Parker #4: May 31

As promised, we all woke up at 8:30 to start our last full day in Vienna, or as Sam prefers, Wien. There are however, a few technicalities. True, I woke up at 8:30, but whoever wrote the definition of "wake up" failed to specify that one must exit their bed directly upon being startled awake by Sam's alarm that I swear makes me feel like a soldier waking up in the middle of Pearl Harbor under the code red or whatever the worst case scenario alarm is. Anyway after being "gently" forced up at 8:45 I took my morning shower and we made it out only 8 minutes late. (For those of you keeping score at home that's 15 min of extra sleep for Parker and the group only behind schedule by 8 minutes. Totally a net positive…at least for me). As a side note our Hostel's hot water heater is an epic fail and todays shower was the most miserable experience eva.

The rest of the day wasn't really exciting so thats pretty much it. Hope you enjoyed my blog and see ya sometime in Strasbourg.

Update: Sam told me (in words that I wont repeat here) that my wonderfully accurate and concise piece of literature above wasn't quite long enough. He told me to write at least 1500 words so here it is, 1500 WORDS. What now?!

Okay, I'm back again and this time have specific instructions and writing parameters to fulfill in order to be allowed to sleep in the same room as the group for the rest of the trip. Clearly they lack my level of comic genius and great sense of humor. Their loss.

Lets continue…After getting everyone out the door (don't you hate waiting on those slow and lazy people who pull everyone else down) we had a quick breakfast at the local bakery for a second day in a row. We then marched off to see our second palace in Wien, Belvedere: the former Palace for the Prince of Savoy. (Cédric's brief history on the aforementioned prince: "A famous general of Savoy (which is now a region in France where I've been skiing) who helped defeat the Ottoman Turks in the late 17th century" The palace was of course beautiful, although I must admit it was not quite on the scale of Versailles or Schonbrunn. The real attraction was the art held within the palace since it has recently been turned into an art museum. Although I was hopeful to see another amazing palace, the art turned out to be really cool and it was one of Cédric's favorite museums. The highlights for me were the following: A very famous portrait of Napoleon charging uphill that I "remember" studying back in AP Euro. Another was a portrait of a naval battle along with one of a stormy sea that reminded me of my love of water, and finally, The Kiss; a fabulous portrait made of gold and one that Austrians apparently have lots of pride in because the security protecting it was about 500x better than that of the monstrous hunk of gold we saw yesterday.

Normally I would say that our morning at the palace was great and then we moved on to the next part of our day, lunch; however, I instead have a fantastic story to recount. To be fair though, as I said about the club in Praha, it is a story that is better in person but still hilarious. So…….As we were walking back to the metro station, a friendly-enough guy approached us and began speaking in German (Not sure if we've said this yet or not but German is the official language of Austria). We were fully prepared to ignore yet another native trying to sell things to tourists like ourselves but something did seem different; I think it was probably because this gentleman was much older, in a tie, and had the kindly face of a grandfather. Luckily he spoke English quite fluently and once he figured out we were Americans, he explained what he wanted: nothing more than a push for his car which had a dead battery. On the short walk over to his car we discussed our great hometown of Atlanta which he had visited back in 1965 and he thanked us profusely for our help with his car. We happily obliged and gave the tiny European two-door a good shove down a huge hill which he used to get it started. He then drove a few hundred meters, turned around and drove past us with a big wave and smile on his face.

That should have been the last we saw of our improvised friend but to our surprise we ran into him again at the top of the very same hill we had just pushed him down. As we got within a reasonable distance we could see that his car was dead in the middle of a humongous intersection and that he had taken the liberty to step out and give it a good glare. Then, to our shock and infinite delight he said the funniest thing I have heard the entire trip. In the middle of this Viennese intersection the friendly old man shouted at the top of his lungs in perfect English, "My f****** s*** car broke down again!!!!!" I don't think I stopped laughing for at least ten minutes! We pushed him down the hill once more but his beloved car never got started again and he eventually told us to give up. I wish I had a video of the moment because I think for all of us who heard his declaration it was the single-most unexpected and hilarious comment ever!

For lunch we went to Naschmarkt, a giant famous market in downtown Wien. The food was pretty good but not quite filling enough so afterwards we all stopped by the bakery and got, you guessed it, lots more bread. We spent the next 30 or 40 minutes wandering through the market and looking at all the awesome goods. My favorites were things that you could find in America or sometimes even American flags; it just seemed ironic, but most of the market was full of local foods anyway. Both Cédric and Christian got a half-kilo of strawberries and once again it turned out that Christian's eyes were bigger than his stomach (RIP Carlos). Finally, before leaving the market, we got our daily (and often 2x daily) ice cream which was of course fantastic.

After our several courses of lunch in Naschmarkt we then went to the Wien TV Tower which at first seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. We took the metro across the Danube and once we got off basically just walked towards the really, really tall tower. It was much farther than it looked but we did eventually get there safe and sound (although the cross-country slackers did require carrying part of the way) and the tower wasn't actually in the middle of a random forest but in fact in a beautiful city park. After purchasing tickets we then took the super-fast time-warp elevator up to the 165m revolving café and had some way overpriced sodas (at least by US standards). Hopefully this won't scare the parents too much but…..we also walked along the outer platform and contemplated doing their amazingly high bungee jump. The high winds scared all of us away except Sam of course. I never knew his voice could go quite that high but I think he ended up having a blast. Just kidding; no Samuels were hurt or pushed off 165m towers in the writing of this blog.

After going to the tower we finally got to go to a supermarket because everything in Wien is apparently closed on Sundays and by 18:00 every other day. We bought all kinds of chocolate, pretzels, chocolate milk, chocolate, candies, smarties (european M&Ms), waters, and chocolate. We then brought our stockpiles back to the hostel for safekeeping until the 12hr train ride tomorrow and prepared to head out for Henry's long awaited birthday dinner.

After some brainstorming we elected to go to Stephansplatz (a very nice downtown area) and let Henry pick any restaurant he wanted. He chose a fabulous pizza place and we all enjoyed our dinner immensely! Our waiter was awesome and quite funny so in our high spirits we left him a nice tip at the end of our long meal and headed out to get….ICE CREAM! (I think we are going to need ice cream rehab immediately upon arriving home but it is so so so so delicious). In our defense however this instance was not our fault; at least not entirely anyway. We were merely window-shopping when the aggressive lady behind the counter began asking us if we wanted a cup or a cone. Personally I don't remember asking for either but it was clear her patience was wearing thin so we gave in and started ordering before she had a heart attack. As I said before it was delicious though and a great ending to our time in downtown Wien.

Next, at around 21:00 we went back to our Hostel to wrap up our last day here. Now I don't want anyone going "Wait, 21:00, thats only 9:00! Those losers are in Europe and going to bed at 9:00!" so hold your horses because we had good reason. After catching up on facebook, blogging, phone calls, and emails we were just about done for the day, especially since we must get up at 5:45 to catch our train to Strasbourg tomorrow morning.

The last thing that happened before lights out though was way more than I needed right before trying to go to bed. Now for my own safety, I am obligated to give a disclaimer. WARNING: the following story is from the perspective of myself, Parker Leinbach, and may or may not bear any relevance on the truth.

It all started like this. Throughout the entire trip I have been teamed up on by the Wahoos (Cédric and for some reason Christian) just for my being a Hokie. Now I know this may upset some of you at home but I assure you it is all in good fun and Wahoos are too dumb to know better anyway. The arguments and bickering came to a climax at today's end probably because I chose to hide a worthless and meaningless possession of Cédric's: his UVa sweatshirt. We then continued battling (as I'm sure many of you have seen before) until the others were tired of it all. I want it noted that in all instances I am a victim and either Cedge or Xian are the instigators. The turning point was a particularly vicious comment on my stature. Here is the real story; they will concur that this part at least is true.

Preface: Cédric steals my jacket and I climb down from my top bunk to retrieve it.
Christian: "Who do you think you are? Justice riding in on your high horse?"
Parker: "Yes in fact I AM justice riding in on a noble white stallion"
Christian: "Don't you mean a white pony?"

Okay laugh all you want—they certainly did—but for the record, Christian is only about 1 inch taller than me, and we are all average height or higher anyway…whatever; the others get lots of entertainment from their jokes so I'll let it slide. The night ended quite nicely actually with the French Horn Accordances of Vienna, stating that Virginia is in fact the best state for all institutions of higher education and that FHD is a truly symbolic characteristic of life. Exact terms to follow.

Peace and love from Wien, Parker