Five_X

Hi hello this is a blog about a trip I took to Europe this August, with lots of pictures and stuff. This first episode is all about the initial leg of the journey, which took place in Vienna, Austria. I meant to type this up earlier but I was despairing about how to get my pictures from my phone to the computer, then realized they're all in Google already so I'm good.

The trip to Europe from Canada was ordinary: I took a bus, got on a plane, landed, then got on another plane and landed. The first flight was with Lufthansa, which is of course very definitely nice, and the second was with Austrian Airlines, which I've never flown with. This absolute meme airline blared the Blue Danube waltz as we were boarding and that's pretty much when I knew I was descending into an absolutely silly country, I'm sorry I3uster.

Speaking of my good friend I3uster, when I landed in Vienna I awkwardly skulked around a bit until I found him by a McDonald's in the airport, we shared a cute hug, and pretty much immediately ran off to his house where I was staying. I3uster is a man who truly understands me, and the first thing we actually went and did was go get Viennese food from a restaurant near his house. Of course I had schnitzel:



It came with a cute little potato salad thing that seems to be common in Vienna I guess. I3uster had Radler (much more on that later) and some cheese roll thing because he's an alcoholic vegetarian and isn't that one hell of a combo. I didn't actually finish eating because a) the schnitzels were huge and I wasn't prepared for that and b) a few fucking chadwasps kept messing with our food and our drinks and wouldn't go away. Summer in Europe is hell.

Then we ran off to see the city centre and do the usual tourist things, of course. We could've seen more maybe but I3uster was an awkward tour guide and forgot the layout of the land of his mortal allegiance and I forgot a map or anything. NB, this was before I learned Google Maps works offline.


The Rathaus, haus of the rats


Burgtheatre, theatre for burgs (courtesy of Kaiser Franz Josef I)


Monument of Empress Mom and in the background a museum full of things nabbed/shot in the name of the Kaiser



BIG CHURCH

And then we went back to I3uster's house, I finished my leftover schnitzels, and we watched Your Name and it was great and I cried again.

--Dawn of the Second Day--

Uhh today I3uster roped me into going to his local nerd weeb convention that was kind of small. At the con, we mostly were there for some kind of Austrian auction where they basically sold off youths to do the bidding of strangers in the audience, because this is a nation of very moral and trusting people, you see. One of the people on auction was a Roman though, goddamn I missed out, why didn't I bid on this , fuck,



Then I3uster and some of his weed-loving weebfriends and I went for lunch and got burgers. Good burgers! Burgeristo or something, I think it was called? Wild place, basically Austrian Five Guys and instead of regular cups you drank from jars, it was good times.



Then we hopped back to the con and tried to endure the cosplay skit competition but the cosplay was lame and the skits were, um

ummmmmmm

I3uster didn't last

Afterwards, I3uster and I went to visit some more of his friends, who lived in some weird cold 19th century apartment or something. We watched weird Euro music videos and listened to 80s music and disco polo while drinking Radler, it was p wild. Absolute madlads. Radler is absolutely A+ stuff by the way, definitely one of the top things I miss from Europe. Good, blessed beer, I could continue drinking it to the end of my days. Then we played the Game of Thrones board game!

[img]http://i.imgur.com/sxd2ljd.jpg[img]

My beloved friend I3uster fell defending his tiny island, but his defeat was enough of a distraction for the great power of me, the Baratheon house, to muscle down to Dorne and work my way up to conquer enough sexy Spanish castles to win the game. You can't spell Baratheon, after all, without bara. It's a strange game though; there's not a whole lot of variety and there's nothing like a Targaryen invasion or anything, so it feels like it's missing something to be filled through an expansion as these sorts of board games tend to do.

At some point we meant to get slavburgers (more on those later) but it ended up being late and we forgot and didn't end up getting anything but it was ok.

--Dawn of the Third Day--

Today I was supposed to take a boat trip to Bratislava, but it turns out this is a very popular and cute boat and it was Saturday, so no spaces were left. Perfidious Danubians. So, I3uster took me to the Natural History Museum instead, where we gawked at lots of animals shot and stuffed for the glory of Kaiser Franz Josef, all held in a nicely opulent 19th century building.



~O P U L E N C E~


I hear this one is some kawaii anime girl or smth


You will never be as surprised by anything as this dead fish

After napping there for a bit then finishing the rest of the exhibits (halfway through, I3uster had to head off, but the adventure did not end here), I went to check out the main plaza where a lot of the cool stuff is located. Note this was the only uniformly grey day of the whole trip, so the pictures are sad, but maybe that's deep and meaningful I don't know.


Gate to the Heldenplatz


Glorious Archduke Charles, smasher of Napoleon, almost literally declared a god by the Austrians (more, again, on him later)


Welcome to Hofburg, home of the Hofburger


Eternal glory to Kaiser Franz Josef, as usual


Another big fancy gate, this one leading to the Spanish Riding School

It started raining, so I went to a nice little cafe to escape the temporary downpour, getting an overpriced burger and a tasty, classic Vienneze apple strudel, another national dish taken care of:




After that was to the Schatzkammer, the Imperial Treasury where all the sweet goods of the emperors are kept, like imperial and royal regalia, reliquaries, and a good number of fancy, fancy swords. Being the emperors they were, the Habsburgs did manage to gather up a good amount of shiny loot in their capital, even if it's not quite as magnificent as the great imperialist plunderings of the Brits.


Porcelain bowl alleged to be the HOLY GRAIL since it's got "Christ" written in cracks in Greek on it, spooky


A fragment of the TRUE CROSS, +3 Piety/month


Spearhead of the HOLY LANCE, infused with a nail from the TRUE CROSS


The intensely gaudy crown of the Holy Roman Emperors, also my much-less-gaudy hands



The Sword of Altera Attila, which is also the sword of Charlemagne, A++ rank Noble Phantasm, but not very rainbow-y

There were also some wild things in there like a piece of Jesus' loincloth and a square from the tablecloth of the Last Supper because really, holy reliquaries in the Middle Ages was just a game of gotta catch 'em all and if you didn't just sort of make a bunch and try to pass them off as the real deal you were a medieval scrub who didn't deserve a brass throne.


Back outside: Roman ruins underneath medieval ruins underneath 19th century ruins underneath a modern street for people to gawk at.


The Parliament! Kind of a bit sad-looking, if I'm being honest.


The Volksgarten, in front of the Heldenplatz

After I wandered around there for a while I3uster was done with convention things and all that, so we met up again and went to the excellently-named restaurant, Wienerwald, where I again feasted on more traditional Viennese foods.



This time I had tafelspitz, boiled beef with potatoes and lots of toppings, the favourite food of Kaiser Franz Josef. It was like heaven on my tongue, the distillation of true ambrosia, and honestly the best thing I ever ate while in Europe. Yes, that's right, I ate that on my third day in Vienna and nothing else managed toe xceed it. I'm sorry, it just doesn't get better from here. Tafelspitz is simply too good, too powerful, the strongest food of them all.

After that I think we mainly went home and sat around for a bit then slept. The day after, now that's time for another adventure, and another blog: the journey to the second imperial capital, Budapest.



apologies for the awful picture quality btw