Hey, I put some new shoes on!

This morning was homework morning. To compensate for shopping afternoon. Abby and I met at Cafe Sperl, my local Viennese cafe, for an expensive but amazing traditional breakfast with incredible Viennese coffee and proceeded to hang out, drink more coffee, and finish up some homework for the next few hours.


Come lunchtime, we headed back to my place to grab a quick and much cheaper bite to eat, before walking up to Mariahilferstraße. We were on the hunt for Abby's perfect peacoat: warm, good lines, easy to wear with scarfs and blue. We walked the entirety of Mariahilf, at least all the parts worth hitting, before coming up the last mall at the very end. We went inside, partially just to get warm, and ran into a tiny store that was going out of business and was clearly in its last day or two from the lack of merchandise. We found a practically perfect blue peacoat at the front of the store, but of the two left, neither were in her size. Then I spotted the few left over pairs of shoes in the back of the store and headed straight there. Along the way missing the rack full of those blue pea coats, which luckily Abby did not miss. Both of us ended up winning, with Abby finding out this dream coat was only 25 Euro! And me finding a great pair of black high heeled ankle boots for 15 Euro!


And the day only got better from there, as we headed off to Schönbrunn for the opening day of their Weihnachtsmarkt! Probably my favorite of the three I've gone too so far, the Schönbrunn Christmas market was less crowded, more organized and had more homemade goods: all in all less touristy. We enjoyed some Nockerl the Austrian version of Spätzle, Krapfen an Austrian donut which was fried and filled in front of our eyes, Punsch and Glühwein!

Shopping, Wining, Dining, and Eising!

Went shopping on Mariahilferstrasse today! But not for myself, rather as the personal image consultant for my friend Abe, a Mexican from Texas, is in dire need of a warm coat. The 5th avenue of Vienna, Mariahilferstrasse has everything you could possibly need. Of course finding what you need at an afforadble price, takes the skill of a seasoned shopper, like me. We wandered for quite some time and eventually found an H&M coat he liked and I approved, but not in his size, so we went and got sushi.

After sushi I left for Mayo's place, where we were having dinner and on the way picked up a few sweets and treats. When I arrived I was warmly greeted by Mayo's brother, Kay, and her mother, Edita, who was already in the kitchen preparing the chicken. I helped Mayo make a Gugelhupf cake and when we were finished, we had some time to chat in both English and German. Dinner was fantabulous! It was so nice to have a real meal with real family and sit down and enjoy it together.

When we were finished, Mayo and I headed out to Stephansplatz to meet with a few of her friends from school. They introduced me to Zanoni and Zanoni, an Italian gelato place right off of Stephansplatz that has the best Eis creations! They are a bit expensive but not too bad if you split them and they are totally worth it! Vienna is known for it's Eis but really it all just Italian. We chatted - auf Deutsch - for hours and I learned a lot about the Austrian school system and about the matriculation process for Uni, which is good because I have to figure out how to register.

And after a while, we decided to head to happy hour at First American Bar, not the famous Alfred Loos one, but another American bar. We sat upstairs in this classy little place, in a cozy little booth and ordered half off - because how else can a student afford to go out - American named drinks. Yay understanding what is going on and not having to translate everything! By this point, my brain was pretty drained from trying to keep up with Dani's speedy German and I was beginning to feel tired, and I am sure the dim lighting and cosmo didn't help. We were here for about another hour, until the waiter rudely told us if we weren't going to order anything else, we had to peace. Which ended up working out well for my exhauseted self, although the girls were very upset by how rude he was, since in Vienna typically once you order something you can sit for as long as you like and not have to worry about it and it wasn't like the place was packed, there were several spaces open around us. We couldn't figure it out, but oh well, they lost a few clients.