Easter Holiday Part 2

After our time in Prague, we packed up our stuff and took a train to Austria. It’s crazy to me that in Europe you can jump on any train and within a few hours be in a completely new country, with a different culture and different languages spoken. My only impression of Austria was that the Sound of Music was filmed there, but sadly that was on the western side near Germany and Vienna is near Hungary on the complete opposite side. That didn’t stop me from constantly having the soundtrack of the movie stuck in my head though…

Vienna was beautiful, and similar to every other large city in Europe, filled with giant cathedrals, castles and palaces, luscious green parks, cafes on every corner, and a unique twist, unlike most, horse carriage rides. The beauty of being in the beautiful cathedrals near Easter as we were able to witness the beautiful sounds of the marvelous grand organs being played throughout the weekend. I would never describe myself as being musically talented, and I’ve never played an instrument, but sitting in the massive cathedrals and getting to listen to such strong yet peaceful music is something I will never take for granted. The notes move you in such a way that you’re hypnotized and the beauty of it is that every single person coming in to listen all have different religious beliefs and backgrounds, but this one thing has the ability to capture an entire crowd’s attention and keep them silent and peaceful in a place of worship. Maybe the Catholics were on to something.

The highlight of Vienna for me was the Austrian National Library. If you know me, you know I always have a book in hand…so walking into the grand, what felt more like a ballroom, library was my heaven. This may not have been the best thing because now I only want my library at home to replicate the exact room down to every painting and bookcase, nothing else will suffice. Maybe one day if I’m rich enough I’ll just build my own.

Now something Abby and I did not know about Vienna was the love for their prestigious Austrian horses. Hence why there were so many horse carriages in the streets and men in long tuxedos and top hats guiding them through the city. When we learned of this, we decided that we had to watch the famous Spanish Riding School show and see what all of the hype was about. Yes, it is called the “Spanish”, because the person who took it over was a Spaniard, but that’s beside the point. We were excited and honestly coming from someone who was born and raised in the South I was excited to compare the type of horse riding and shows we were used to back home to this one. Knowing what experience we had in Prague at the theatre, I don’t know why I expected this show to be any different…but to summarize the entire thing, for an entire hour eight white horses essentially trot around to classical music with chandeliers hanging above them. Not exactly your Dixie Stampede, more so a horse ballet, but it was an opportunity to witness another culture’s proud traditions, and I’m just happy we paid for the cheapest tickets. All in all, though, Vienna was beautiful, and we ate our weight in the traditional Sacher torte cake, which is just chocolate cake but better, and coincidentally Abby ate in Prague not knowing what it was. I debated adding this in, but traveling is all about the fun crazy stories that come along with the trip, and Abby and I now have a great story of our time in Vienna.

The metro stations in both Prague and Vienna were the exact same, you walk in, no one checks tickets and there isn’t even a booth to scan them, you can just walk in and get on a train. Now, we did know that you were supposed to buy them, and we did the first day, but we wanted to test our luck and didn’t buy any more after…which was going well until our second to last day in Vienna. The sneaky policemen pulled out their badges and asked for our tickets and it was too late…once they realized we had none we were pulled off the train and had to pay for the crime. So let this be a lesson to all…be a good citizen and buy your train tickets…even if you think you can get away with it. Our luck did turn around though because the next day we had business class tickets on our plane ride home, so we went from criminals to sitting first class in a matter of twenty-four hours, truly spectacular! We ended the trip with one last day in Bilbao and then I sadly had to say goodbye to Abby…but it was a trip to remember, and we walked away with amazing memories and even greater stories to tell!