liz is in the house

and now liz is here! had to meet her the next morning at cafe pruckel by my school. thought i would be there early to kick it for a while but nooooo...somehow she figured out my directions better than i could have imagined and she was there waiting for me.

let me tell you that we had an awesome time in the last few days. i didnt go to school for another three days after budapest so it nice to be out in the city doing whatever i hadn't done yet. we first hit schonbrunn palace, which is like the most famous landmark in the city. i hadn't been there yet though..so it was perfect. this place is massive. and full of awesomeness. even mozart played here when he was six years old. we explored the palace, complete with bedrooms, bathrooms, and ballrooms. and we definitely busted out an amazing waltz on the ballroom floor of this amazing dining room. ya we are THAT cool. explored the grounds outside, played in the leaves that were falling everywhere, ran through a maze, climbed a small mounted to get to this building called the gloriette, which overlooks the city...and played in the childrens playground for...a really long time. probably too long. but it was awesome. lots of laughing involved. always good!

afterwards we found a bar serving the famous weinerschnitzel and of course...beer. perfect combo after a long day of palace-exploring. surprisingly liz wasnt tired yet from the jet-lag...but that was about to change. not only was the schnitzel perfecto..but it was filling. and the beer made both of us sleepy. but we were planning on going to see the ucla architecture chair speak at the school i am at in vienna. kind of a coincidence that he was there. so after we had some delicious german beer, classic austrian food, and random conversation, we walked over and met my friends at school. liz was feeling good after a brisk walk outside on the way to the lecture. but right when we got inside that extra-warm building everything changed. about 3.5 seconds into the talk, liz was passed out next to me. little did she know that she had two more hours to attempt to stay awake through. haha. not a chance. i basically just watched her dose off and nod her head while trying to keep herself upright for the next couple hours. it was great. and after she was pretty much done for. so she, the roommates, and i went back to the hostel to kick it and call it a day. the plan was that liz would crash at our hostel and one of us would sleep on the floor or something..but that instantly became difficult when my renter wasn't around to give me extra blankets. so what did we do?? improvise, of course. share one blanket...on one twin bed. sounds stupid, i know...and you know what? it definitely was. but hilarious for sure! we were like sardines the whole night, and cold sardines i might add...because the heater decided that this night would be the night that it would turn off on its own. of course. that kind of thing has to happen, right?

and since the screen was down over the window, there was no real indication that morning ever came the next day. it was pitch black in our room FOREVER. so when we got up and thought it was like 9 am, it was actually noon. if you do the math right, this means that liz slept about 14.5 hours.........

but there was still plenty of time to see some good stuff. hit the bakery and ate tons of bread/pastries/snacks for breakfast and we to explore some of the downtown buildings and churches that are must-see for liz. today was the day earth decided to snow in vienna. this was pretty dope because the whole time we walked around, while it was freeeezing, everything was awesome because snow flakes were falling on us. saw a lot of cool buildings, and took a lot of funny pictures, as usual. found a series of statues in front of parliament that depict a man seriously punching a horse in a variety of positions. uppercut..right hook...hamaker...you name it. this guy was dominating horses all around parliament. so we dominated some too! explored some streets and alleyways on the way to the opera house, and then made the decision to buy show tickets from some random guy outside the operahouse instead of buying from people in the operahouse. we didnt' get scammed or anything (well, i guess it depends on how you define the word scam), but it wasn't EXACTLY what we had in mind. the reason we chose this show, over the one at the real operahouse, however, was because the operahouse was only showing ballet, whereas this other super-amazing show was going to have music, ballet, waltz, and opera all in one!!! sound to good to be true?? maybe....

but what's a visit to a traditional austrian concert without an awesome story to go with it...

but of course i can't forget talk about what we did in between paying 28 euros for the concert outside the operahouse and actually attending the concert 5 hours later.

found an awesome cafe, called cafe central...and seriously sat there for like 2.5 hrs and just drank coffee, people watched, and eat soup and bread. it was awesome. i ordered some special house coffee drink that had some apricot liquour in it. turned out to taste like i was sipping on a shot of vodka. :) it was reallllly good though. finally we were kicked out because the table became reserved. we weren't good enough to sit there anymore...so we went on an adventure to the danube river for an hour or so before the concert. its a cool place to sit on a bench and look at the river or go for a run on the trails there. kinda like being at caldwell park in the RDG, but a little better. found a grocery store to get some snack for the concert (as if it was a movie where we had to sneak candy into), and ended up with chocolate, a beer, and a radler (a radler is half beer half lemony-goodness). walked back towards the concert place with beers in hand because, well, you can do that in europe!

so, back to the concert. kinda sketch when we got there, but cool nonetheless. we expected a large room, but noooo. it was soo tiny. we were "vip" which actually just meant that we could sit in the first three rows....because there were only like 20 rows total! haha. so we were right in front on the TINY stage, with a bunch of musicians cramped up there and looking really upset about being there. it was obviously a tourist trap that we had entered. the lights didnt even dim. it was bright as day in there when they started playing a little mozart. but i must note that they were awesome musicians. they play really well, so that was good. but the whole situation was a little awkward, and cheesy. the worst part was when they brought out the ballet dancers. i mean, there was ABSOLUTELY no room for them on stage, but somehow they danced there anyways. all the musicians had to move back to the wall as much as they could to allow for the ballet dancers to have some space to twirl a little. haha. so stupid. but hilarious to watch. i scanned to room to see what other people thought. everyone seems to have the "WTF" face on. and so did we! but all in all is was a cool experience, and much for fun to talk about than the "real" ballet at the "real" operahouse.

afterwards we met up with some school friends and went to a bar i hadn't been to yet. it was a little dive cafe playing the best music ever...this old lady had all her record on a bookshelf and she was more busy changing those out then serving us beer. but serve us beer she did! it was a great place, and we got to know my friend alex, a bulgarian, a little better. sat there and talked with him about complete randomness for a couple hours until it was time for him to ride home and time for us to catch the night bus. walked for a while...found piles of leaves...played in them (of course)...got to the bus stop....thought we had 10 minutes to wait...went to the kebap stand...got a delicious kebap...the bus came during that period....we missed the bus....decided to start walking home...bad idea....caught a cab...home in 5 minutes. boom. stupid kebap!