Look back at Wien

We are now in the Boathouse Hostel in Prague. Actually, just outside of Prague. Actually, a good half hour tram ride outside of Prague. But let's regress to how we got here.
Vienna was quite action packed. We only had two full days there (not counting Danny's first day), so we were very ambitious in our sightseeing. On the first day, we had breakfast at the hostel and set out into Old Town, which is the heart and center of Vienna. To get there we walked down Mariahilferstrasse, which is the main shopping thoroughfare, all the way to the Ring Road, which circles the Old Town. We went on an architectural ecstasy tour: the Hoffburg Palace, about 7 churches, including Stephandsdom, with a very long trek up the South Tower, from which we saw the Vienna skyline. After a pizza lunch and a streetbreakdancing show at the platz, we went to the park behind the Hoffburg Palace. It was your regular park, with trees, lawns, a lake, and a big circle of potheads with four bongs. Welcome to Wien!! It was hot. We chilled in the shade, talked about Harry Potter, and read. The next stop, in the afternoon, was the uberdank Arms and Armour/Musical Intruments exhibition, inside the Hoffburg Palace. That was very very interesting.
Back at the hostel some bros showered, some napped, and all read, save for Rob, who refuses our books. Well he read one chapter but he only looked at the pictures. Anyway, we had dinner around the corner on Mariahilferstrasse, and spent the evening wandering around Old Town. We talked. Eventually Danny needed his Guinness fix so he dragged us on a quest for an Irish pub. We found one called Bockshorn's Irish something and they had pints of the black stuff. They were playing Tenacious D on the PA. We walked back to the hostel and called it a morning.
On Day 2, we planned an elaborate circle around Old Town that stopped at all the places people had forced us to go to [including Steven Roberts' clock museum (what a geek)]. This included: Museumsquartier, Parliament and City Hall, Clock Museum, and Haus der Musik.
We must brag about City Hall. To the common tourist, it is an outstanding piece of neo-Gothic architecture. To us, it was the meeting ground where we found our own Austrian cheerleaders, named Rika, Daisy, and last but not least, my precious, Allina (Danny). They were beautiful! What was actually going on was the final stretch of an international bike race that went right up to City Hall. While we went "backstage" to check out the columns and stone carvings, we found something waaay better: Euro-honeys. We chatted them up, and they recommended we go to Schonbrunn Palace. Of course, we obediently abided. Rob filmed their dance routine. Check Youtube. Just kidding. But we do have the video we're just not sharing it.
Anyway after we finished our museum tour (the Haus was dumb trippy), we took the metro to the Schonbrunn Palace, a sprawling estate complete with gardens, hedgemazes, a zoo, and lots of asian people. It was still pretty hot, but we got some dank-ass views. We ambled back to our little neighborhood via tram, had a delectable kebab dinner and cleansed ourselves at the hostel.
We decided to check out the night scene at the hostel itself this time. In europe some of the hostels have full-fledged bars/lounges within them. Wombats was no exception. We met up with the Brits Danny had befriended on his first night: Laura and Tom, James and Amy, and Katie (the brave single). That whole night was a cultural exchange between the two parties. We taught them thumper, and they taught us fuzzy duck and chinese takeout. We taught them our versions of kings, which they called ring of fire. Stupid foreigners. After a long night, we woke up.
We all expected to be woken up by Danny's watch's alarm sometime after eight. We had a train at ten. To no avail. Luckily Charlie's inner Steve woke him up and said, "hey guys, don't we have that train at ten?". Oops on the alarm. We bought bread and chease at a supermarket and went to Sudbahnhof, quickly. We got on the train. It was hot. We were quite literally sweating buckets and you know how stifling a train can get without proper American AC. We arrived in Prague, but at a station called Liben (pronounced Ribon), way outside of our destination. The train did not move on from there, because, as we found out, a dude had committed suicide by choosing this day to jump in front of a train. This train would not go any further. We took another train to Prague's oldest station.
Here the reality of hostelworld.com's directions crashed down on us: we didn't really know where the hell our hostel was. All we had to go on was a tram stop. Our tram, No. 3, showed up, and Charlie Dave and Rob got on while Danny asked the conductor if it was stopping at our stop, Cerny Kun. It was not. As Danny exclaimed "get off get off get off!", the three stared dumbly while the doors closed on them. Danny thought, "a smart person would get off at the next stop and take the 3 in the opposite direction. I'll just wait for them here." Well, they're smart, and it went down, and we found ourselves following the Vltava River, further and further from the city center. We got off at Cerny Kun, looked around, and said, "where the fuck are we?" Charlie answered, "Buttfuck, Prague". Then we saw the sign for our hostel. We followed the sign. No wonder we couldn't find our street on the map, it doesn't exist! So here we are at the Boathouse, a large, interesting structure with a sausage barbecue going on in the front, and a freezing cold river in the back. You don't know how freaking sweaty we were at this point. Rob and Danny swam in the river, then we all took turns showering naked in the communal shower, while the others stood guard over the curtain. David shaved (sorry Jon) and went through eleven blades, necessitating a slot for used razor blades. What a wolfman.
We had a sausage snack (except for Dave, obviously) to hold us over until we go into the city to have dinner with Charlie's cousin Natalie from Boston and her two friends.
Danny thinks that if you don't want to comment on the blog you don't have to (free choice!!) but everybody else disagrees. So the dudes that aren't commenting better get in line.
Surprisingly, there is very little time to blog, or little downtime at all. We're just always sightseeing!! So we'll probably catch up again in Berlin.
Take it easy,
Team America