Hostel @ MindSay 
Hi,
Does anyone know of any good hostels in the city centre of Vienna? A.k.a. close to the main attractions. I'm only there for two nights and would like to make the most of it. I don't mind paying a bit more if I can get a place that is available for the nights I'm there and I can walk to the main attractions.
Anyone who has any tips, that'd be appreciated.
I've booked for everything except accommodation in Vienna.
:) thanks
The woman in tourist information took one look at us and said "Cheap cheap cheap?" and we said yes, we needed a place to stay for two people, one night at the cheapest possible rate. She smiled and nodded and made a lot of phonecalls in rapid sucession, speaking in breathless Italian, and finally after several tries found us two hostel beds for the night. We thanked her, and received the map she gave us and made our way through some very unpleasant and unseasonable rain to our hotel room. With the room taken care of, we decided to brave the wet in order to do some sight seeing, and found ourselves outside Saint Croce Church, the church where the hero and heroine of A Room With A View have their first real conversation. We planned to duck our heads in and take a quick peak, but we soon found out that that was impossible.
The church turned out to be the burial sight of Galileo, Machiavelli, Micheangelo and others, though not, interestingly enough of Dante. Dante is buried in Ravenna, but that didn't stop Saint Croce from building a huge garrish monument in honor of the Florentine poet. I've never been a big Dante fan despite slogging my way through three different translations of the Inferno. When I saw his monument I think I understood why. He always looks incredibly dour, as if he was having bad indigestion; I think it comes out in his writing.
The next day we had to move to our hostel that Lindsay had also booked from Mali (the deal was that she would book Florence and Sienna, I would book Venice and Pisa). Rather than head straight to our Hostel, however, we decided to do some early sight seeing, and made it to the Duomo in time to be first in line when it opened. The guidebook was not too enthusiastic about the church, claiming it was "chilly and austere" on the inside, but I enjoyed it immensely. The inside doesn't feel cluttered the way some of these churches can be. After the Duomo we headed across the way to the Baptistry to gaze at Ghiberti's "Gates of Paradise," which was obscured by a sea of tourists. I'm short enough, however, that I eventually wrangled my way to the front, and I'm glad I did, the doors are truly breathtaking.
The Piazza was beginning to get absolutely swamped with tour groups, so we headed back to our hostel to collect our bags and carried them through the wet and cold to the hostel we had booked for the next five nights.
The hostel looked amazing, it was up a steep flight of stairs, but had large windows and wooden floors as well as offering free internet. There were signs all over in broken English reminding guests that "The waisting of the energy was a crime against the enviroment" and other helpful hostel hints. When we got there, however, the woman couldn't find our booking. There was much sturm und drang, and the management was called, while we nervously looked over the reservation and tried to decipher the rapid Italian the receptionist was shouting into the phone. Eventually we realized that the reservation was for May, and we were here in June. The hostel was booked solid all five nights, and we had nowhere to stay. We asked the receptionist if she had any suggestions of places to stay, and she said that as far as she knew the entire city was booked solid. It turns out that the next day, the second of June, was a national holiday, and meaning it was a popular time to visit. She wouldn't let us use the phone, but she was nice enough to let us store our bags while we found a place to stay.
We returned to the street with absolutely no idea of what to do. We found a phone and began to call all of the hostels in the guidebook. All of them were booked solid for the next two nights, but we finally found a place that will take us for the last three nights of our stay. Lindsay went off to find an internet cafe where she could confirm the booking, and I headed in the other direction to find us a bed for the night. My plan was to head to the tourist office, but I realized that the streets on the way to the train station seemed to be lined with wall to wall hotels. I stopped into a few of the cheaper looking ones, all of which seemed to be booked solid for the next two nights (I even encountered a panicky couple whose reservations had also fallen through screaming at an unfortunate receptionist) Finally I found a one star hotel with a single room left. It was little more than a broom cubbard, but breakfast was included, and the room had a TV. Grateful to have a place to stay I headed back to collect both Lindsay and the luggage. I've learned two things from the whole experience--the first is never have anybody make a hotel booking from Mali, and the second is that commercials are more entertaining in Italian.
I have this weird ability to have lucid dreams on random occasions. Lucid dreams are dreams that you realize are just that, dreams, and after you realize what they are, you can take control of them.
Last night The Drummer and I watched Hostel, (again) and I was having nightmares about it. But then I noticed it was a dream.
I turned one of the bad guys hair purple, and made the rest of them stand very still while I stole an RV and drove away.
Of course then I tried to wake up. And every time I thought I was awake I would point my hand at something (like the computer) and be like "turn on!" And of course it would and I'd be disappointed I was still asleep.
The Drummer was so excited when he found out I had these dreams, because apparently, it's a skill. But you can learn how to do it, and make real trees disappear according to some crazy monk.
Anyhow, I have a staff meeting. (Although I am slightly confused by the fact that we haven't even opened yet and already, there is a staff meeting. Maybe it's meant to be motivational.)
p.s. Don't ever watch Hostel. Or do, if you can handle the scariest damn movie on the face of the earth. Eli Roth is one twisted fuck.
Ok, you are all going to be so proud...finally, finally, I got my Paris pics uploaded! Unfortunately getting a USB cable for my Kodak camera was a little bit more difficult than originally thought, so today I ended up just buying a "SanDisk" that just takes my pics from my memory card and puts them on the computer...it's been a long time coming, that's for sure. It was fun going back through them, too, re-living the memory a little. Gosh, I miss Paris...
Anyway, I apologize as that some of them I have absolutely no idea what they are (some buildings and such), I just thought they were all French looking and couldn't pass up a picture opportunity. :) Maybe I'll start with the ones I do know of, and try to re-cap things as I go...(probably going to do this in a couple different entries, you know how my stories tend to go on, and on, and on...lol).
I arrived in Paris early Saturday morning (in November). I had a direct flight from Chicago, and was lucky enough to sleep most of it, so I didn't feel a bit of jet lag as I wandered through the airport, looking for the correct bus to get on to take me to the Metro, which would take me to the hostel we (me and Nick) were supposed to stay in that night. I was also praying that this particular hostel had room for us that night, too. The original plan had been that Nick would be in Paris a couple days early in an effort to plan where we were going to stay, but I received an email from him right before I left for the airport in Denver, saying that he was going to be a little late and to find a hostel and email him how to get there. I literally googled "Paris hostel", found the first one that had an availability Saturday night, emailed Nick the Metro stop, and ran out the door. Not exactly the calm, relaxed way I had planned to start this vacation, but there wasn't any turning back.
I found the right bus, got on the right Metro, and found my way to the right stop. As I began to wind my way through the endless tunnels to the surface, it began to hit me that I was actually in a foreign country, totally submersed...and at the time, totally alone. I wasn't really scared, but I had a rush like I've never felt before. Such a mixture of fear and excitement, it was great!
I began the walk to the hostel, only half sure I was going the right way, but knowing that I had all the time in the world to kill so I didn't mind much. The "10 minute" walk the website claimed, I soon found out, was a bit off. More like 25-30 minutes when you're carrying bags. Needless to say I was ecstatic to see a big, bright purple sign claiming the "Peace & Love" hostel was right up the street. I checked in, (luckily there was still room), drug my bags up to my room, opened the door, and found the smallest room I had ever seen...
My bed is the one on the floor with the green bags on it. There's also a shower in this room...you can't really tell, but it's literally this little cutout in the wall that has a showerhead in it. The thing was so tiny that I had to open the door to reach to the floor to grab my shampoo and stuff. Crazy!
After I get settled a bit, I decide to go walk around and see what there was to see. It was only mid-morning, and Nick wasn't supposed to arrive until that evening, so I had the whole day to kill by myself. Here are some random pics that I took while walking around the neighborhood near the hostel...
After walking around for a bit, taking some pics, and having my first French "cafe" (stout stuff!), I headed back to the hostel, in hopes of maybe taking a shower and catching a nap. I ended up meeting another girl who was staying at the hostel, who was also from Denver! Go figure, I go all the way to Paris, and the first person I meet is practically a stone throw away from where I live. We hit it off and since she had been in town a couple days longer, she took it upon herself to show me around a bit. We went down the street, bought a bottle of wine, and walked around and shopped for the next two hours (probably looking a bit odd too, walking around, drinking out of the bottle, but no one seemed to mind!). We also stumbled upon a hair salon, and decided that maybe we should get a shampoo and blowdry. (I had realized the blowdryer I had brought wasn't going to do me much good until Nick came with the adaptor I had sent him earlier.) It took us a good five minutes to get across what we wanted them to do, but everyone was so good-natured with us, that it turned into being a really good time. The service was also excellent...I've never got a full-on head massage when getting a shampoo. It was enough to make me want to go to Paris every month just for that! Here's a pic of my friend getting hers...
Finally, we made our way back to the hostel in time to grab a drink and wait for Nick to show up. It wasn't terribly much longer, when I saw him walk up outside.
I was so excited to see him! He had been gone for 2 months, and considering we were practically best friends before he left, it had been a hard adjustment having him gone. (To explain the situation a bit further for those who don't know, we are not a "couple"...merely good friends.) I introduce him to a few people, I had met, we go upstairs to drop off his stuff, and then begin our venture to the Eiffel Tower.
Well, think this is good for the first entry...but wow, it may take more than a couple considering I'm still on the first day! Good times though...*sigh*...
friday i attended my dad's talk in the morning, helped with some filing (pretty much the only work i'd done all break- it was wonderful), then we went to boulder to buy my books. i got 2 dr. peppers for the price of one :D then i did some wonderfully girly shopping with my mom at the huge closing sale at mervyn's... so many clothes and shoes... yup, i'm definitely becoming a full-fledged girl now. finally, right? i used to never like shopping for clothes!
saturday was spent packing and such. hm... maybe we went shopping this day instead. i don't remember and i don't particularly care. again, so much stuff... finished the last book in a trilogy called his dark materials (the golden compass, the subtle knife, and the amber spyglass) by somebody pullman. these books were absolutely awesome!! anyone interested in fantasy should definitely check them out. i loved them!
sunday afternoon, we, or rather, i, loaded the car with twice as much shit as i came back home with (totaling 10 paper shopping bags and backpacks) and then we left for good ol' boulder. dumped all my shit in the room, ate dinner at qdoba's, for the 3rd time in 4 days, and did some grocery shopping (woo!). hauled all that stuff back to the room, actually i guess i didn't really buy that much, a couple bags. i organized all my stuff, still haven't finished- there are no sheets on my bed yet. sheila dyed my hair a blue-green, and i must say, she did a terrific job! i was so happy to see my hair with 2 colors again, i literally jumped up and down in the shower- it looked so good! i'll get pics up on facebook and such, but all the bulbs in this room are yellow and i'm no good at taking pictures of myself, with or without the mirror. then i hung out in ben's room with one of his roomies (paul), brandy, her boyfriend cory, and her friend lester (or nathan, his real name). we all played pig with the little basketball hoop they duct-taped to the door and one of those little foam basketballs (i almost won!). kirk, ben's other roommate came later and we locked ben out of the room for a good while. we all had fun making countless sex and penis jokes, mostly at ben's expense (he's only an inch or 2 taller than me, you figure it out :P). then i came back, opened up a can of dp and set about filling my ipod shuffle with something like 120 songs. so small!! ah well, i got these cool speakers that come with them- they charge the ipod and they're way better than my computer speakers so it's all good.
k, guess i should finish putting all my stuff away.
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