Killing time in Vienna

I think this is the first post I will have done purely because I have nothing else to do. We got into Vienna today, but were only able to get a room for tonight as the football final between Germany and Spain is tomorrow and the game is here. We think we may be able to get into a campsite tomorrow, but they told us at the Hostel that the usually have cancellations and if we ask in an hour we can maybe get a room for tomorrow. It's quite a nice place and would save a lot of hassle tomorrow. We plan on getting up early (in about 6hrs) to go to Sunday mass so we can see the Vienna boys choir. If we don't get a room here we would have to stash our stuff at the train station in the morning and come back later and try to find our way to the campsite, then go back into town for the football festivities, so... we wait, and take time to reflect on the past few days.

Swarovski's Crystal world was kind of a let down. There were only two giant crystals, the rest were kinda touristy "art" exhibits displayed there that made some use of the crystals. The store at the end was just as much of a show. We went back to the campsite in the evening to make some dinner and watch the football match. We got stuck for a while on our little covered pinic table island as another (even bigger) storm rolled in. A few lightning strikes were right down in the valley and we were worried the grass field was flooding and our tent would get wet, but as usual it performed remarkably well. After the monsoon subsided we made our way to the campsite restaurant a perfect place to watch the Russia, Spain match in which Spain truely dominated.

In the morning we took the Sightseer bus to the Alpenzoo. It was pretty cool. There are a lot more Alpine animals than we thought, also now we know there are poisonous snakes etc. as well, before we were just enjoying a certain blissful ignorance. They even had brown (grizzly) bears. I think a lot of the animals there no longer exist in nature in the Alps due to hunting and climate change etc. After the zoo we took a tram to the Nordkettenbahn and took the cable car all the way to the top. It was really cold up there so we only spent a little time scrambling around looking at awesome views of the city and surrounding mountains. We took the tram into the city and caught a bus to Ambras Castle. Unfortunately we only around 40min until it closed, but lucky for us an english tour was starting when we arrived, so we mingled in and saw everything at lightning speed (much easier when someone is explaining everything). In the evening we enjoyed some truely Austrian Schnapps with dinner before heading out for our first taste of Innsbruck's nightlife. It was pretty good. We came across an outdoor concert at a Fan Zone first. The guy seemed popular, but was singing in German, so we moved on. We met some South American guys (its funny how difficult it actually is to meet locals) at Jimmy's and later found ourselves at more of a pub. It was just picking up when we had to leave for our last bus at 1:40am. Its cool here how you don't have to show up at a place by 9:30pm just to get in while its still empty and they hold everyone in a line outside to look busy.

This morning was beautiful in Innsbruck. All the rain last night and the night before took away the haze and there were no clouds, so it was just beautiful and clear. Too bad we were moving on. We spent 5hrs on the train to Vienna. We arrived and for a nice change (we've been camping a lot and the campsites are always on the outskirts) we were able to walk to our hostel. We ditched our stuff and found dinner, and a lot of it. We had the most ginormous schnitzels. We decided to see if the night market had kicked off yet, but we were too early so we just kept walking. We discovered some open air concerts and beautiful views of the architecture in the twilight. We saw that the philharmonic orchestra is playing tomorrow at 11am and we're going to try to get in after seeing the Boys Choir. Ten minutes left... perfect. There is a bar in this hostel and it is so unbelievable rowdy at the moment. I think its another Contiki Tour. I hope the guy who just got carried outside is ok :S

Well that's it for now.

Ciao (they actually use that a lot here)