The “Danielle” house semester trip, and my first adventure to a country outside the UK!
Vacationing doesn’t mean we have to do everything. This is something I still need to learn. Sometimes a burger is the better option than a local meal. The best part of my trip can be sitting down and writing, even though I can write anywhere.
We landed in Vienna this afternoon. (Excerpt from my journal, dated 18-9-26)
Vienna wasn’t a destination I would’ve chosen for myself. The only thing I knew about it was that Billy Joel kept promising it was “waiting for me,” and that it was selected by Samford for our group trip. Picking the hotel, buying the plane tickets, all of that wasn’t up to me, and that worked well. I had almost no time the week before to do any research, in fact, when we landed in Vienna, I was caught off guard by realizing that they essentially only speak German. Needless to say, I didn’t walk in with the best preparation, but the way the rest of the trip fell into place was magical in spite of this.
Because of delays on our flights over, by the time we got checked-in to our hotel, there was no time to go anywhere before we left as a group to watch a football match! My hotel roommates (Emmy, Cat, Ellie, and Joelle) and I got a quick lunch of burgers and had a picnic in our room before getting ready to go. That football match was the most insane experience of my life. Mercifully, we were not in the main fan section, but we were in the thick of it enough to feel like we were going deaf. The chanting and roaring never stopped. Flags were flying, chants were hollered, and even a few flares were sent off. I had my first german wurst and did my best to understand what the locals were saying around me when they tried to explain the chants to me.
A picture taken in the aftermath of the match! (Our team won!!)
After the tour, we made our way to a cafe that Cat and I had been looking forward to visiting since we found out we were going to Vienna, called Volpension, a cafe run by “grandmas” and “grandpas.” On a whim, I ordered blindly without easy access to an English menu, which turned out to be a beautiful brunch of eggs on toast!
Cat and I at Volpension!
Then, our group set out for the Austrian National Library, enjoying the sights and live music along the way. After, I took a walk by myself around the Albertina, enjoying the Picasso and Bacon exhibits on display. We finished out day up at a concert for Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, making the most of Vienna’s music scene.
For our last day, Cat, Ellie, and I took a walk around, on the hunt for a good cafe to have breakfast. We ended up settling on a place with a good english menu and fantastic french toast!
After, we took a walk to Schönbrunn Palace and gardens. I got a chance to walk alone for a while and really soak in all that I had done and seen before joining the rest of the girls at the top of a hill to enjoy the view of the city below!
To finish off the day, Tom took us to a Mexican restaurant (I got the BEST corn tortilla tacos with pork and pineapple!). It was lovely seeing everyone come back together to recap all the adventures we had gone on before we all made our way back to the hotel to grab our luggage and head to the airport. It was so encouraging to see how different I felt riding the U-Bahn (their version of the subway) on the way back to the airport in contrast to the confusion and worry I experienced when I first arrived. So much time has passed since then. I’ve visited more countries, I’ve seen other museums, and tried hundreds of different coffees, but that feeling has stuck around. The feeling that I enjoy travel a lot more than I ever thought I could. That there are thousands of places just waiting for me, and Billy Joel was right when he promised me that Vienna was one of them.
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