Vienna 12/3

Vienna was amazing! We couldn't see much most of the flight there, but when we broke through the clouds just before we landed the entire countryside was completely covered in snow. It was incredibly beautiful and I got very excited. 

Sally, the girl I met in Sevilla who lives in Vienna, had sent me directions on how to meet up with her at the metro near her house. It wasn't a problem at all taking the train then the ubon and then we met her and Will at the station. Will was heading up to Munich to record a CD with his band so there was space for us to stay with Sally. Everything was covered in about 4 inches of fresh snow and it was gorgeous. We headed back to her apartment, which is adorable, and then made tea and figured out what we wanted to do in our 2 days there (2 half days on each end and 1 full day). The Christmas markets there were at the top of our list. It isn't just one Christmas market, but a bunch of little ones all over the city that are each a little bit different.

Sally took us to her favorite ones our first night there. The first place we went we were able to walk to, and it was very cute. In the winter wonderland of the city, it was a circle of little booths in a plaza in front of a giant church. This was the artsiest and craftiest of all the markets we went to. It has very nice and high quality hand made gifts ranging from wood carvings, to hand painted ornaments to many other things. 

One of the things they have at all the markets is "punsch". It is a type of hot punch that comes in many different flavors and has alcohol in it. I think the majority of the flavors were different kinds or combinations of fruit. We went to three Christmas markets, and at each one got a mug of punsch. It not only warms you up being a hot liquid in your hands and while drinking it, but the bit of alcohol it has in it helps keep people warm there too because it is really cold. The first type of punsch I got was apple-pear (Sally had to translate everything for us) which was really good like hot apple cider, then at the next Christmas market we all tried hot coco punsch which was also incredibly delicious and tasted like Christmas, and then the last one I got was eggnog punsch which had a very strong flavor of grenadine with a little eggnog flavoring on top of the whipped cream. Another cool thing about the punsch was that it came in cute little christmas mugs. You had to pay a deposit on the mugs that you got back when you returned the mug but it made it so you could walk around the market with it. There can also be good cheap souvenirs for some people too. 

The next Christmas Market that we went to was the one in front of the Town Hall. The town hall building is huge and magnificent. The market there is probably also one of the larger and more popular ones. There were a couple tour busses there even. Sally told us that people who live outside of the city will take busses in to go to the markets too. These weren't the high levels of individual craftsmanship booths like we had seen before, but each one had its own little theme or type of goods it had there. It was so incredible to be walking around in such a beautiful place filled with so much Christmas spirit. 

One of the things that was absolutely adorable there was what they had inside the City Hall. In there there were many different areas for kids to make their own Christmas presents. There were different little enclosures for painting a cover for a photo album, or making cookies, or different types of arts and crafts things. It was very much something where the kids went in (after their parents paid a little bit of money) and they got to make something completely on their own having everything they need all around them. It seemed like such a great thing and the kids all looked like they were having tons of fun.

We went and explored yet another Christmas market after that and then went out to dinner. Sally took us to a brewery where they make all their own beers and have really good and authentic Viennese food. I got a small mug of their light beer and it was quite good, along with Viennese schnitzel that came with potato salad. Both were delicious. Two of Sally's friends met up with us there and then after that all of us headed back to Sally's apartment. 

Sally made a round of her special cocktail for all of us and we all just hung out there and it was a lot of fun. Another one of her friends came later to hang out too. Around midnight Sally and her three friends all went out to a club to go dancing, but Laura and I just went to bed since we were so exhausted from such a long day having to get up at about 5:30 am this morning to catch our flight.