Day 9 - Catch a show in Vienna

The train from Munich leave for Vienna at 7.27am. Fortunately we had enough time to "take away" a.k.a tapau the breakfast provided by the hostel and have it on the train instead.

A never to forget breakfast

There are many reasons to travel by train. Beautiful scenery, no hassle, plenty of time to take an extra nap, and above all, it's the only time i can find to write my blog entry, the traditional way. :P

Our tickets entitled us for 1st class, and most of the time, we will conquer 1 coach as below. :P

The route

Finally, we arrived in Vienna and found our way to the hostel

Since it is not check in time yet, we leave the bag and take the tram to Naschmarkt. We plan to have our lunch there as according to the tourist guide pamphlet, food here is relatively cheaper.

A place we stumble on the way to the market

Unfortunately, the market is close on Sunday. Booohoohoo :'(

We were super duper hungry and believe it or not, the choice that we have at that time is either kebap or sushi. I don't know since when, but the Japanese are invading Vienna. :P In the end, we chosed kebap.

Mine- EUR 9.50

Once done, we took the metro and head to Stephen Cathedral. But, having been to bigger and more grand Cathedral especially in Milan, Stephen Cathedral does not awe us that much that we did not take any decent photo of it. ;(

This horses service were right opposite Stephen Cathedral

The horses stink a bit. :P

Next we head to the tram station as we wanted to make a big round through the Vienna Ring Road.

Vienna's Ringstrasse or Ring Road- In the 16th century, bastions were built around the city of Vienna to serve as an even better defense than the earlier medieval walls. In 1858 these walls were torn down to build a ring road around the central core of the city. The area within this ring road is considered the old city of Vienna

(credit)

The tram

The pros: You get to see almost all the historical/tourist site in a short time, eg Volksgarten and Parliament Building

The cons: Cannot take good, up close and personal photo :P

View from the Metro

We hop off at Volkstheater station to change to tram no 38 to Grinzing

Grinzing is suppose to be a wine village. Reading the description, I actually imagined a very large vineyard greeting us. But it looks just like a normal peacefull neighbourhood, and it's getting dark and cold, so, after a little walk we head back to Volkstheater station as we wanted to catch a theater. Yeay!

We arrive at the theater just in time to get the tickets. Although I hoped for Opera, but they have Ballet performance on that day instead, called “Die Fledermaus”. The standing tickets cost EUR3. Here’s a clip of the show. It started with the main female character flaunting her dress. She has 3 kids and 1 maid with her at home. Then, the husband returns home (from work I guess). But oddly, he ignored his wife and react coldly. So, it seems the husband has got bored with his wife. Hmph!

As the plot thickens, we learn that the husband is indeed a Casanova as he goes out every night to a nightclub and dance with the girls there.

The wife, eventually got into a scandal with her children’s teacher but instead of having an affair, the guy teach her to dress up and brought her to the same club to teach her husband a lesson.

The husband, upon sawing the beautiful woman (who is actually his wife) got all excited and tries to tackle her. There’s a lot of dancing going on between 2 of them and then the show stop for a 15mins break.

It resume with the character dancing somewhere in a compound. Then, zzzzZZZzzzzzz

Yes. I FALL ASLEEP (-_-) ! The show is a bit dragging to me and i just felt tired for the day. Judy saw me sleeping, woke me up and suggested we go back as the show is coming to an end and we do not want to get caught in the crowd leaving the theater. If you are really really interested on the show, please go HERE to read. :P

Here's the hall. Nice isn't it?

This is outside the theater and we need to go down to take the underground metro back to our hostel. Bye Bye Vienna.

Transportation: TBD

Hostel: Near to the train station and have private bathroom. But the kitchen is outside and quite a hassle to go there.

Food: EUR9.50

Day 8 Part 2 - Meet the Real Family in Munich

So, we made a stop at the BMW outlet and went in to see what models they have here. *ahem*.
Brabus --hmmm

Oldies car --hmmm

aha! Sport Car!

After much consideration and deliberation, we decided not to buy any of them as it might not fit in the luggage. :P Kakakaka. So, we walk off and Sebastian left us at a local University while he walked back to get his car.

The university compound

We wander a bit around the university area, then we decided to wander out to find food. :P

Aida had this very nice fried brocolli(EUR3) while Judy had pizza.
Laili had bread while i eat my energy bar and share the brocolli with Aida.
Right after that, we meet up with Sebastian again and off we went to Hermann's house in Schweig. Hermann is Laili's another fren from TI who had since retired.

Pass by Allianz Arena

We reach Hermann's house at ~5pm. Nice House Hermann!

Hermann's Dog - Rex

He is 10 years old which equal to 70years in human life, correct?

Good boy Rex

Herman's wife, Angelica made a delicious apple pie and cake to welcome us.

Danke!

Tea time!

Nyummy!

Winter Olympic was going on at this time and Angelica tune in to watch the snowboarding game. We joined in and got hooked as well. :P In between, Hermann showed us his grand daughter photo album - Sophie. Sophie is one lucky girl to have a wonderful set of granparents. :)

Hermann's house look like a hotel. -_-

Sophie's horse

Hermann's "Daughter". So cute. :P

We stayed on and switch back to the dinner table where we had some drinks/snacks and listen to Hermann's hunting trip story. Sometimes, the conversation goes into politics and religion. One thing i learn is, we are all the same. Despite the stories that we read in newspaper or in the news, deep down, we all wanted to live a normal life with peace and respect to each other. If we make the effort to understand each other and accept it as it is, then they won't be so much fiasco in the world, even in Malaysia itself. Angelica simply demonstrated it herself as she does not speak English but able to make us feel so much at home.

Pretty orchirds in the background

Resting at the built in "heater"

With the super guys

With the lovely husband and wife

After the 10th goodbye... we finally leave the house. :P But, before that, Sebastian made a detour at TI for the sake of Laili and Judy. :)

Lastly, we made a stop at Mama's Kebap as Sebastian wanted to ensure we did not go to sleep with an empty stomach. Hot Chocolate + Rice with Chickens = EUR 10.50.

I am really sleepy at this time as i fell asleep in the car and had just woken up.

Fitness First right opposite of Mama's Kebap!

It remind me of the Fitness First in Penang which my friends and i used to join for 1 year. We had since stop going there as it's really far from our place. :(

Walk back to the car and bid our goodbye with Sebastian who dropped us right at the foodstep of the hostel.

Thanks a lot Sebastian, Hermann and Angelica for the lovely day!

Munich has now etched a soft spot in my heart.

:)

Transportation: NA.
Hostel: Very comfortable and spacious with nice lounge.
Food: ~EUR12