Tschus, DeutschAkademie: Hello, even more Free Time

My final day in Vienna for my German course was really nice. It was a Thursday, and I was free to stay in the city for as long as I wanted, so I did. I had planned to meet up with Andrea, but not until 7pm, which left me 6 hours to roam about and occupy myself. This is what cities are good for.

Naturally, I came prepared for this occasion. I had a good book that I was hoping to finish, so I asked Sarah where a good coffee shop was. First of all I did indeed need some coffee and a snack and also a good environment for reading. She wasn't totally sure where to direct me, but I ended up just going to a McCafe on the Mariahilfe Strasse. Let me just make something clear, the McDonald's McCafes here are legitimate coffee shops. Granted they have the McDonald's part attached to them too, but these ones have a special area that is just for the McCafe and they also sell all the gourmet looking baked goods that a Starbucks or someplace like that would sell. I was told that they were actually quite tastey, so I ordered a blueberry muffin along with my caramel macchiato. I was most pleased with both items. Now, the environment...left more to be desired, that is for sure.

It's not that it lacked the capacity to have a nice coffee shop vibe, not at all. It just so happened that I was there at lunch time and it was very busy. I was content enough, though, and stayed to observe and to read my book. The disturbing part was that there was a group of 4 girls sitting right across from me. They looked to be anywhere from 13-16, which made me think, "Why aren't you in school?" Seriously, the school hours here are so so different. It seems that there are school aged children walking about at all times when they should all be in school. I have no idea what it is, but I know that I like it in the US better. I like knowing that when I'm out in public between the hours of about 8am until about 2 or 2:30pm, the stores and coffee shops will be void of children and LOUD teenagers. I'm telling you, these 4 girls were obnoxious; it made me miss my Starbucks on Chicago Avenue, Naperville, IL. Luckily, they left and I had a few moments of "quiet" before I myself headed out to meet up again with Sarah.

We walked around, discovered more and reasons why we think we were separated at birth, laughed a lot, and then she tried to help me decide where I was to go next. I still had about 4 hours or so to kill...

I thought I would just walk around the Ring and actually stop and see some of the buildings that I hadn't so far. There are so many buildings and they all look old and pretty and really important, even if they're not really that important. In that respect, it's hard to know if you're looking at one of these "famous" buildings. I just wanted to point that little fact out.

Anyway, I made it to the Parliament building. I had not been on the part of the Ring yet; I was sure of that. It was getting to be 5pm and it was mostly cloudy, but I snapped a few photos anyway.

Since this was the last week in September, I figured they were getting ready to honor  Breast Cancer awareness month- October- with the Pink ribbon. Really neat!

The Police were starting to put the fences up in front.

Yeah, you show that horse who's boss.

The side of the building

It was a leisurely walk passed; there were still a decent number of tourists there taking pictures, so it was hard to get really good shots, but that's okay. I'm sure I'll be back; more photos can be seen here though: more
As I crossed the street, I saw a little park positioned between this building and another one, but I couldn't tell what it was. It was on my map, so I knew where I was. It said it was some sort of Judicial building. It was a nice little park, so I sat down there, in the peace and quiet - minus the sounds on the street, which are much more pleasant than high-pitched girls' voices - and finished my book, Surprised by Joy, C.S. Lewis. It was such a great book! I feel like now that I've read that and know his story from his own perspective it will only enhance my experience of his other works. Besides the Narnia series, I have only read mere excerpts and small portions of his other writing, so I am excited to get to them. I decided though, to take a break from Lewis and read somebody else instead. It is only to build my excitement that much more. My goal while I am here, reading wise, is to always have one novel and one non-fiction/spiritual growth book going at the same time. So far, so good.

The little path there was in the design of a wheel, or at least that's what it looked like.

Yes, these bird are everywhere and can be annoying; however, I do enjoy their red feet and the shininess of the feathers around their neck.

All finished. But I won't be surprised if I read it again while I'm here :)

Once I finished the book, I had a little more than an hour to go. I decided to just go to the Stephansplatz and see what I could see. Plus I was hungry, so I needed some fooood! There were lots of people about, as always on the Stephansplatz. I walked along the backside of the Stephansdom, which I had never really though to do until then. There was a really pretty statue and a better view of the tiled roof, so that was cool. Since it was Thursday, most of the shops were still open for at least another hour, so that was providential. I saw a bookstore and went inside. It was small, but had a lot to offer, especially in the religious section. I think being stationed right behind a famous Catholic cathedral may have something to do with that, but then again, maybe not. I went downstairs to the children's section, and it was so cute. I just love bookstores :)  They only had a very small standing swivel wire rack of English books containing authors like John Grisham, Nora Roberts, and the like. After I left the bookstore, I window shopped all along the street. There was this sweet little shop, closed unfortunately, that sold little figurines and really pretty wooden nativity scenes. I didn't see the prices, but I am curious; they were really nice looking and would make a nice gift and/or memento of my time here. There are so many designer stores and things are so so expensive, but it is fun to look. I went into one shoe store, but only to look.

My stomach was talking pretty loudly by now, so I stopped at a hot dog stand. Now, these are not your average hot dogs. The bun is at least 10'' long and they have a machine that makes a whole in the middle of it for the sausage, and then you get to pick what kind of sausage you want and if you want ketchup, mustard, etc. It is pretty cool and way less messy than an American hot dog because all the ketchup is inside the bun. It sort of sinks do the bottom, but still, it's great. I walked around some more, and along the way to a bench, I saw this street performer. He was dressed as a raggedy clown and making huge bubbles, like the size of a 4-yr old. He had hand-crafted his tools, that was apparent. He was using two sticks with string tied to each of them. He made sure the sticks were touching at the ends, dunked the whole string part into the special soap mixture, took it out, and then gradually moved the two sticks apart to create these massive bubbles. There were several little kids gathering around to watch and to possibly try it themselves. Neat. Then a few meters up the walk, there where these two guys just sitting and playing accordions. They were amazing. I stood and watched for a while and was totally blown away.

I finally sat down, finished my hot dog, and waited for Andrea to show up. When she did, we walked to another place, had some hot chocolate (which you need to add sugar too because it is not sweet at all!), and caught up. We were both pretty tired, so we didn't stay long, but it was worth the wait to spend a bit of time together.

And that's the story of my last day of my German course.

By the way, I order all my food in German, even "American" things like hot dogs.

~Sarah