Day 4 – Vienna

I was super excited today because we were going to see penguins (my favourite animal). Unfortunately not at the South Pole, but at the zoo. The zoo itself was either one of the biggest, or best or something, I can’t quite remember what it was but we were going anyway. Before the zoo however, Schoenbrunn Palace and Gardens was our first stop, A few subway stops away from the hostel, we were serenaded by busking violinists playing actually really difficult pieces flawlessly. After passing these, and the thousands of tour buses, which actually seemed to be going in the opposite direction, we arrived and the grounds were massive. A massive palace surrounded by gardens and paths as far as you could see. The sky was clear blue and it was so sunny that we felt the need to call home. I called my friends (one of whom was out the night before, and forgetting the time difference, I woke him up a little too early than he would have liked), my mum and gran. My girlfriend also rang her dad, though as he was working, he didn’t answer his phone. Instead, he had spent the rest of the day ringing me thinking something bad had happened (my phone was on airplane mode to conserve battery like a true adventurer).

A stroll through the romantic gardens, taking pictures of the palace and each other, led us up the hill opposite the palace, where there was a big lump of sculptured rock called the Gloriette. You had to pay to go to the roof and get an extra 25m height to your panoramic view of Vienna but as my girlfriend said… “It’s going to look the same anyway”. We decided to spend the money in a more productive way and buy a tub of fruit to keep us going as a snack. It was finished by the time we got to the zoo entrance, a different entrance than I had planned to go to as I didn’t even know this one existed. Thankfully we did though as there was no queue and we walked right on in. The first couple of things we saw were cows, horses and donkeys…almost thought I was back home in Ireland for a few minutes. Thankfully, the zoo picked it up to some animals that aren’t accustomed to the fields in Ireland. Polar bears, large pandas, koalas, hippos and crocodiles were some of our favourite, as well as lion, tigers, cheetahs, rhinos, flamingos and a few wild rats.

For lunch, we had frankfurter hot dogs beside the penguin exposure to keep in line with the culture. The penguins had an outdoor section and an indoor section and I was in my element for at least 20minutes. They even had a penguin water fountain outside that we could fill up our water. Of course you didn’t have to ask me twice. Just before leaving, we stumbled upon the panda ‘hut’ and noticed that feeding time was in 10mins. We decided to wait and get front row seats. On queue, the zookeeper entered and started bringing in big bundles of bamboo, then some more, and more, and more. The room was empty when we entered and she had now turned it into a forest. You couldn’t even see the Panda. Not to be rude, we thought we would let the Panda finish his dinner and we opted to leave the zoo.

It was such a long and pleasurable day, but our legs were tired and we just wanted to rest for a while. We lay by a water fountain in the gardens and what was meant to be 5 mins turned into 40 mins. Other couples were doing the same, so it must have been romantic. Just kidding, it was. I kept imagining organising a formal event here, now that would be fantastic! My 21st is coming up soon and it is a great venue…

We were too lazy to even try and look at restaurants on our way home so we decided to just eat at the hostel and chill in the lobby, planning our next stay and organising the trains. We ordered 2 pizzas as they were the cheapest and we expected that they would make them there and then in a few minutes, as you would think. No. After 50mins we were now very hungry and puzzled at where our food was. It was then we saw a delivery man enter the hostel with two pizzas. What a coincidence. Then the receptionist pointed to us. The pizza man started in our direction, as did the eyes of all the other guests in the hostel lobby. The hostel had actually ordered our food from a local pizzeria (they must do this for all their food)!!!! I really didn’t want a take away but I guess it was too late. We probably could have ordered one ourselves and got it here faster too. Anyway, food is food when your traveling and we finished it, along with our planning and headed back to our room to once again, lose ourselves in the stories of our Canadian explorers. They went to explore the Vienna sewers… Sounds fun, but I saw penguins. I think we all know who won that round.