Striking Oil in Wien

We arrived very late in Wien in the pouring rain and just went straight to bed in our hostel far from the city centre.

The next morning we enjoyed a decent complimentary breakfast before going for a walk down the donau river towards the city centre. Vienna has really cool architecture and one really weak park. We went there for lunch but found unkept grass, a gigantic concret tower that looked like it was going to fall apart if only one more pidgeon landed on it, and what we assumed used to be flower beds. The bakery near there was terrible too and it was cold all morning. We continued our walk where we found a satue of a hand holding an oil well that read something like "oil will bring wealth to the poor". We were extremely confused until we turned around and saw four letters O-P-E-C. Not long before this I learned that a person from Vienna is a Wiener: I threw that into my Luxemburger bin.

The city centre was pretty enough but not the best we have seen. Also it was cold... The Dom was somewhat interesting to look at. We saught out the Canadian Embassy: it was hard to find and was squeezed in between a police office and a urine testing centre . With the cost of the euro we assumed it went for cheap rent. We were on our way to get some cheap tickets when some guys stopped us and gave a good deal on a Mozart and Strauss concert. We helped a blind lady cross the street before going for some german food then rushed to the concert. The concert was good (I think), but all the audience did was film and take pictures of it on their digital cameras (so I joined in occasionally). Afterwards we strolled through a nearby park (much prettier than the first one) and took pictures with golden Strauss.

The next day we tried to see everything we had not seen up to that point before our 16 hour overnight train to amsterdam. We caught more of the city and more parks and another mozart statue and more cold temperatures. We saw a really cool monument dedicated to the Soviets for liberating Wien and a quote from stalin saying that now there would be peace... We took pictures on Dumasstrasse and had lunch in a place that employs the unemployed and makes great food. We had a nice apple strudel there. We then went to the park to lay in the sun and try to warm up before heading home in the rain.

That night just before boarding the train I started sneezing violently and drank lots of water, Port and candian whisky to try to heal myself but it just wouldnt work. We had an entire cabin to ourself so we slept well all the way to amsterdam.