Vienna & Budapest

Upon arriving in Vienna I had a great struggle trying to find my hostel. My new rule for foreign-language countries is that you shouldn’t follow anyone’s directions unless you can get it confirmed by at least one more person. I got soo many bad directions, but eventually found my way. The hostel was really really nice, even better than Bratislava! I met an Aussie guy at the hostel and we went to a “traditional” Austrian pub for dinner.. Though, I had gnocchi.. So that’s not very Austrian! Oops!

Mozart!

I have actually been to Vienna before (briefly) and all I remember doing is going to a palace, a schnapps factory/museum, and eating schnitzel! So there was definitely still plenty to see.. The following day I got up early in order to make the most of my one and only day in Vienna. However, I had to carry my bag with me all day, so it was a bit difficult. Luckily I left my suitcase at Fiona’s apartment in London so I only had a carry-on-type bag. Still heavy enough to be a pain. I got a metro into the first district, which is basically where all the sights are. I wandered through Burg Garten where I found a statue of Mozart (who once lived in Vienna) as well as some other significant Austrians; mostly musicians. I passed the Opera House, which is absolutely stunning. All of Vienna is quite picturesque; with gorgeous buildings and very clean streets.

Beethoven

Eventually I made my way to the “House of Music” museum. Vienna, and Austria in general, is known for its music and musicians; as it is home to Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Strauss, and many others.. In the museum I found out quite a lot about various Austrian musician’s.. I thought Beethoven was the most interesting: he was so difficult to live with that he lived in almost 70 different houses/apartments in his 35 years in Vienna! He also had a difficult love life..Not hard to imagine why, if he’s that difficult to live with. There was also a section of the museum devoted to general knowledge about sound and the human ear. The first room was meant allow you to “re-live your experience of being inside the womb” by having sounds coming from all directions that are like what you’d hear before birth. Weird. I also tested my threshold for hearing, and learnt about the Shephard Scale- a trick on the ear that leads you to believe you are hearing an ever-ascending scale. You could also conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (via video) – and due to some fancy technology, their tempo was actually dictated by your movements. If you went at inconsistent or ridiculously fast speeds they’d stop playing, all turn and grunt at you while a voice over announcing that you were doing a terrible job! Very cool.

After that I grabbed lunch- goulash soup! Yum! I continued wandering through town, on my way to the bus stop. I passed through what seemed to be the main shopping street; full of clowns making balloon animals, buskers singing or playing guitar, and even a dance crew. The street seemed like it would be gorgeous at night, with all the Christmas decorations, but sadly I couldn’t be around to see it! I also would have really liked to go to the Sigmund Freud museum (in his former house) as I found his theories really interesting when I studied psychology at school. All the more reason to come back.

I got a bus to Budapest, which arrived at about 7pm. I met up with my uncle, Robin, and we went back to his apartment, to see the rest of the family! Leda (5 yo) I had met once before, three years ago when I first came to Budapest, but Milo (2 yo) I had never met before, so it was lovely to spend a bit of time with them We had dinner, I read the kids a story, and then had an early night. The next day Robin was working & Marie was working from home because she was sick. I spent most of the day playing with the kids- very easy to entertain with games and crafts and even a trip to the local park. I didn’t have any time to do anything touristy in Budapest, but given that I had been there before it’s not the end of the world. I enjoyed spending time getting to know my little cousins. Aren’t they adourable?