Day 15: Give me that Bon Jovi, John

I woke up early to pack and say goodbye to my room. I took photos earlier in the week, and they describe the place more than my words will. The room was exceptionally spacious and even had a balcony. The only peculiar thing was the lack of a shower curtain. This was a minor issue considering everything else was great.

The view from my balcony in Bratislava

We then loaded up everyone's luggage on the bus to take off for Vienna. With the entire the bus left to just a handful of us, I spread out and fell asleep for what should have been an hour long ride. I awoke two hours later to find we had been driving around the city for quite some time searching for our hotel. This would have been a non-issue, except Erica had her heart set on visiting the Saturday morning marketplace which closed before we got settled in the hotel. Sorry, Erica. On a positive note, Vienna feels immediately comfortable considering I can use my German to read most signs.

Our small group then went to lunch with Kastanze, our grad student director, before a short tour of the University and Subway system. We got schnitzel and cordon bleu, which was much better in Austria then the other countries we have sampled thus far. The apple cider we had with it was incredible too, which makes me think Weinesse food will be a great treat every night.

After buying a 48 hour pass for the weekend, all of us headed to the Belvedere via the U-bahn (subway). The system here is unbelievably similar to the DC metro, but instead of a yellow line, they have a brown line, and there is also a purple line. Again, the city is quite inviting and I feel more at home here than I have at the other cities we've visited.

We had just a short walk to the Belvedere Museum once we got off the U-bahn. Identifying ourselves with our Mcards, we received a significant discount on tickets to the art gallery, and Leslie got a free teacher ticket...not a bad deal. The place was quite enormous and impressive from the outside, and the art inside was cool too. The spectacle here is "the Kiss," a painting by Gustav Klimt. I preferred the pictures of elaborate scenery and waterfalls to those of the people, but on the whole the gallery was great.

We then returned to hotel to rest and change into nicer clothes. Pat, Robbie, Erica and I then headed to a Church in Karlsplatz to enjoy a Mozart concert. The church was really incredible, and the performance didn't disappoint.

Inside the Church

Too big to photograph

Afterwards, we headed to the bar center to test a few different local pubs. Our first experience was an expensive night club with music similar to the club in Budapest. Here we watched the conclusion of the League Football Championship where the Muchen (Munich) team won 4-0.

We then left and found a cheaper place with a younger feel. Essentially, we found the bar teenagers go to celebrate their 18th birthdays...we got pretty uncomfortable, but left with one more attempt left in us. We ended up crossing the street to a louder, more vocal place. They actually carded us, likely because Erica was with us, and everything seemed normal at first. Once Pat had finished half his beer we determined we had discovered the local gay bar. We left shortly thereafter to catch the last train home. Along the way we were stopped by a bachelorette party who convinced Pat to purchase some small amount of alcohol in order to support their evening's shenanigans.

We then caught the last metro home and had a local brew at a bar next to our hotel. Despite the tremendous rain, we had quite an adventurous night