When we came into the city, we were rolling off of a strange trip in a night train. The car that we were in had two triple bunk beds where katlin and I were on the third bunk on both sides. After climbing over the luggage of the two men already on the bottom two beds and getting our packs up, we discovered that our next twelve hours were to be spent horizontally since there was not even enough head room to sit up straight. On top of the small space, the car felt like an oven and there was no room to change out of my jeans and into pajamas (getting down to the bathroom was just not worth it). I also managed to anger the man below me because my water bottle stared leaking on him of course, but I couldn't understand what he was gesturing/saying in german. Once I stopped the leaking and tried to convey my apologies, I accepted that this was to be a highly uncomfortable night and tried to get some sleep. When we finally got to stand up straight the next morning, we pretty much immediately had to put the children on and get on a metro to find our hostel. After getting directions from a kind Austrian since in my haze that morning had omitted a line from my directions off the hostel website, we emerged from the metro to cold, cold rain. Luckily the hostel was only about a two minute walk from the metro stop and so we got inside before we froze. Not so lucky, it was only 10 in the morning so our room wasn't ready and we had to storage our luggage and head out without properly unpacking.
We decided to go to St. Stephens church, the biggest landmark in town and then to lunch before buying tickets the see the Spanish riding school's public workout for the next day. The church was impressive but cold and damp, while lunch was a very welcomed break of good luck. We found an authentic looking restaurant and Katlin managed to find schnitzel, warm sourkraute and potatoes on a very intimidating menu. Thank goodness she did. Not only was I starving, but it was, we decided, like Austrian comfort food. Back home, it may have been ham with collards and mashed potatoes but either way it was a meat, soft potatoes and stewed, salty vegetable and it was just what we needed. The bad weather greatly influenced our decision to get on a tram that made a circle around the important buildings of the city, and after that we went to the art museum. The time to actually check into our hostel finally rolled around so we went back to transfer our bags and unpack as much as we can. We also tried to plan out of next day a bit better, since we felt like we came in pretty unprepared for the city. You see, we had heard so many good things about Venna that i think we just expected to get in and walk into the heart of town and be drawn in to things to do, but that wasn't quite the case for many reasons. First, the weather really was terrible and gloomy. It's hard to be excited about just walking around when it's nasty outside. Secondly, the map that the hostel gave us was ridiculously bad. It was of the entire city, which in theory is helpful but not when they sacrifice street names for size. Third, the reception wasn't exactly very helpful with telling us what to do either. Normally when we check into a hostel, this is about what happens: the staff is overly excited to see you and give you a handy map with almost comically blown up tourist sites on it. They then circle everything good about the city and tell you where the metro is and what ticket to buy, or that you don't need a metro ticket at all. Our hostel, besides handing us a map, did none of this. The map makers obviously do not spend time wandering a city with their maps either, because if they did, they would realize that their map sucks. Besides the lack of street names, the size makes it incredibly cumbersome and hard to fold back. Its so large that it basically acted as a sail in the gusting winds. Honestly, it did. We really really hated that map.
Despite our good intentions to find bratwurst for dinner, we got a bit turned around in in the cold rain and ended up at a tasty, trendy Mediterranean restaurant where we saw fresh vegetables for the first time in ages. (A crisp cucumber slice? What's that? Refreshing and delicious with hummus and falafel is what is was.) We went back to the hostel with no real plan for the night in mind but ended up meeting our roommates and going down to the bar in the hostel (yes, there was a bar in the hostel, if that gives you an idea of what most people in the hostel were there to do) to check it out. After a game of pool and our small free drink, we turned in for the night with the hopes that tomorrow would be better (read drier, more navigable, less dreary).
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