Rainy day and Phil-Harmonious night

Rainy day and Phil-Harmonious night

Vienna, Austria, Europe

Today was a pretty crappy and rainy day here in Vienna. The weather made it pretty difficult to do anything worthwhile, so I spent most of the day inside. I left the hostel around 11am and went to check out the rest of the city center that I missed yesterday. It turns out that I saw almost everything yesterday, so there wasn’t much more to see today. I wasn’t feeling in a very museum-y mood, so I had to find something else to do. I watched sports.

I first went to Burger King where they had big screen TVs showing the French Open tennis, so I got a drink and hung out there for about an hour. I left there, hoping the rain had subsided, but it hadn’t. So I moved on to the most obvious place in the world to find sports on TV, an Irish pub. Of course I found one pretty easily, considering there is at least one Irish pub in every city in the world. They put the tennis on for me and I was able to watch Nadal finish off his unseeded opponent in straight sets.

At 4pm I went down to Stephensplatz to meet Andy from my hostel. We found another pub that was showing the tennis, and this place had a happy hour, score! We had a couple of beers each and got to watch Andy Murray dispose of his feeble competition in straight sets as well. Finally at about 6pm the rain stopped so we headed out. We got a bite to eat on the way and then headed outside of the city center to a palace called Schonbrunn.

Luckily Andy had heard about this special event that was going on tonight, because I would have totally missed it. This was the one night a year that the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra put on a free show in the park at Schonbrunn Palace. It was amazing! It reminded me a bit of the Boston Pops performing at the Hatch Shell, except this was at an awesome palace in Vienna. There was a famous conductor along with a famous Chinese pianist performing, and I guess they both did a great job, because they sounded great.

Andy and I hung out there for about an hour and fifteen minutes and then headed off a bit early. We figured that with the thousands of people there, we’d be better off to leave early and get on the metro while we could. Plus, with all the walking I’ve done in the last few days, and this crappy weather, my knees are killing me. I’m back at the hostel now and it feels good to just sit down. It’s a shame that the weather wasn’t better for the few days I was here, but I’ll definitely be coming back to Vienna someday. This is a beautiful city, and I don’t think I got to see it in all its glory yet. Anyway, tomorrow I’m off to Ljubljana, and I’m hoping for better weather when I get there!

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