"On Saturday we went to the ballet
The men had abs; 'twere better than okay." 

 --Julie and Katie's Iambic Pentameter Phrase for Applied Voice Class, inspired by the Vienna trip

You may have seen the copious amounts of photos on Facebook, but you have yet to hear the complete story of our journey to Vienna, Austria. Let's be clear: this was a speed round trip. No meandering or lolligagging; when you're in a country for less than 48 hours it's go time! Let me introduce you to my travel companions: Julie, a sassy but caring and loving drama major from NY who sports bright red lipstick almost every day, and Sarah, a blonde-gone-ginger who carries with her the laid-back San Francisco vibe she's grown up with.  Plus me. The ultimate travel posse has been united! One of the amazing parts of a gap year is the speed with which you make decisions. About two weeks ago the three of us had a conversation that sounded something like this:

Hey. Want to travel somewhere?
Yeah, but where?
OMG VIENNA.
I'm in.
Ditto!

That's where we first hatched the plan, and then the hotel booking, airplane tickets, bus tickets, tickets for the ballet came later; as always with teenagers and young adults, the big ideas first, the necessary logistics later.  Our adventure started on Friday at 10:50 AM in Stansted Airport in London (we had woken up 4 hours earlier though to catch a bus to the airport); our flight would take us to Brno, Czech Republic and from there we were to take a 2 hour bus ride to our final destination, Vienna.  Since we're students, we were going cheap for all the transportation, so we decided to roll the dice and put our lives in the hands of Ryanair, a notoriously shoddy Irish airline.  The tickets are super cheap for Ryanair flights since they make all their money off of the fine print fees that nobody reads when they agree to the Terms & Conditions flyer.  So, if you don't print out your boarding pass before you arrive at the airport, Ryanair fines you £70 even though your ticket may only have been £50.  Keeping that in mind, you can be sure we were on top of our printed boarding passes.  Turns out, even though the bus ride from Brno to Vienna didn't cost much, we traveled like royalty! We received the most delicious hot chocolate (I'm ashamed to say the best hot chocolate I've had in Europe was on a bus), free internet, and tons of movies and TV shows (one might say I am hooked on the show Friends--what happens to Rachel and Ross in the end?!?).  Once in Vienna we dropped our luggage off at a surprisingly well-furnished and comfy hotel near the center of downtown Vienna, and adventured out onto the streets of Vienna to find some noms for dinner.  Here's what you must know about restaurants in Vienna: the food is delicious, the servers are modest.  We stumbled upon a cozy, hipster-ish cafe in the center of Vienna and our waiter orally recounted the menu (we tried to read German but failed spectacularly); he recommended small pasta dumplings filled with cheese, meet, or tomato. He didn't describe them too enthusiastically but each of us ordered three of the pasta dumplings.  I don't know why he didn't describe them to us like he was describing a prized and ancient recipe because our dinner was succulent and we savored each bite. The same thing would happen to us at our dinner the next night, when the gnocchi and risotto made our mouths water even after we had polished off the plates, even though the waitress played the dishes off like they were nothing much.  I may as well stay on the food theme and make way to the most important food of all in Austria: STRUDELS.  I demanded of myself the consumption of one apple strudel per day, and I'm proud to say I didn't let myself down.

Saturday morning we forced ourselves to be early risers, even though the hotel mattresses put our rib-poking mattresses back in our London apartment to shame.  We had enough cause to be excited about the day: we were going to hit up the largest flea market in all of Vienna, Naschmarkt. The flea market is situated between two streets, so it's set up with edible, heavenly items on one end and then not so subtly turns into an antiques and clothing fest. The food section was seemingly never ending: vendors enchanted us and other passerbyers with olives, kebabs, fudge, cheeses, breads, seeds, dried fruit, pastries, stir fry, and just about anything else that can be consumed.  Then suddenly, the market turned into the ultimate clothing and random item swap; vendors under tents sold anything from decrepit 90's phones and their fathers' old jackets to more intriguing items like antique door locks, jewelry boxes, traditional Austrian scarves (mixed in with a few made in China), and art.

Julie and me at Naschmarkt

It was pouring rain and I think my umbrella might have done more eye poking than I had anticipated, but until we realized our feet were frozen numb and our coats thoroughly soaked through, we sifted through the immense number of tents. We unanimously decided that our next activity should be indoors (none of us wanted another one of nature's showers) and we chose to head to the Museum quarter where we picked an art museum with some of Klimt's most famous works.  It was almost like all the art history I had studied in AP Euro last year actually was useful! But in all seriousness, the art pieces revealed how determined and hard working the Austrian people are; many of the pictures used dark and depressing colors to describe the landscape of the country, but there were also marvelously bright colors intertwined with the duller ones, showing all that Austrians had done to make use of whatever they were given. After a much needed siesta, the girls and I tried our best to dress up (we had fit everything for the trip into our three backpacks!) for a night at the ballet! Julie had bought us cheap tickets, the equivalent of 12 dollars each, that were in restricted view--we were totally pleased with that, we're going to the ballet for $12 after all! Turns out, our restricted view seats had their own private box and we were located right next to the stage. I could literally see the sweat on the dancers' costumes and see the small smirks that floated onto the ballerinas' lips when they perfected a lift.  The whole experience at the ballet was extravagant: a massive glass chandelier lit the entire theater, red velvet covered our seats, and Austrian mothers photographed their young daughters posing in front of floor to ceiling mirrors.  Not every part of our trip was as relaxing as watching ballerinas twirl and be lifted into the air like feathers, we had an 8 hour trip back home to London and our bags threatened to rip at the seams they were so full of souvenirs, but every part of our Vienna trip was full of memories created by three friends who planned every detail of their Austrian adventure together and enjoyed every second of it.