Vienna

Due to popular demand (Sweeney's mom likes how I capitalize letters), we're having another Bode guest blog.

A recap of the week in Vienna...

Sunday- Sweeney's friend on the program had his last night in Vienna, so almost the whole group went out to this club called Flex. Of course, it was Sunday night and no one was there. It was good fun though... because there were no bathrooms, a few guys peed in the Danube, which was hilarious. Of course, we get back in around 3.30 with the knowledge that we had a long Monday ahead of us.

Monday-At 9 am, we had a brewery tour at Ottakringer, Vienna's favorite cheap beer. The tour was fun and highly informative, we found out that the term "Bloss so" basically means "shut up and drink your beer". On the tour, we were able to sample various hops, and at the end, we got to sample all the different types of beer they make. We ended up drinking about a liter of beer at 10.30 am... which was awesome. They also gave us free pretzels.

Tuesday-We're pretending Tuesday didn't happen because Andrew failed to entertain me on Tuesday. I did some sight seeing and saw another freaking church. For an area thats so crazy, Europe sure as a lot of freaking churches. Thats all they do, drink and build stuff.

Wednesday-Andrew made up for his poor showing on Tuesday by providing a bash. We went to his favorite bar, Billabong, for the Champion's League final. We had asked about reservations for a table the day before, and were laughed at because it had been booked for 2 weeks prior. So, we decided to go early at 4.30 and post up at the bar to guarantee seats. We were the only two people at the bar other than those who work there, so we decided to start buying pitchers. At the end of happy hour, we asked the waiter for 4 pitchers and he stared at us like we were crazy. The fact is, pitchers were half price and there was no way I was paying full price when I had been there at happy hour. Also, there was a dog just hanging out at the bar, walking behind the counter among other things... and people wonder why the plague swept through this area. Anyways, the bar got packed before the game started, and we watched the whole thing. It had a pretty good atmosphere, lots of cheering and what not. We were there with one other guy who is a Man United fan (the team that won), so he was chanting and singing with other fans. Afterwards, we made the trek the Vienna's most infamous bar, Loco, for victory tequila shots with orange... an Austrian tradition. The club was packed for karaoke, and the Man United fan we were with started singing his own words along to the songs. Two of my favorites included "I'm sooo excited, for Man Uniiiited" and "if you wanna blow a game, in the worst way... who ya gonna call? JOHN TERRY" to the tune of ghostbusters (John Terry missed a penalty for Chelsea to lose: this scene approximates what happened at billabong when that occurred. I did not cheer.)

Thursday- Originally, we decided that we were going to go to Bratislava, but waking up with after effects from Wednesday's celebration coupled with the fact it was sunny out for the first time this week prevented us (apparently, you have to go when its rainy to get the full experience). We planned on doing laundry, but the washing machine broke like everything else in this place. Instead, we went to the Illini Inn of Vienna, One Euro Pub. I was able to enjoy its cheap drinks, picnic table seats, no sinks in the bathroom, and ridiculous amounts of smoke. My eyes hurt when I went to bed from the smoke. But hey, its cheap and I'm in college.

Friday- We went to Bratislava. Unluckily, it was sunny out and it looked like a real city... the castle was even slightly majestic. However, we did find many broken/trashy things to laugh at from the eastern bloc, which was the point of the trip. It took us 30 minutes to walk basically the entirety of the city. In fact, the best part of the trip was the meal, which was about the only real tasting stuff I've had here. Bratislava did manage to tire us out, so we came back and refueled with a nap and a doner kebap. Sweeney has been in Europe long enough to tell the difference between kebap stands, someone needs to airlift him some real food. Does Papa Del's deliver to Europe? We went out to a club named Glifsdlaf (some stupid Italian name). It was pretty cool, though, they paid hot girls to dance on the bar, basically as eurotrash as possible. We ended up chanting ILL-INI at the bar for no apparent reason. Overall, a good night out.

Saturday- We went and got gelato and ran into people from Danville because I was wearing an Illinois shirt. I've decided that Illini nation is the Free Masons of American colleges, they're everywhere and you can bring them out of hiding with an orange shirt. Sweeney says that he's seen one in every city he's been to (not people in his program, of course).

Overall, its been a great trip to Europe, however there is a lot of stuff that I did not like or that weirds me out (it's been sort of a running joke now). We decided that I would be remiss to not make a list on the blog of things that I don't like in Europe:
-Dogs in public places, especially restaurants and subways
-No waterfountains (paying for water, wtf?)
-The way people walk. They walk so slowly on sidewalks, however when they walk up escalators so you have to get out of there way. There are two lanes on the escalator, walking and standing. If you're going to hurry everywhere, fine, walk up the escalator, but don't pass me on the escalator then slow me down on the sidewalk.
-Europeans are so lazy. Thursday was randomly a holiday in Austria and nothing was open. We couldn't buy beer. Bastards.
-It seems like nothing here works. It took them so long to fix the internet and stuff just stays broken.
-A restaurant experience takes 3 hours.
-Their idea of an American-style pizza includes: corn, peppers, and ham
-They don't understand buying in bulk: we had to purchase two smaller bottles of vodka to save money.
-They get mad at you when you try to break the 50 euro note because the ATMs don't give you 20's.
-Coins
-European intersections, especially their walk signs. It doesn't make any sense. There was a train going through Bratislava's main plaza and we almost got hit by it.
-Gypsies, they're always trying to trick you into giving them money. In America we call them "lawyers".
-Techno... the popular song here is "Put your hands up for Detroit". ummmmm...

To be fair, there are some things I like about Europe:
-beer
-kebap

Anyways, I'm leaving Sweeney now, so you probably won't get any more blog entries because he's really lazy. My next trip to Europe will probably be to England because I'm sick of trying to read gobbily gook languages when I'm going around