived on an overnight flight. My mom made it through less than half of the horse show before she wound up like this:


To make matters worse, she excused herself from the show because she just couldn't stay away, and then she fell down the spiral staircase on the way down. Ouch.

After the show was over was made our way back to the hotel and basically died. We fell asleep at 9 p.m. and didn't wake up until 12 hours later.