Vienna, Austria
I was only in Vienna, Austria for one week, but there's a lot that can happen in one week...
Liam and I said goodbye to eachother from Venice, Italy where he would be on his merry way to Budapest and I still needed to decided where I would go next.
I quickly decided that I wanted to make my way up to Vienna for some reason as it was calling my name. It just so happened that Liam took an unexpected detour in Vienna on his way to Budapest where he ended up staying for 4 nights because it was an awesome city.
I took an 8 hour bus ride from Venice to Vienna, passing through 4 different cities and cutting through Slovenia along the way. I arrived in Vienna at 8:30pm on a Wedneday and had to figure out how to get to my hostel from the bus stop (which was pretty far away). I start walking to Do Step Inn, which was the hostel I was staying at for 6 nights, but little did I know there was two different Do Step Inn's in Vienna... After walking the two miles in the freezing cold darkness of Vienna, I find out that I was at the wrong hostel. This whole time Liam was waiting for me so we could go out and kick it. I had to then walk another two miles to finally arrive at my hostel at 9:45pm. I check in and go unpack my stuff and take a shower.
By this time I was sorta tipsy as I had been drinking boxed wine along the walk and towards the end of my bus ride. I go down one floor to Liams room where he had a fifth of vodka, so we took 2-3 swigs of the vodka and headed out to the metro, which he showed me how to use, and met up with a couple of his chick friends at his previous hostel from the night before.
We ended up going to a club that night with the three girls Liam had met. The entry fee to the club was 7 euros and they forced you to check your coat at reception, which was another 2 euros. I walk in and they're playing rap/hip hop music and people are bumping and grinding and this sort of club has never really been my scene so I needed to get more drunk to tolerate it. I head to the bar and ask for a jack and coke (my go-to drink). The bartender asks me for 10 euros and I was astonished!!! So much money for so little drink. I said no more drinking and tolerated the dancers. At about 4:15-4:30am I decided to leave the club by myself when no one else wanted to leave because I was tired and annoyed. I walked/ran the 4 miles home and ended up getting home around 5:30am and passed out.
I woke up the next morning at around 10:30am and hung out for a bit before deciding to go walk around the city with Liam. That day we took the metro at about 12:30 in the afternoon to the main square in the heart of Vienna where the cathedral/church is.
We walk inside and it was gorgeous! The Austrians have some damn precise/great architecture. It was roughly 15 degrees ferenheit with a good breeze going on too. It was my first time I've had to wear some long john's on this trip because I was freezing. We continued to walk and see some monumental stuff including the Hapsburg Palace, the city hall which was awesome because it was surrounded by an ice skating ring with tons of people. We stopped inside the lodge to grab a hefeweizen (which was undercarbonated) and escape the cold for an hour or so.
At this time its about 4pm and Liam made up his mind that he really wanted to go do some graffiti, which in a certain area along the river is apparently legal. We go to this store called Blue Tomatoes which is like a skateboarding/punk stop that sold spray paint. We buy one can of black and one can of aqua as I wanted to spray paint my Waters Brewer logo. We make the trek to the river which was about 1.5 miles away but not after we stop for a small bite and some beers/shots to go.
I buy 2 beers and a shot of Underberg and I'm ready to go do hood rat things with my friends. We make it to the river and start spray painting to an open bottle of beer, some Eminem out of Liam's phone, and good vibes only.
After spray painting my Waters Brewer logo, we decided to make our way back to the ice skating ring to meet up with two of the three same girls from the previous night. I was already pretty drunk by 9pm this night and decided to go grab some beers. First place was awesome, got to talking to the bartender as I always tend to do, and got the contact info of the homebrewer owner of the bar. Had a good craft beer there from what I remembered. Then we headed to the next bar where had one or two shots along with a beer.
I pretty much blacked out at this point and ended up meeting some random chick I don't remember. I went with her to her work to pick up something of hers and ended up taking a taxi back to her place where I dropped her off and I went back to my hostel to pass out.
The next morning I head downstairs to work on my computer, still very dazed from the night before, and run in to my 50 year oldish Austrian friend Pete who I had met the previous morning. We start talking and I quickly decide to go grab some beers to keep my buzz going as Liam was about to leave to actually go to Budapest now.
Liam leaves around noon and had to say goodbye to him for the millionth time it seems like, not knowing if I may see him again or not. I run to the closest market to grab some beers to bring back to the hostel to share with my friend Pete over a good conversation.
I finally start to working on my computer as Pete leaves around 3pm. I work on my laptop until 5-6pm when I then went upstairs and decided to take a nap.
I woke up around 8pm and quickly after waking up, two girls enter the room and would be sleeping there for a night before heading back to Poland. The girls had no plans so we talked for a little bit before going to snag a couple beers and head back to the hostel to learn more about each others lives. We spent the whole night talking with our other roomate, AJ who was from Mongolia and had been living in Vienna for the past 3 years.
The girls leave the next morning to go explore the city before I had planned to meet up with them at 5pm. After working on my computer for two hours in the morning I left around 1pm to explore more of the city. I met up with the girls at 5pm at the main catherdal/church.
We start walking around looking for something to do. We stumble upon 1516 Brewing Company randomly, which I would be brewing with in 2 days (link to post here), but was completely packed and couldn't even order a beer. We leave and try to find an open market (pretty much all closed on Sundays) but couldn't until the little market in the shopping mall near our hostel. We go back in our hostel, drink two beers and talk some more with AJ and our new hostel chick who was from Japan. At about 10pm the girls had to make the 2 mile trek to the bus station where they would make their way back to Poland.
I worked on my computer the next day, did some yoga in the dowstairs billiards dungeon room, and hung out all day until evening which I then cooked tacos (which I had been craving), drank some more Underberg and beer, before playing some pool with AJ downstairs, and then went up in my room to lounge and watch a movie (which I had also been wanting to do for a while now).
I FINALLY got to watching Guardians of the Galaxy and liked it a lot! Then I realized Rick and Morty was on netflix now so I started watching that after. I passed out around midnight and lived to tell another story.
The next day I wake up at about 7:30am to go brew a beer with Andreas, the head brewer from 1516 Brewing Company (blog post can be found here for that decauction mash brew).
I got to 1516 around 9am and stayed there, drinking good craft beer util around 2pm. I wanted more craft beer so I go exploring around the city to find out most of the places weren't open. I'm drinking and walking this whole time. I end up getting lost and my phone was dead so I couldn't use Maps.Me like I had always done to find my way back home. I ended up walking an extra 4 miles in the dark as it was snowing. I stopped at the supermarket in the mall by my hostel to grab more ingredients to make tacos, more Underberg and beer, before coming home to make more tacos as my other tacos had been stolen overnight.... I barely remember making those tacos as I was exhausted and drunk. I fell asleep in my bed with my laptop still on watching Rick and Morty. I woke up thenext day pretty early and did some yoga/meditated in the dungeon before having to extend my stay one more night at the hostel so I could go meet up with two different breweries there in Vienna.
Brew Age & Beaver Brewing Company
You can find all about these two little breweries in the blog post attached to the link in their name above.
Before I knew it my week in Vienna, Austria was over and am now on to my next brewing and traveling adventure!
Next stop is Krakow, Poland. A little detour before making my way back down to Munich on March 20th!
Thanks for reading everyone! I hope you enjoyed the read, please leave any feedback in the comments below and as always, please share if this provided some sort of value for you.
Until next time travelers and brewers!
Cheers,
Ty Stevenson