Vienna

i love vienna. its beautiful, clean and modern. what more could a girl want? plus great shopping and oh so convenient.

today i woke up early and trekked across the city to the hofburg palace. its HUGE and so imposing! the palace complex itself is used for ministries, museums etc and its pretty much the size of orchard rd. it was still really early so i went to Cafe Central to get coffee and sachertorte. Cafe Central was where pple like Trotsky and Beethovan hung out.

"A well-known story states that an Austrian politician, asked about the possibility of a revolution in Russia, remarked sarcastically: "Who is going to make a revolution? Perhaps that Trotsky from the Café Central?" "

so its really old, has great charm, good service, a big collection of newspapers (all in german or deutsche or french) and a huge price tag. but i guess it was worth it for the experience, if not for the sachertorte.

I went to watch the Spanish Riding School´s morning exercise. Its supposed to be really famous and they get silly buggers like me who can't afford a performance to pay to watch horses trot around doing warm ups. Which is kinda stupid considering no one can stand to watch a bunch of horses going round and round for 2 whole hrs for 6 euros. So sat for 1 hr thinking that something exciting was going to happen, turned around and asked the usher if the horses were going to perform "perform". Obviously not.

So I galloped myself over to the Imperial Apartments. Fascinating collection of plates, cups, forks, spoons etc from the Imperial Kitchens. snore.

Really enjoyed the tour of the Imperial Apartments though. the Empress Elisabeth was supposed to be a bit whack in the head. Drank meat juice and dieted like crazy. Sounds like a perfectly normal modern woman to me though. Hit the Albertina museum to catch the Mozart exhibition. This yr is 250th anniversary of his death so they have loads of special Mozart-y stuff going on. It was dead boring cos everything was in german though. Then again, every year is always someone else's anniversary. Its either their birthday or anniversary or something or rather. Three cheers to the local tourism board.

vienna was so cold on the second day!! i hope its way warmer in milan. went to a whole bunch of museums today, the schroenbrunn palace, the haus der musik and mozarthaus. saw pple making strudel, the whole place smelt so buttery GOOD!! but poor little me couldnt afford strudel anymore... so i sat outside the palace like a homeless bum and ate bread with blue cheese. good but salty. then i just hit the outdoor markets and bought taramasalata which is really good. its a turkish spread made of fishroe and stuff. sort of like salty fishy yumminess. say it with me, TA-RA-MA-YUMMMMYYY.

got strawberries grown in morocco. think its the season cos there´s loads of them around and for pretty cheap! like 4 sing dollars a kilo now. i guess i can pretty much skip bread and just eat strawberries now... im looking forward to italy cos i promised myself i can eat warm food every 2 days. pasta... drool... pizza.... gelato... lol... i think ive only had like... 2 warm meals since leaving amsterdam. so pathetic!!! i feel grottier and grottier every day. oh well... i dont want to owe my dad too much ... but i splurged today. i didnt walk so much today, i took the subway instd for the princely sum of 10 euros. usually i just wake up earlier and walk all over the city. see how i scrimp and save?? lol. planning to go outlet shopping in milan though. laalaaaa...

LOVE U DAD: U IS THE BEST DAD IN THE WORLD.

the haus der musik was pretty cool! tons of interactive exhibits and stuff. u could make yr own cd with farty noises and whatnot.