Off to the land of Mozart and Beethoven!!

Just days after I had returned from my amazing weekend in the Basque Country, I was off to Vienna with Christina. Since I've been here, I don't think I have ever done two big trips consecutively like this, so it was a bit overwhelming. Of course, I can't complain...both trips were incredible! I made it through the work week, still exhausted and a bit under the weather...but noenetheless excited for my next adventure. And an adventure...it certainly was!! If anyone remembers the story of my trip to Budapest with Christina, you know that it was great, but certainly not without some stress, improvising, and adventure. I have come to expect that travelling with Christina is always a lot of fun (we never seem to run out of things to talk and laugh about) and very efficient (we both love to see and do a lot!) but also always ends with some sort of exciting, funny story to tell! We start this adventure at 3:15 in the am, when we wake up and get ready to head out (Christina had "slept" over at my place the night before..."slept" in quotes because we didn't really do much sleeping). We walked towards Calle Princesa where we waited for the night bus for 20 minutes. We needed to take a bus to get to the airport bus..and when the first bus didn't arrive, we ended up takng a cab. Then, eventually, we got on the airport bus and made our way to the airport. We arrived, went through security, and got to our gate, exhausted but excited for the trip. Suddenly, though, we noticed that the screen at the gate no longer had our flight posted. So, I got up to look at the screen to see if there had been a change of gate and sure enough our flight was cancelled..yes, CANCELLED!! So...since it was 6 am and there was no one in the gate to talk to, we had to go back out, and basically all the way around the airport to get back to check-in (took about 15 mins). Luckily, we were flying Lufthansa, which is an airline that works to get you on another flight if you have problems. Also, luckily, there was a flight going to Vienna through Munich, leaving just an hour after our flight was supposed to leave. So, long story short, it all worked out in the end, but not without some panic and stress. We finally arrived at our hostel around 2 or 3 pm, and decided to walk to a restaurant that we had read about in our guide book (courtesy of a Madrid public library). After a bit of wandering ( a very scenic walk) and trouble with the map, we finally found the restaurant. We were the only people eating at that time (it was alreayd 4 pm by the time we got there), but the waitress was very friendly and served us no problem. The food was really great and a good find. We spent the rest of the afternoon just wandering around the city, walking by the opera house, the cathedral, and some of the other major sites. When we walked by the opera house, there were several men dressed up as Mozart, attempting to sell tickets for the show that night. Christina and I had bought tickets in advance, so when one of them men approached me, i politely replied that we already had tickets. Well, he started to talk to me, telling me how much he liked my hair, and before u know it..he was asking me to date him, basically. We ended up running into him after the show and he told me again how much he liked me, and another "long story short"...I was proposed to by "Mozart" (well that part was a joke for sure, but it makes for a good story). Anyway, Christina and I went to see a Don Quijote ballet at the Statstoper opera house, which was absolutely incredible. THe building is quite the sight to see, both inside and out, and the show was also really great. But, to "Mozart's" dismay, after the show, we were exhausted after a night of little sleep,a nd wanted to rest up for what we knew would be a very busy Saturday. Saturday certianly was busy...we really crammed in a lot in one day (there was just soo much we wanted to see). We started off the day with a delicious breakfast at Cafe Central, one of the oldest and most famous cafes in Vienna. The cafe was literally part of a palace, and it looked it!! It was so elegant, you really felt like you were amongst the literary and musical elite :) We also met a very friendly Viennese man at the cafe, who told us about the history of the cafe and palace, and well as other suggestions about Vienna and about travelling in Europe in general. Then we continued walking around, enjoying the beautiful weather, and taking in all of the sights (every building seemed to be magnificently beautiful!). We saw three different royal palaces, a square with museums, the national library, the cathedral and much more. Also, we went to the outdoor market by our hostel for a lunch of stuffed olives and peppers, homemade bread, hummus, and fresh Austrian cheese. That evening, we headed to Kursalon, another beautiful concert hall, for a night of fine dining and wonderful music. We had purchased a combo dinner-show ticket, so we got to eat a nice, long dinner at the restaurant at the concert-hall. We had some delicious cream of turnip soup, salmon, and some very ineresting desserts. We were by far the youngest patrons, but we enjoyed being classy and sophisticated :) And, the concert was incredible, probably my favorite part of the trip. It was a Strauss/Mozart concert, perfomed by a chamber orchestra, occasionally accompanied by dancers (Viennese waltz) and opera singers. The music was great and reminded me how much i miss playing my clarinet and being involved with classical music! Plus, we got lucky with our seats...we didn't realize that we didn't have assigned seats. Apparently we were just in a certain section, and people were seated on a first-come, first-served basic. Well, as we didn't realize this, we showed up only a few mins before the show, and the room was already almost full. But, I guess the guy assigning the seats liked us, because he allwoed us to sit in the second row on the side, right by the stage, which was definitely not what we paid for! The next morning, we checked out of the hostel, got another yummy breakfast at a Viennese cafe, and headed to the airport..back to Madrid once again!