The Tale of the Schnitzel Hangover

After seven calm, travel-free weeks in Hamburg, I've once again been on the move. Destination: Wien, Österreich (Vienna, Austria). Every year, meteorology students from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland get together for a student conference known as StuMeTa. From Thursday through Saturday, students participate in lectures, workshops, and field trips. Unfortunately, when the signup for StuMeTa first began, I was unsure of my class schedule. Since I did not want to risk missing class, I postponed signing up. By the time I realized my classes were canceled, enrollment was already full. But alas, I still traveled to Wien, hung out with my friends, and had an absolutely amazing time. 

After a short 1.5 hour flight, Daniela and I arrived in Wien late Thursday evening. We settled into our freakishly nice hostel and then met up with a bunch of our meteorology friends for a drink. Tired from traveling and not wanting to ruin our sightseeing plans for Friday morning, Daniela and I headed back early while the others went out dancing.

Friday was amazing. I had not one, not two, but three maps to sightsee with. The tour guide barbie in me was as giddy as a schoolgirl. After a quick tour around Museum Quartier (Museum Quarter), Daniela and I met up with Kaitlyn and Jobst, one of the German exchange students from last semester. We meandered around downtown ogling over prominent churches and famous buildings. My favorite building was definitely the Stephansdom, a large church located smack dab in the center of downtown. It had brightly colored stained glass windows that, when the sun shone through, reflected crazy beams of colors all around the church. I instantly felt like I was in some sort of crazy religious disco when I walked in.

Museum Quartier - This is one of the three large buildings
that make up Wien's museum district.

Volksgarten with the enormous public library in the
background

Parliament

Rathaus - The Life Ball, a large HIV/AIDS awareness charity
event, was taking place in front of Wien's Rathaus last
weekend. Unfortunately we weren't able to get a good look
at it, but we did see a lot of people dressed up on the train.
At the time, we had no idea why men wearing large wings,
were riding the subway, but it all makes so much sense now!

Inside Stephansdom - large stained glass windows on either
side of the center aisle reflected vibrant colors all over the
church.

Mozart's house. I could not for the life of me
find this building. For the first time ever, the
 maps let me down. Thankfully, Jobst came to
the rescue and found it for me :)

We ended up losing Kaitlyn at this point in the tour. Very little sleep + dancing the night away left her tired and sluggish. So she bailed on us and went to sleep in the park. After she left, we walked through Stadtpark (the city park) and Schloss Belvedere, a large palace in the middle of the city. The palace stood proudly on top of a small hill overlooking its many gardens and fountains. Unbeknownst to us, the palace had actually been turned into an art museum. So we paid for admittance thinking that we were viewing a grand house, but instead we were greeted with room after room of artwork. You all know how much I love art museums, so I was definitely in my element...(sarcasm). It was seriously my worst nightmare come true - I ended up in an art museum without even knowing I was going into an art museum. I was caught completely off guard and had no time to mentally prepare myself. The only saving grace was I got to see the famous painting "The Kiss" by Gustav Klimt that Daniela and I had been talking about only hours before.

Hanging out with Johann Strauss in Stadtpark.
I'm really starting to miss my violin...five months
is too long. It's going to think I don't love it anymore.

A large flower clock in Stadtpark 

Daniela, Jobst, and me in front of Schloss Belvedere

View from Schloss Belvedere overlooking the gardens
and downtown Wien

We saw a lot of other famous landmarks on Friday, but those were definitely my favorites. After day one of sightseeing, a few things became apparent to us. First off, Wien is the city of scaffolding. Seriously - it's everywhere! Every famous building seemed to be hidden behind massive amounts of scaffolding. I mean, I guess it's good that the city has money to maintain its historic buildings, but it was a bit irritating after awhile. Second, Wien is one of the prettiest cities I've ever been to. Most of the buildings are white, and they are highly ornamented with statues and metal work. A lot of the backstreets are also made out of cobblestone adding to the romantic aura of the city. Third, there are beautiful parks and gardens all over the city. I thought Hamburg had a lot of green space, but compared to Wien it might as well be a concrete jungle.

A typical street in Wien.

On Friday night, we met up with a bunch of our other friends and went to this "eat as much as you want, pay as much as you want" Pakistani restaurant. Basically, they had this buffet style table and you could help yourself to whatever you wanted. Then, on the way out, you went up to the cashier and payed however much you wanted. It all seemed quite strange to me, but the food was amazing so I didn't question it. I don't feel like this type of restaurant would work in the US. I think a lot of people would abuse the system and not pay for their meal - shows you how much faith I have in the American public. After dinner, we met up with more of our meteorology friends. By this point, there were probably 20 to 25 of us all hanging out. It was so much fun going to a random bar in a random city with all of our friends from Hamburg.

Saturday was hands down one of the best days I've had in Europe thus far. We started the day by going to Schloss Schönbrunn which is a large palace on the outskirts of Wien. There was a long wait when we got there, so we ended up walking around the gardens for two hours until it was our time to tour the palace. The palace was elegant and dramatic both inside and out, and it was easy to see why it had once been the summer home for the head of the kingdom.

Front entrance to Schloss Schöbrunn

Most of the gardens were flanked with tree lined paths that
ended at large fountains or monuments.

Gloriette

View of Schloss Schöbrunn and the accompanying gardens
from the Gloriette

Daniela and I had been craving dessert all week, so we
convinced Jobst to get overpriced cake with us at the
palace's restaurant. It was indescribably delicious and
worth every penny.

If you've made it this far in the blog, congratulations. Herein lies the most comical, and yet most painful, story from the trip: The Tale of the Schnitzel Hangover. My one goal when visiting Austria was to eat genuine Wiener Schnitzel, a traditional Austrian dish of breaded and fried veal. Quite often, Schnitzel is made with pork instead of veal. If this is the case, it cannot legally be called Wiener Schnitzel. Apparently, the term Wiener Schnitzel is protected by law in Germany and Austria and can only be applied to Schnitzel made from veal. Random, right? Anyways, twelve of us went to a place called Schnitzelwirt for dinner. According to the internet, this restaurant served some of the best Wiener Schnitzel in town. The internet also warned us that the portion sizes were huge, but being hungry college students, none of us heeded the warning. Our mistake. When they brought out the first round of Wiener Schnitzels, I thought "Surely they must be trying to save the waiter multiple trips to the kitchen by putting two meals on one plate." But the plates kept coming, and coming, and coming, and I quickly realized that it was all one meal. Cue nervous laughter...

Wiener Schnitzel - hammered veal covered in bread crumbs
and fried. Note the size of the Schnitzel in comparison
to the size of the lemon and keep in mind that half of the
bottom piece is being covered by the top piece. 

Just before eating the Wiener Schnitzel. It's hard to imagine
how people this happy could be so miserable mere minutes later.

First bite - amazing. Second bite - amazing. The problem was, it tasted so good that none of us wanted to waste any of it. So, we all kept eating, and eating, and eating. It quickly went from being the best tasting veal I've ever had to the most nauseating veal I've ever had. By the end, we were all stuffed beyond belief and feeling nauseously uncomfortable. Some people were even experiencing what we dubbed "Schnitzel fever. " Definition: a feeling of uncomfortable warmth accompanied by intense sweating after stuffing your face with Wiener Schnitzel. Those schnitzels nearly killed us. Apparently schnapps is supposed to help sooth an uncomfortable stomach, so we all did a shot of schnapps. Unfortunately, I was so full that my stomach was beyond repair. After finally getting the umption up to move, we shuffled over to a nearby bar to watch the Bayern München vs Chelsea football (soccer) game. It ended up being a really close game that went into overtime followed by a shootout. Unfortunately, Bayern lost in the last seconds of the game, so everyone was kind of sad and depressed. Afterwards, Daniela and I headed back to our hostel to get a few hours of sleep before our early flight out the next morning. When I went to bed, I still felt uncomfortably full from the Wiener Schnitzel, but the intense stomach pain was passing. Fast forward 4 hours to our early 5am wakeup alarm - the second I woke up I knew something wasn't right. I felt massively hungover, yet I only had one beer the night before. Suddenly it hit me - it was the damn schnitzel! I was officially experiencing a "Schnitzel Hangover." Not only did I feel awful, but I was sweating out oil and grease from every pore in my body. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to shower, so I had to fly back to Hamburg in my greasy, sweaty, hungover state. I felt really bad for the guy sitting next to me, but what was I to do? I figured that once I got up and started moving around I would feel better. Boy was I wrong. That darn Schnitzel Hangover knocked me out for 18 hours. Just the thought of fried food still makes my stomach churn. Moral of the story: beware of eating massive amounts of Wiener Schnitzel because if you don't get hit with the Schnitzel Fever you're bound to experience the painfully uncomfortable Schnitzel Hangover.

Tschüss!

Mission: Find Waffles

Sooo, it's been a while since my last update. Life got a thousand times busier after classes at the university started, and unfortunately I haven't had much time for writing. A lot of the past month has been filled with school work, hanging out with friends, and getting dominated by pregnant women at the gym. (Story: Daniela and I joined a gym and attend a lot of the classes. The instructor of this one yoga class was pregnant, and she completely showed us up. We were seriously made to look like fools. At one point, she wanted us to do the Crow Pose (Click for an image). Daniela and I just looked at each other and laughed. There was no way in hell either of us could do it.)

Before I sat down to write this blog, I took a look back at my planner to figure out what exactly I had done in the past month. Rather then writing a long, boring post, I've decided to highlight the three most important, and somewhat comical, events that have taken place since my last update.

• Pulling an all-nighter in honor of 'The Waffle': I've been in Hamburg for almost five months, and the American food cravings are starting to set in. One of the first cravings I had was for waffles - the big, fluffy, soft ones. German waffles are really dense and flat, and they just leave something to be desired. I was told back in April that you can get fresh Belgium waffles at the Fischmarkt (Fish Market), so I made it my mission to find these supposedly mouth-watering waffles. A traditional "Hamburg" thing to do is to stay up all night Saturday and go to the Fischmarkt at 5am on Sunday morning when it opens. The Fischmarkt is this massive market on the harbor that sells everything from (you guessed it) fish to clothing to trinkets to food. The fish come in every possible shape and size - big ones, small ones, living ones, dead ones, cooked ones, raw ones, ones with eyeballs, ones without eyeballs, etc. Vendor carts line the road leading up to the market, and people just meander along taking everything in. When you enter the building, you're eyes are immediately greeted by row after row of benches and your ears are greeted by the sound of a live band playing on the stage. Even though it's 5am, everyone is drinking, dancing, laughing, and having a good time. It's an interesting mix of people: half the people in the market are just starting their day while the other half are still finishing off the night before. The Fischmarkt is conveniently located close to the Reeperbahn, so a lot of people stay out all night partying and then make their way over to the market in the wee hours of the morning. Three weeks ago, Kaitlyn, Daniela, and I finally pulled the traditional all-nighter and meandered with all the other crazies over to the Fischmarkt at 5am. On the way there, Daniela and I thought it would be a great idea to play soccer with a random plastic milk carton we found in the street. In hindsight, this probably wasn't my brightest idea. Halfway to the market, I lost my footing and down I went. Three weeks later, my knee still hasn't fully recuperated. Ouch! Anyways, getting back to the original story... So we all went inside the market, quickly found the waffle vendor, and bought the most delicious waffles I've ever had. Halfway through devouring my waffle, I felt a sharp nudge from Kaitlyn. I looked up and found myself staring at The Queen Elizabeth (Click for an image). No joke! Kaitlyn and I looked at each other, quickly evaluated how sober we were, and then started laughing because we realized that we were sitting on the boardwalk, all dressed up, eating waffles, and staring at one of the world's most famous cruise ships. It was a fitting ending to a memorable evening. 

Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me the night we
got waffles. But here's a picture I took of the Fischmarkt a
few months ago

• Kailyn's 21st Birthday: Turning 21 is a big deal for any American. Everyone wants to have a memorable 21st birthday filled with plenty of "Remember when..." moments. Even though my actual 21st birthday was somewhat of a disappointment, I will always look back fondly on my birthday trip to Vegas and laugh at my very own "Remember when..." moments. Well, that special day finally came for Kaitlyn, and it just happened to fall on a Friday. Kaitlyn had been planning her 21st birthday ever since the first night we partied on the Reeperbahn. So on Friday night, Kaitlyn got a huge group of friends together, and we all went to our favorite Irish bar. It was Kaitlyn's goal to have 21 shots on her 21st birthday, and I'm happy to say - Mission Accomplished. Kaitlyn really wanted the three of us to wear matching shirts, so we all bought shirts and wrote funny sayings on them. My shirt said: "die Nüchterne Freundin" or "The Sober Friend." I could think of no better gift (other then homemade brownies) to give Kaitlyn on her 21st birthday then sobriety and the accompanying promise of getting her home safe and sound at the end of the night. As expected, the night was one for the record books - one part drinking, one part drama, and one part tears. But, at the end of the night, all that mattered was that Kaitlyn made it home alive with a bucketload of hilarious "Remember when..." memories.

Our matching birthday shirts

The birthday girl and me

• Hafengeburtstag: Hamburg's Harbor celebrated its 818th birthday this past weekend. Every year, Hamburg throws a massive party in celebration of the Harbor's Birthday. The entire harbor fills up with rows of vendors and thousands of people. The city expects that over 2 million people visit each year. A bunch of famous ships come into port for the weekend, including frigates, cruise ships, and tugboats. One of the highlights of the weekend is the Tugboat Ballet. The world's best tugboat operators get together and put on a performance on the River Elbe. For one hour, a group of tugboats perform a "dance" in the port. It's apparently a really difficult job and requires a high level of expertise. It was really cool and all, but honestly I got bored watching it after 20 minutes. Afterwards, we shuffled along with the crowd taking in all the sounds and smells of the festival. Unlike crappy American carnival food, the food served by German vendors at large festivals is really amazing! So naturally I stuffed my face with sausage, fries, and bread. How German of me. Even though the festivities continued all weekend, I was completely exhausted from Kaitlyn's birthday party and still had a ton of homework to do. So, admittedly, I skipped out early and missed most of the celebration. 

Part of the Tugboat Ballet