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!