Okay everyone, gear up because this is going to be a lengthy post all about my trip/break/vacation in Vienna Austria, Berlin Germany, and Amsterdam in The Netherlands.
VIENNA
So my friend from the program in Siena and I took a bus to Florence and another bus from the center of Florence to the airport. Our flight left on Saturday afternoon to Vienna but we flew airberlin. First of all, if you ever have the chance to fly airBerlin, please do because it was the nicest flight I've ever been on and it was pretty affordable. The give you POTATO CHIPS AND SODA AND A CHOCOLATE BAR! Plus the staff was nice and the flight was smooth. It was so cool flying into Austria because of the fact that you can see the tops of the alps sticking up through the clouds as you're flying above them. The views from the plane were absolutely breathtaking. Once we arrived in Vienna, I knew that I would obsessed with this city because of the fact that they had Strauss written on the walls of the airport. So that was really cool. We took a bus from the airport into the center of Vienna to find where my friend from BW, Andrea lives because she is studying abroad in Vienna this semester. Once we took a subway to Andrea's, she took us out to see the city. We walked around the "ring" of the city and then went to this cool traveler's bar called the Travel Shack. My friend blew fire which was pretty cool.
The next day, we got an early start and took a walking tour around the city. We started at Stephansdom (the big church in the center of the ring). From there we saw the house where Mozart lived for a couple years, some beautiful churches, and some pretty cool works of art. The most amazing experience was walking from church to church on Sunday morning and hearing the AMAZING music that came from each place. We would peak our heads in just to hear the church choir and orchestra play. After that, we headed to a little cafe in Vienna where we got some coffee and sachertort (a special type of Viennese chocolate cake). The atmosphere of this little cafe is so cool where locals hang out and read or even compose music. After that, we walked around a little more and decided to head over to a large cemetery, called Zentralfriendhof, a little bit outside of the city where Brahms, Beethoven, Strauss, and Schubert are buried. They also have a monument for Mozart there so that he could be recognized with his fellow musicians although he isn't buried in Zentralfriedhof but rather in a mass grave somewhere else I think.
This takes me to the coolest part about my time in Vienna, the opera. After about 3 hours of waiting, I finally got to buy tickets for standing room to see Tannhauser by Wagner. For three euro. That's right, three euro. I stood through the entire 3 and a half hour long opera and loved every single second of it. I realized that I've spent more on a gelato that I did to see that world famous opera. Which was so weird but also so cool at the same time. On our last day in Vienna, we went to Schonbrunn palace and walked around the gardens there. Which was also amazingly beautiful. We took a tram around the entire city making sure that we saw every single thing that Vienna had to offer in the time that we had. We eventually made our way to the Erdberg bus station where we got on our overnight bus to Berlin.
Berlin
So our bus left Vienna at 9:00 PM and arrived in Berlin at 6:00 AM. If you're traveling through Europe on a bus, Eurolines overnight bus is the way to do it. For many reasons... 1) It's convient 2) You don't have to spend money on a hostel that night 3) The busses have wifi 4) They're inexpensive 5) Alot of them aren't completely full so you'll often get two seats to yourself which means you can lay down and sleep. So we headed to our hostel and got there around 7:00 AM and dropped off our bags at Saint Christopher's Inn. From there, we set out to discover the city by foot... with Dunkin Donuts in hand. Yes. Dunkin Donuts. We literally walked all over the city of Berlin from 7:00 AM to about 3:00 PM seeing everything the city had, which is so so soooo much. Extremely exhausted from such an early morning, we went back to the hostel and napped until 4:30. After that, we walked around the part of the city that we hadn't seen yet so that we could find a place to eat for dinner. We stumbled upon this super trendy/hipster/cool little soup and salad restaurant with HUGE bowls of soup for 4-5 euro. I had the chili and it was amazing and so filling. After dinner, we continued walking around the city discovering new things everywhere we went. I think we averaged close to 12 miles of walking on that day alone. Completely worn out, we headed back to the hostel and passed out.
The next day, we decided to rent bikes for half a day since Berlin is a big biking city and it has really nice lanes for bikers. We headed out toward Topography of Terror, a museum that is built on an old SS police/government headquarters and spent about an hour and half there looking at the ruins of the building and reading the information inside of the museum. After that, we went to Checkpoint Charlie, the checkpoint that divides the American sector from the other sectors of Berlin when it was a divided city. After that, he rode our bikes to East Side Gallery and had our packed lunch at the Berlin Wall, which is still weird to say. We spent about 3 hours at the East Side Gallery, which is the largest remaining part of the Berlin Wall and it’s completely decorated with graffiti and art. I could have spent the entire day just looking at the wall, but we had to head back towards the city center. After an hour long bike ride through the park in Berlin (Tiergarten), we went back to the hostel and got dinner… at the soup place again. This time it was a potato and bacon stew. We spent the rest of the night getting lost in Berlin and loving every minute of it.
On our last day, we took an hour train ride to a Concentration Camp Memorial Site where we spent most of our morning. After, we headed back into the city one last time and bought some souvenirs and spent our last couple hours walking around the city. For dinner, we went to the soup place, again. This time, for a curry/rice/oddly pumpkiny tasting soup. We then went to the bus station and waited for our second overnight bus through eurolines into Amsterdam.
Amsterdam
Our bus left Berlin around 8:00 PM and got into Amsterdam at 4:45 AM which is wayyyyyy too early in my opinion. From the bus station, we had a two hour trek along the canal to our hostel before the sun even came out. We got to our hostel around 7:00 AM and dropped off our bags. At this point, the sun was just starting to come out but the cafes and breakfast places weren’t open yet. We walked around Amsterdam, following the canals and around the city center. Around 9:00, a pancake place was open, so we stopped in for a breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, pancakes, coffee and juice. We walked all over Amsterdam until 2:00 when we could check into our hostel. We went back and slept until two other friends from our program in Siena met us at our hostel (Meena and Max) around 6:00. Every other Friday night, our Christian ran hostel called Shelter Jordan, offers a free homemade dinner that we stayed for. After dinner, we walked around the city. And if there is anything that I can say about Amsterdam, its that it is just plain weird. In Amsterdam, weed is notorious for being "legal" and sold in stores called “coffeeshops” so its hard to walk a block without the smell hitting you right in the face and not to mention uncomfortableness that is the red light district (which isn’t much of a district but just kindof scattered throughout the entire city). So yeah, Amsterdam is just really really weird starting from about 8:00 PM on. After spending time in the city, we headed back to our hostel and went to bed.
The next day, we rented bikes to ride around the city. Amsterdam doesn’t have “monuments” in the sense that most other cities have landmarks that you have to go see, like Paris or Berlin. So we got bikes and rode along the canals, stopping at multiple Saturday morning farmer’s markets. We bought cheese, bread and fruit and headed toward the gardens in Amsterdam. In the gardens, we had a picnic lunch along the river. We rode around some more and ended up at a farmer’s market that sold Stroop waffles (a traditional Amsterdam cookie/waffle thing). It’s similar to a crunchy waffle cone, but they have caramel in the middle of it. And these cookies were freshly made and still warm and just amazing. Just thinking about them makes my mouth water. We headed back to our hostel and had a homemade 6 euro dinner there and went back out into the city for the last night. If I thought Amsterdam was weird the first night, it was even worse the second night because of the HUGE Halloween parade/party happening throughout the city. The TV channel FOX was sponsoring this huge party for the entire city, so the streets were packed with parades of people dressed as zombies walking down the roads and blocking up traffic. We also saw little kids trick or treating in the red light district… which is just so so sooooo weird to me, but hey its Amsterdam.
The next day, we went cheese museum hunting which consists of finding cheese shops that are EVERYWHERE in Amsterdam, going in and acting like you’re interested in buying cheese, but really you’re just eating all of the samples. We went to a total of probably close to 8 or 9 shops before we had to call it quits since I feel like I was about to puke from cheese overload. In the afternoon, we went back to our hostel and grabbed our bags and headed to the bus stop. After almost tragically missing the shuttle to the airport, we were finally headed on our way home. We flew out of Eindhoven into Pisa. Took a train from Pisa to Empoli and a bus from Empoli into Siena. I ended up in my bed back in Siena around 2 AM that night, exhausted.
Conclusion
Vienna is a totally beautiful place full of such amazing history (especially musical history). It’s so classy and elegant but still really charming. Also, the wienerschnitzel is just… wow. It was especially cool for me to be in Vienna because I’m into music so I really really realllllly enjoyed my time in Vienna. Berlin is beyond words amazing and my favorite place in the world that I’ve ever been to. It’s the perfect combination of historic and artistic and there is so much to see. Everywhere you go, something about Berlin will make you stop and look. Everyone says that Berlin is like two cities in one, and this is completely true. I’m obsessed and in love with this perfect city so if you’re ever in Europe for some reason… GO TO BERLIN. And finally, Amsterdam. Amsterdam is just so so sooooo weird and was definitely an experience. I really enjoyed myself while I was there and I’m glad that I went, but I’m not sure I’ll be going back very soon just because of how strange it was. However, the beautiful city and buildings along the canals make Amsterdam one of the prettiest places I’ve ever been. Beautiful, but just… weird. I’m glad I went just to be able to say that I’ve been to Amsterdam, but it reminded me of Las Vegas when it was nighttime in the city. It’s really cool, but just not my thing in particular. But all in all, I’d say that my vacation in Vienna, Berlin and Amsterdam was a definite success. I really did enjoy every minute of it and am also really proud of myself for being organized enough to know where I was going and to not get lost or miss a plane or a bus or a train or whatever.
After a week and a half of busses, trams, a world famous opera, soup, carbs, bikes, metros, the weirdness that Amsterdam is, beautiful parks, famous buildings, miles of Berlin Wall, canals, airplanes, trains, more carbs, homemade dinners, long days and lots lots lots lots lots and lots of walking... I’m glad to be back in Siena but excited to see where my next adventure will take me. I’m thinking Barcelona? We’ll see.
Until next time,
Ciao!
VIENNA
So my friend from the program in Siena and I took a bus to Florence and another bus from the center of Florence to the airport. Our flight left on Saturday afternoon to Vienna but we flew airberlin. First of all, if you ever have the chance to fly airBerlin, please do because it was the nicest flight I've ever been on and it was pretty affordable. The give you POTATO CHIPS AND SODA AND A CHOCOLATE BAR! Plus the staff was nice and the flight was smooth. It was so cool flying into Austria because of the fact that you can see the tops of the alps sticking up through the clouds as you're flying above them. The views from the plane were absolutely breathtaking. Once we arrived in Vienna, I knew that I would obsessed with this city because of the fact that they had Strauss written on the walls of the airport. So that was really cool. We took a bus from the airport into the center of Vienna to find where my friend from BW, Andrea lives because she is studying abroad in Vienna this semester. Once we took a subway to Andrea's, she took us out to see the city. We walked around the "ring" of the city and then went to this cool traveler's bar called the Travel Shack. My friend blew fire which was pretty cool.
The next day, we got an early start and took a walking tour around the city. We started at Stephansdom (the big church in the center of the ring). From there we saw the house where Mozart lived for a couple years, some beautiful churches, and some pretty cool works of art. The most amazing experience was walking from church to church on Sunday morning and hearing the AMAZING music that came from each place. We would peak our heads in just to hear the church choir and orchestra play. After that, we headed to a little cafe in Vienna where we got some coffee and sachertort (a special type of Viennese chocolate cake). The atmosphere of this little cafe is so cool where locals hang out and read or even compose music. After that, we walked around a little more and decided to head over to a large cemetery, called Zentralfriendhof, a little bit outside of the city where Brahms, Beethoven, Strauss, and Schubert are buried. They also have a monument for Mozart there so that he could be recognized with his fellow musicians although he isn't buried in Zentralfriedhof but rather in a mass grave somewhere else I think.
This takes me to the coolest part about my time in Vienna, the opera. After about 3 hours of waiting, I finally got to buy tickets for standing room to see Tannhauser by Wagner. For three euro. That's right, three euro. I stood through the entire 3 and a half hour long opera and loved every single second of it. I realized that I've spent more on a gelato that I did to see that world famous opera. Which was so weird but also so cool at the same time. On our last day in Vienna, we went to Schonbrunn palace and walked around the gardens there. Which was also amazingly beautiful. We took a tram around the entire city making sure that we saw every single thing that Vienna had to offer in the time that we had. We eventually made our way to the Erdberg bus station where we got on our overnight bus to Berlin.
Berlin
So our bus left Vienna at 9:00 PM and arrived in Berlin at 6:00 AM. If you're traveling through Europe on a bus, Eurolines overnight bus is the way to do it. For many reasons... 1) It's convient 2) You don't have to spend money on a hostel that night 3) The busses have wifi 4) They're inexpensive 5) Alot of them aren't completely full so you'll often get two seats to yourself which means you can lay down and sleep. So we headed to our hostel and got there around 7:00 AM and dropped off our bags at Saint Christopher's Inn. From there, we set out to discover the city by foot... with Dunkin Donuts in hand. Yes. Dunkin Donuts. We literally walked all over the city of Berlin from 7:00 AM to about 3:00 PM seeing everything the city had, which is so so soooo much. Extremely exhausted from such an early morning, we went back to the hostel and napped until 4:30. After that, we walked around the part of the city that we hadn't seen yet so that we could find a place to eat for dinner. We stumbled upon this super trendy/hipster/cool little soup and salad restaurant with HUGE bowls of soup for 4-5 euro. I had the chili and it was amazing and so filling. After dinner, we continued walking around the city discovering new things everywhere we went. I think we averaged close to 12 miles of walking on that day alone. Completely worn out, we headed back to the hostel and passed out.
The next day, we decided to rent bikes for half a day since Berlin is a big biking city and it has really nice lanes for bikers. We headed out toward Topography of Terror, a museum that is built on an old SS police/government headquarters and spent about an hour and half there looking at the ruins of the building and reading the information inside of the museum. After that, we went to Checkpoint Charlie, the checkpoint that divides the American sector from the other sectors of Berlin when it was a divided city. After that, he rode our bikes to East Side Gallery and had our packed lunch at the Berlin Wall, which is still weird to say. We spent about 3 hours at the East Side Gallery, which is the largest remaining part of the Berlin Wall and it’s completely decorated with graffiti and art. I could have spent the entire day just looking at the wall, but we had to head back towards the city center. After an hour long bike ride through the park in Berlin (Tiergarten), we went back to the hostel and got dinner… at the soup place again. This time it was a potato and bacon stew. We spent the rest of the night getting lost in Berlin and loving every minute of it.
On our last day, we took an hour train ride to a Concentration Camp Memorial Site where we spent most of our morning. After, we headed back into the city one last time and bought some souvenirs and spent our last couple hours walking around the city. For dinner, we went to the soup place, again. This time, for a curry/rice/oddly pumpkiny tasting soup. We then went to the bus station and waited for our second overnight bus through eurolines into Amsterdam.
Amsterdam
Our bus left Berlin around 8:00 PM and got into Amsterdam at 4:45 AM which is wayyyyyy too early in my opinion. From the bus station, we had a two hour trek along the canal to our hostel before the sun even came out. We got to our hostel around 7:00 AM and dropped off our bags. At this point, the sun was just starting to come out but the cafes and breakfast places weren’t open yet. We walked around Amsterdam, following the canals and around the city center. Around 9:00, a pancake place was open, so we stopped in for a breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, pancakes, coffee and juice. We walked all over Amsterdam until 2:00 when we could check into our hostel. We went back and slept until two other friends from our program in Siena met us at our hostel (Meena and Max) around 6:00. Every other Friday night, our Christian ran hostel called Shelter Jordan, offers a free homemade dinner that we stayed for. After dinner, we walked around the city. And if there is anything that I can say about Amsterdam, its that it is just plain weird. In Amsterdam, weed is notorious for being "legal" and sold in stores called “coffeeshops” so its hard to walk a block without the smell hitting you right in the face and not to mention uncomfortableness that is the red light district (which isn’t much of a district but just kindof scattered throughout the entire city). So yeah, Amsterdam is just really really weird starting from about 8:00 PM on. After spending time in the city, we headed back to our hostel and went to bed.
The next day, we rented bikes to ride around the city. Amsterdam doesn’t have “monuments” in the sense that most other cities have landmarks that you have to go see, like Paris or Berlin. So we got bikes and rode along the canals, stopping at multiple Saturday morning farmer’s markets. We bought cheese, bread and fruit and headed toward the gardens in Amsterdam. In the gardens, we had a picnic lunch along the river. We rode around some more and ended up at a farmer’s market that sold Stroop waffles (a traditional Amsterdam cookie/waffle thing). It’s similar to a crunchy waffle cone, but they have caramel in the middle of it. And these cookies were freshly made and still warm and just amazing. Just thinking about them makes my mouth water. We headed back to our hostel and had a homemade 6 euro dinner there and went back out into the city for the last night. If I thought Amsterdam was weird the first night, it was even worse the second night because of the HUGE Halloween parade/party happening throughout the city. The TV channel FOX was sponsoring this huge party for the entire city, so the streets were packed with parades of people dressed as zombies walking down the roads and blocking up traffic. We also saw little kids trick or treating in the red light district… which is just so so sooooo weird to me, but hey its Amsterdam.
The next day, we went cheese museum hunting which consists of finding cheese shops that are EVERYWHERE in Amsterdam, going in and acting like you’re interested in buying cheese, but really you’re just eating all of the samples. We went to a total of probably close to 8 or 9 shops before we had to call it quits since I feel like I was about to puke from cheese overload. In the afternoon, we went back to our hostel and grabbed our bags and headed to the bus stop. After almost tragically missing the shuttle to the airport, we were finally headed on our way home. We flew out of Eindhoven into Pisa. Took a train from Pisa to Empoli and a bus from Empoli into Siena. I ended up in my bed back in Siena around 2 AM that night, exhausted.
Conclusion
Vienna is a totally beautiful place full of such amazing history (especially musical history). It’s so classy and elegant but still really charming. Also, the wienerschnitzel is just… wow. It was especially cool for me to be in Vienna because I’m into music so I really really realllllly enjoyed my time in Vienna. Berlin is beyond words amazing and my favorite place in the world that I’ve ever been to. It’s the perfect combination of historic and artistic and there is so much to see. Everywhere you go, something about Berlin will make you stop and look. Everyone says that Berlin is like two cities in one, and this is completely true. I’m obsessed and in love with this perfect city so if you’re ever in Europe for some reason… GO TO BERLIN. And finally, Amsterdam. Amsterdam is just so so sooooo weird and was definitely an experience. I really enjoyed myself while I was there and I’m glad that I went, but I’m not sure I’ll be going back very soon just because of how strange it was. However, the beautiful city and buildings along the canals make Amsterdam one of the prettiest places I’ve ever been. Beautiful, but just… weird. I’m glad I went just to be able to say that I’ve been to Amsterdam, but it reminded me of Las Vegas when it was nighttime in the city. It’s really cool, but just not my thing in particular. But all in all, I’d say that my vacation in Vienna, Berlin and Amsterdam was a definite success. I really did enjoy every minute of it and am also really proud of myself for being organized enough to know where I was going and to not get lost or miss a plane or a bus or a train or whatever.
After a week and a half of busses, trams, a world famous opera, soup, carbs, bikes, metros, the weirdness that Amsterdam is, beautiful parks, famous buildings, miles of Berlin Wall, canals, airplanes, trains, more carbs, homemade dinners, long days and lots lots lots lots lots and lots of walking... I’m glad to be back in Siena but excited to see where my next adventure will take me. I’m thinking Barcelona? We’ll see.
Until next time,
Ciao!