But I went to send Carrie off and because I had never seen it.
A wedding cake would be an apt description for Vienna, towering gothic sprires and a preoccupation with the color white, make the whole city look like some bridal cullinary fantasy. We sweated our way around the more famous churches before going to the cemetary where Beethtoven, Schubart, Straus and Brahms (along with--I kid you not--2,500,000 other souls) are buried. That cemetary was a sight to behold: packed with graves, each more ostantacious than the last, final resting places marked in huge sculptures of marble and granite, wrought iron fences and for some, inexplicably, lanterns hanging from the tombstones.
Two of Vienna's more beautiful buildings:
The graveyard (I forget the name):
Beethtoven's grave:
One of the prettier graves:
Because Carrie had to get on a plane in the late afternoon, we schlepped through the heat, seeing what we could see before she left. That left me exhausted in the evening. I went to see a free outdoor opera, but it turned out to be a free outdoor movie of an opera and I was falling asleep halfway through Act I.
Back at the hostel, two interesting things happened:
1. A beautiful German girl in my room emerged from the shower in a towel, removed said towel and got dressed without a hint of modesty, all while keeping on a running conversation with me. For my part, I tried to be very European about this and pretend that a beautiful naked German girl carrying on a conversation without a hint of modesty didn't affect me in the slightest.
2. I waltzed in Vienna. Talking to a Turkish girl named Ryea (if that's how you spell it), I asked her if she knew how. She not only did, but knew better than me and showed me a few steps in the middle of the common room floor. Thus educated, we whirled around without music for a couple minutes, while people looked on perplexed. But I can now officially say I waltzed in Vienna.
Off to Budapest!