The Epic Eurotrip--Chapter 16: The Assassin (Italy--Florence)

Florence has been one of my favorite cities in Italy largely thanks to Assassin's Creed (AC). Out of all 5 games (AC 1, AC 2, AC Brotherhood, AC Revelation, AC 3) Ezio's trilogy is by far the best (AC 3 is horrible, by the way.) Because Florence is the birth place of the main protagonist, Ezio Auditore, it became a very important destination for my trip this time (of course, Leonardo de Vinci helped, too.)

In this post, you're going to see many references from AC series because that was the first thing in my mind when I saw certain places. For those who haven't played the game and don't about spoiler, watch this. Although this is done before AC 3 came out, it gives a good idea what the (best part of) story is like. AC 3 really sucks. Period.

Too bad, I didn't find Ezio's house (I don't even remember what it looks like since the last time I played AC 2 was like when I was a junior in college. Holy crap! That was 5 years ago!) i did managed to find other places that are well known in AC world, even in real world. Some of them I remembered clearly, while the others I only remembered after seeing them in person. Very often, I told myself "hey! I climbed this!!" In AC, climbing is a big part of the game play. You climb everywhere to get everything. Whether it's a flag, a feather, a trinket, or a flying piece of shit. You even have to climb to solve the puzzles. After playing all those AC games, the fans will see a building in real life and then unintentionally start thinking about how to climb it (it's true.) Besides "I climbed this," the most common lines I said were:

"There was a feather on top of that dome."

"I killed _____ here!"

"Oh this place......I dropped so many times here......"

"Oh this guy! He aided me during that fight (specifically referring to Medici family.)"

"There's a view point on top of that tower."

This continued on until the end of Rome trip, sadly. (call me a geek all you want. I'm proud of it.)

Okay, enough of this. We actually started the trip on a hill near Florence. It's usually the first stop for all tours in Florence since we could see the entire Florence on this hill.

View of Florence. The duomo of Santa Maria del Flore is on the right.

Another.

And another. This bridge at the middle
is the oldest bridge, Ponte Vecchio, here.
There are shops and houses on the bridge.

In real life, Ezio Auditore doesn't exist, of course, but many other famous people were born here in Florence. Florence is said to be the birth place of Renaissance. Leonardo de Vinci, Dante, Galileo, and many others who contributed in art, music, architecture, literature, science, and even laws and politics were born here. This place has its magic (or good Feng Shui, as Chinese would call it) to nurture so many great people.

Statue of Dante

Statue of Cosimo Medici.

Let's start with this guy. Cosimo de'medici is the grant duke of Tuscany. He came to power and took over the Tuscan area. He was very powerful back then since he seized control of this place and had all the military support. The tour guide told us a story about this guy that doesn't really relate to his throne or power.

Palazzo Vecchio, or "old palace,"
located in the Piazza della Signoria. 

He had a wife who was very beautiful. She has all the characteristics that Italians look for. According to the tour guide (who's Italian,) she was so beautiful that Cosimo did everything to please her (what a bitch.) However, she was always having headache. One day, Cosimo asked her why her headache would not go away. She told him that this house (picture above) was too small, and she had problem breathing (are you fucking serious!? This place is fucking HUGE!!) "Alright, no problem! I'll just build a newer, bigger house for you." Said Cosimo. And BANG! Bigger palace was built outside of the town (too far so I didn't go.) This is why this place is called the "old" palace. There's a bigger, newer one out there. After they moved into the new palace. Guess what? The headache was gone!

EDIT: Okay, I'm not sure if this is Cosimo, or his grandson, Lorenzo (Lord of Florence) here. By the way, Lorenzo is the one aided Ezio for his revenge!

Later on we saw a statue of a man chopping of a woman's head (these are not Cosimo and his wife,) the tor guide joked about it by saying "She wouldn't have headache for sure."

Piazza della Signoria. A rendezvous point for local people.

Not too far from the plaza, there is a church called Basilica Santa Croce. It is known for the tombs of Dante (only clothes), Galileo, and some others.

Basilica Santa Croce.

I managed to get in (tour guide told us we had to pay, but I somehow got in for free.) and saw the statues and tombs. I didn't take any picture of the tombs just because, well, I wouldn't want people taking pictures in front of my dead body when I'm dead. Just showing some respect. The only one I took was Dante's as his body isn't really in there. Still, I'm not gonna post it. Go find it online somewhere.

All these churches, plazas, and statues/buildings are really close, and because everything is in Italian, I got confused very often. Later on I actually got lost and barely managed to get back. I'll get there later.

There's another plaza where Santa Maria del Fiore (St. Mary of Flowers) is located. This one, equally famous, is actually much bigger than Signoria Plaza. The basilica is very big and pretty. The first thing I thought of when I saw the church? Yes, "I climbed this thing!" For those AC fans, you should recognize this.

Santa Maria del Fiore.

  The facade is very mighty and colorful. Unlike the Cologne Cathedral, it's not as sharp and the colors are not as cold. If Cologne cathedral gives a cold and harsh feeling, this one gives out a warm and lively feeling, much reflects the Renaissance style.

I managed to get a footage of AC 2 where Ezio climbs around this place. You can try to find the similarities (check walls, floor, etc.) with this picture below.

Inside of Santa Maria del Fiore. Can you site similarities?

Paintings under the dome. Can you find The Last Judgment?

In Italy, you will find this word "duomo" pretty often. Maybe it's a common word for most of you, but I've never learned about this word until this trip. What is a duomo? Duomo actually means "house" and consists of the main building (cathedral, forming a cross,) a baptistery  (at the west side facing east, as they believed that going from west to east is the direction of reborn,) and the dome at the center of the "cross." In this case, Santa Maria del Fiore's baptistery is also very famous, thanks to the "Gates of Paradise."

Gates of Paradise.

Gates of Paradise is made by Lorenzo Ghiberti and his son describing the Book of Genesis. There are total of 10 panels, each with different scenes and characters. To be honest, it's a pretty cool door, but I don't find this as amazing as the other buildings I've seen. I think the value of this door here is the teaching of Bible, or knowledge they needed to know back in the days. Since many of them could not read, painting, carving, or anything with visual effects are the best things to teach. That's why many churches have these paintings on walls. They are not just for decoration. They actually serve as textbooks. Oh, there's a sculpture of Lorenzo Ghiberti on the middle of the gate. I think it's at the right bottom corner of the third panel. If you can't see, he looks like this. Is it just me or he looks like this guy?

Oh, one more thing about this church. Look at this picture:

AC fans, how do you climb this?

Now check the distance between windows. You can see the distance increases as it moves away from the tower, and the design became simpler. The reason is that this church wasn't supposed to be this big. The original design was a smaller version, and they only prepared enough materials to build certain amount of windows. Half way through the construction, Sienna, the mountain city, started building the Sienna Cathedral. Notice that Florence and Sienna had this weird rivalry relationship, and it's still on going. Florence people think Sienna people are uneducated, while Sienna people think Florence people think too highly of themselves. Anyway, so Sienna Cathedral was bigger than the original design of Santa Maria. People in Florence were like "fuck! can't let those uneducated Sienna people build a bigger church! MUST MAKE IT LARGER!!!" But there wasn't enough material to build a bigger church. Well, easy! Make the distance between windows bigger and build fewer windows. Make the design easier too so less material will be used! Thus this uneven design......

When I was in the line waiting to get into the church, there was this family from Michigan standing in front of me. The son was going to study in Florence in this coming year. I was so jealous. A whole year in this place!

Like I said earlier, there were so many plazas and churches and whatever, so I got lost (again.) I think I even walked to their financial district as everyone was holding some kind of suitcase, and I was the only one with a camera...... I think I got to this place, somehow.

Ponte Vecchio

Eventually I managed to get back towards Santa Maria. On the way, I saw the bridge. The oldest bridge where there are buildings on it. I got there and realized that Ezio had a fight here at the very beginning of AC 2. Woohoo! So exciting! Anyway, this bridge is called Ponte Vecchio. These buildings are mostly shops. Many tourists are around (so I could ask for direction, thank god.) There is a statue of Benvenuto Cellini, an Italian who contributed to Florence greatly. 

On the bridge.

Okay, when I was finding my way back to the rendezvous point, it started raining. Rain here comes quickly and goes quickly. Still, I was soaked. I think this is why I got sick later......

That's it for Florence!! Just some more pictures.

The Medici Symbol.

There were artists drawing on ground everywhere.

And one more.

They sell overpriced stuff here. Oh by the way, AC fans,
you probably climbed this place as well.

EDIT 2: I was going to save Leonardo da Vinci for the next post but realized most of him still best relates to this post.

Leonardo da Vinci, artist, sculptor, architect, scientist, lover, whatever you call him, is one of the greatest person OF ALL TIME (using Kanye voice)

He was also public about being homosexual. He held his boyfriend's hand walking into the palace to see the French king.

He wasn't born in Florence, but close enough. He lived here for the longest time. Also he completed Mona Lisa here. More about Mona Lisa in the next post.

For AC fans, he also designed Ezio's hidden blade, the parachute, the hand gun, and helped to decipher the painting for the secret hidden in it (the piece of Eden? I forgot.)

Leonardo's house. He lived here for majority of his teen life.

Oh by the way, Florence had a huge flood before. There are placards everywhere indicating where the water level was during the flood. It's where the red arrow indicated. We went to Europe at a good time. After we came back, they had floods again everywhere. We really lucked out there.

Leonardo painted Mona Lisa here, but no one knows which room it was.

Majority of Mona Lisa story will come when we visit Louvre. Stay tuned!

Next stop: Rome + Vatican!!!!

The Epic Eurotrip--Chapter 15: The Sinking Islands (Italy--Venice)

We finished touring Vienna, stayed a night in Graz, and then drove all the way to Venice. It was a good day. Venice has been one of the cities I always wanted to visit, along with Florence, Rome, Paris, and Barcelona. I didn't get to go to Barcelona this time, but at least I hit 3 of the 4, not bad.

Venice, like Amsterdam, is divided into many islands by canals. There's a big one going across the land, cutting the island into 2 main areas. This one is called Grand Canal, the biggest in Venice. Venetian people used to travel using gondolas. Almost every family had a gondola back in the time, but now there are only about 400 of them, mainly for tourism use.

Back then, Venice is known for hand-craft glass and masks (well, they are still well known, but they are now mainly bought by tourists only.) Since these are hand-crafted, they are really expensive. A small piece of glass key chain I saw cost about 30 euros. A bigger piece like a wine glass would cost over 120 euros. Some people would buy them, but I didn't have the money.

There were many high-class stores/shops on the islands. Most of the name brand you can think of can be found here. I chilled in a Louis Vuitton store for a while for the AC while some of our group members shopped there. This place, like many of the major cities in Europe, is very commercialized. Although you still see many old buildings, most buildings are converted into modern stores/restaurants/hotels. It's kinda sad that you can no longer experience the ancientness of the place anymore.

There were many of these huge cruises in Venice. 3000 people on each one,
and there are at least 10. $$ keeps coming.

Houses in Venice, viewed from a boat on the way to St. Marco's Square.

Probably the most famous scene in Venice.

Another one.

We stayed at the St. Marco region (check map) and spent majority of time walking around. It was fun seeing those local stuff (however commercialized)

One thing I want to talk about is the fee for using bathroom. In Europe, they charge you "tips" for using bathroom, almost everywhere (especially at tourist attractions.) Most of the places charge you 50 cents. It can be cheaper if you're a guy. Some places, though, charge way more because they KNOW you have to go at least once. Venice is such a place. The public bathroom charges you 1.25 euros per use. You might ask: "if it's just tip, why do you say they 'charge' you?" because they really do. Some bathrooms, including this one, are gated, and you have to put coins in to move the gate. It's one of those gates they use at amusement parks or basketball arenas ( I hope you know what I'm talking about. I don't really know the name of that thing.) They make so much money every day just by opening a public bathroom in a popular place. At a glance, I saw at least 30 people waiting in line. Assuming they can 1000 (there are probably more people) people to use it, that's 1250 euros, tax free (since it's "tip") Each month, they can make 1250*30=37,500 euros. That's above average salary in Italy, I'm sure. So if you ever buy some land in a popular tourist attraction, build a public bathroom. You'll make money for sure.

St. Marco's, with the Campanile.

There are several problems this place is facing. First is that this island is sinking. Some people don't believe this, but studies show that it's true. If it's just sinking, the water level wouldn't rise this fast, but due to global warming and the melt of iceberg, the water level rises even faster, causing the island to go lower 8 inches in every century. Not a lot? Well, in several hundred years, most of this island will be gone under water.

Second problem is that, no matter how advance the transportation is, this island is still remote. Especially back then when transportation was even worse, many people don't want to live on this island because of lack of opportunity of work. Yes, hand-craft glass/masks are working opportunity, but they also take a long time to learn, not even mastering. Many young people chose to leave the island and go to the continent, causing a loss of population.

Third problem is related to the second. Since young people don't want to learn the artistry of blowing glass and crafting masks, the technique starts to disappear in time. Now people actually need to try to preserve this type of skills.

The conclusion? Go to Venice when you can. Who knows? Maybe a giant storm or whatever will knock it out of the map completely. In the future, you might only see it in Vegas or Macau......

The Bridge of Sighs, connecting to Doge's Palace' 1F
(2nd floor) which used to be a jail. The other side used to
be where they execute prisoners.

A canal of many on this island.

The two pillars in front of San Marco's Square. One has St. Mark (the flying Lion)
on top while the other has St. Theodore of Amasea. This place used to be
where they chop off people's head. Thus standing in between is said
to bring bad luck.

St. Marco's Basilica.

Enough negative things. Let's talk about this place. St. Marco's Basilica is located at the square. If you look closely, there are several "paintings" on the walls of the place. The truth is, these are not paintings. These are mosaic. It's pretty incredible how people actually used these small pieces of glass to form the pictures. There are four horses on top of the building. These are replica, but the original ones are stored in the church (which you have to pay to see.) When Napoleon conquered this place, he took these 4 horses as trophies and set them up at Arch of Triumph in Paris. These are later returned to Italy when Napoleon died.

Coffee at these restaurants can cost up to 8 euros, thanks to
service fee, music fee, seating fee, table fee, and whatever else is applied.

Doge's Palace.

Okay, time to talk about gondola rides. We didn't schedule one with musicians as it 's really expensive. 5 of us got on one gondola, and there was traffic......

Gondola port.

Our gondolier

Me derping.

Traffic

Still, the ride was pleasant. We got to see the good views from the water. Going through the little tunnels did give me the feeling that I was in the old Venice where pollution and technology haven't hit this place. I also saw an interesting thing. Most of the ground floor entrances are blocked with rock and wood due to flooding. They have stairs leading up to first floor (again, it's second floor in US. First floor is called ground floor there.) There were water taxi and water buses running around (boats with motor engines.) Too bad we don't have things like that here. It'd be fun riding them. These canals, like the ones in Amsterdam, all have names so people can know where they are, and taxi drivers can know which canal to take. People need addresses here, too, you know?

View of Grand Canal.

And another. Gondolas on left, water taxi on right.

Here was when we got lucky. Remember I said the musicians were expensive to hire? Well, this gondola behind us hired a pair, so we enjoyed music for FREE!!!!!!

Musicians. They were amazing.

Masks, so many masks.

Assassin's Creed fans, remember this?

Something really concerned me was this:

You can see this place was flooding. It was a sunny day in early May. According to the tour guide, this NEVER happened before. I doubt this is completely true, but it gave me an idea how rarely this happens. But it did. The water came up from the sewer in front of my eyes. It was cool as well as frightening. I really hope this island can stay afloat. Sinking just sounds bad......

I'm too lazy to type more, so this will do for Venice. There were actually more actions, but I don't think that they will interest you guys, so yea.

Next stop: Florence, Italy (Leonardo de Vinci's home, Dante's home, Michelangelo's home, and, most importantly, EZIO AUDITORE'S HOME!!!!!!) 

The Epic Eurotrip--Chapter 14: The Capital of Music (Austria--Vienna)

I don't think I'll fit everything for Vienna in one post. I'll try.

Vienna, also known as the City of Music (thanks to many talented musicians,) the City of Dream (thanks to Sigmund Freud,) the Station of United Nation (thanks to, well, UN,) and many other names for its stories. Vienna is the capital of Austria, and it has the largest population by city in this nation. It is also the economical, political, and cultural center.

Being the center of everything, it has to have its unique things to brag. Well, yes, this city does offer a lot of things to see, so many that I had to go through my pictures and wikipedia to remember what I've learned. Here it is:

The front of Schonbrunn Palace

Our first stop was the Schönbrunn Palace, the home of Maria Theresa and many kings/royals. As I said before, the name Maria Theresa came up again and again when we visited Austria, or even Europe. Many of you know that the royal families in European countries always marry each other to keep the blood line "pure." Many argue that this causes genetic diseases while others claim that it might also cause the good traits to pass down to offspring. Take your side, but I root for genetic disease > good traits anytime (so should you.) The point here is, she reigned for a long time (~40 years) and had a lot of kids (16 or 17, I forgot.) That being said, imagine each kid marries another kid from another family......you can see how the bond between royal families was formed.

The back of the palace. It's huge......really huge......

Back to the palace. This palace has over 1000 rooms, but only about 20 were open for visitors. Also, photography is prohibited in the palace, so there's no photo for the rooms. The tour guide did give us a good history lesson. If I remembered correctly, when Napoleon was still allied with Austria, he visited this place as well and somehow had a kid here. This kid was so lonely and only had a bird as friend (too bad there was no internet, right?) The kid somehow got into gardening so that the royal family made him a huge garden in the backyard (more like a back plaza......) Napoleon went back to France, and this kid stayed. The kid's room was one of the rooms displayed, and there was a small bed. The tour guide mistakenly said it was Napoleon's bed, which everyone believed since it's a common knowledge that Napoleon was short. Still, it was way too small of a bed even for a midget (the bed was 3 ft at most.)

The Gloriette on top of the hill.

There were also tons of paintings in the palace portraying the Theresa family. Each kid has his or her own individual portrait everywhere. The king also had some, and this guy really liked legging apparently. We also saw dining rooms, ballrooms, and the offices. It was kinda sad that there were repairing going on when we visited, so it was hard to capture the beauty of the palace without seeing the modern stuff (I've seen the word "Alpine" several times. I guess that's a company's name?) We spent around an hour inside, and we've got another half an hour or so for the gardens outside.

A Neptune fountain located at the bottom of the Gloriette hill.

About the garden.....It's huge. Since it's flat (except the hill you see in the picture,) everything seems to be in walking distance. Well, if you spent like 25 minutes walking, then yes, it's in walking distance. Going from the palace to the Gloriette takes FOREVER!!! I didn't even make it to the top since I ran out of time. Oh, about the Gloriette, it serves as a monument for the soldiers who died in wars. It also symbolizes peace. According to Wiki, there's a replica in Shanghai. I can't seem to find a picture for that. Can someone confirm this? OP cannot deliver this time. This place also has tons of sculptures in the garden. I'm not gonna post photos of those. You can find them online.

After this palace, we went on a really rushed city tour. We tried to cover as many places as possible, but we never really had enough time at each place to let it sink into us. Well, the cons of rushed trips......

Hofburg Palace.

The first one was the Hofburg Palace. Schönbrunn Palace is referred as the Summer Palace while Hofburg is referred as Winter Palace. Apparently it gets too hot or too cold based on seasons, so they used to switch to another palace to avoid the severe temperature (does it really make a difference?) There are two statues in front of Hofburg for celebrating the victories of some important wars. I think one was this general who defeated Napoleon later when Napoleon tried to conquer Austria. I forgot the other one. Sadly we didn't get to go in (again, very rushed.) Right now this place is also the residence of the governor. Maybe that's another reason why we couldn't go in. The plaza in front of Hofburg is called Heldenplatz, where the two statues are located.

Museum of Princess Sissi

Okay, we passed by the museum of Princess Sissi. Someone educate me please. Before this trip, I really had no idea who this person is, but the old folks god excited when the tour guide introduced them about this place. I took a quick shot of this place only. I did a little research about this woman after coming back home (again, thanks to wikipedia,) and, dude, this woman is kinda messed up. Take a look of the wiki page. She has an interesting life. She was obsessed with her fashion and had to take care of her look everyday (including the long-hour hair brushing session everyday. her hair was really long apparently.) She would go on fasting and over-exercising just so she can stay skinny (pioneer of those young girls who care too much about the bodies and body builders.) She was disgusted by meat and would only eat egg and milk (or squeeze meat juice into soup, pioneer of....vegetarian? In a way, I guess.) Her son died, and she developed depression and melancholy. She was eventually assassinated. Poor woman. Apparently there were some TV shows and movies about her as well.

Roman ruins

On the other side of Hofburg, you get to see a Roman ruin. There are a lot of these in Rome (duh!) and they caused a lot of trouble for underground construction. Why? Say they want to dig a tunnel for subway. The route is already planned and they already dug half way. Boom! They dig into some ruins covered underground. Alright, now they have to change route and all the work they have done is wasted. It happens a lot in China as well, so I heard. However the Chinese sometimes hide the information and just keep digging. They apparently have too many of these ancient cites. Destroying one of them wouldn't matter.

Maria Theresa statue, with some others.

The next stop was the Maria Theresa Plaza. This place has a giant Maria Theresa statue along with her generals (those on horses) and other famous people (those directly under her throne. I think Mozart is one of them as well.) Too bad a construction was going on, so there's no way to avoid showing some of the bars and nets. On the side, there are two identical buildings. One is the natural history museum, and the other is art history museum. There's no way you can tell by the building. The only way you can tell is by the banners they hang. Okay, not much to talk about here. We really only stayed for around 5 minutes. Once again, rushed trip. Well, at least I didn't get lost and had to take cab to a city 3 hours away, right? (I did get lost several times during this trip, though.)

Art Museum

Natural History Museum. Look at the front doors to tell the difference.

Johann Strauss statue.

On the way to the downtown, we passed by the park that has a golden statue of Johann Strauss. He's also a famous musician who composed a lot of famous pieces. I think one of his most famous piece is the Blue Danube (An der schönen blauen Donau.) The river is not really blue. Apparently it's "blue" only for the rhyme. Feel free to let the music play while you read the rest of the post, if you haven't got tired of it.

This guy had an interesting life as well. He was born in a family where his dad abandoned him from practicing music. His dad was a somewhat famous musician, but he thought the life of a musician was too hard to handle. Therefore, he wants little Johann to be an accountant or a banker or whatever, as long as it's not a musician. Too bad, little Johann liked music so much that he secretly practiced violin. One day, his dad found out about this and whipped the hell out of little Johann to "beat the music out of his body." Little Johann didn't stop, though. He became famous as he composed more and more pieces. His dad finally realized that his son is more famous than him and was like "fuck this shit!" and left for a mistress (okay, the dad might not be a bad guy. Maybe he really wanted Strauss Jr. to have a good life and nothing is about family feud of competition. Sr. did leave for another woman, though.)

Here are some pictures of stuff I saw:

Denube River, and it's not blue (more green-ish).

Temple of Athena.

Interesting building.

HQ of United Nation.

Wiener Musikverein, one of the most famous concert halls in the entire world.

Then we got to downtown. Downtown is a beautiful place where cars are not allowed to get in. It's pretty much one main street with some smaller streets branching out. You can see many restaurants setting tables at the middle of the streets. It's quite a nice view. I really enjoyed the atmosphere here. I also had one of the best meals on this trip here and had a really good conversation with two old ladies.

The main street.

I was searching for restaurants on this street because I do not want to go to Rosenburger (fuck Rosenburger......I had this shit every time we were on road.) For those who don't know, Rosenburger is a cafeteria that serves all different kinds of food. Sounds good? These are always next to highway exits, people would only go there when they don't have other choices. I had this for at least 4 to 5 meals on this trips (since we're on road a lot.) There's another one called Autogrill, mainly in Italy and France. Since I was in the city, I refused to eat at Rosenburger. I found this restaurant called Wienerwald. It's one of the famous local restaurants. Although it's still a chain, the food is just so much better. This place mainly serves poultry, so I got this chicken breasts with grilled tomatoes paired with mushroom sauce and cheese. It was amazing! They are best known for the fried chicken, or Schnitzel, but I didn't get that as I wanted something not fried (too much fried food on the previous day.)

When I was eating, two old ladies came next to me (I was sitting outside) and asked (in German) if there was anyone sitting next to me. Being a stupid American, of course I didn't understand what they said, so I told them I don't speak your language and showed them my camera (universal sign of "I'm a tourist.") They quickly changed to English and asked again. Their English wasn't good, but good enough to communicate with simple terms. They sat down and started talking. I wouldn't give up this chance to talk to locals (I thought they were local people,) so I asked if they were from around here.

It turned out that they were travelling, too (both look like they were 70+ years old. So brave. You go, old ladies!) One was from Berlin and the other from Amsterdam. I told them I went to Amsterdam several days ago and really liked it. The other lady asked if I visited Berlin already, I told her that it was too far east (yet I was in Vienna, haha) so I couldn't go, but I said I went to Cologne and Frankfurt and loved everything I saw there. She seemed happy. Good. I then went on and asked how they communicate to each other (Netherlands people mainly speak Dutch while Germans speak, well, German.) They said the Europeans have to learn at least 3 languages in schools. They both learned German, Dutch, and French. They were saying all these in English, so they actually know 3.5 languages, so pro. They said sometimes they can just change language at the middle of a conversation with no problem. Both can pick up really quickly. I kind of envy them because I had experienced language problem when I was travelling. Knowing one of the European languages (other than English) would definitely help.

We went on and talked about my trip and where I was from. I told them that San Diego is very beautiful and relaxing. One of them had gone to New York for 1 month, but she didn't like it. She thought everything was all crowded together, so she felt a little claustrophobic, even when she was outside.

It was a very nice meal and I had fun time talking to these two ladies. I wish all meals were like this. It would have been so much fun. Too bad I forgot to take a picture with these two. It would be very nice to leave some visual memory of this amazing time.

After lunch, I went to find the famous Sachertorte, a chocolate cake that's famous is Austria. It's pretty much everywhere, so I just found a table at the middle of the street to sit down.

The half-finished cake, cafe latte, and a glass of water.

The cake was meh. It was kinda dry, but surprisingly it was too sweet. It also had a little tangerine flavor in it, not sure if it's ordinary or not for a cake like this. I sat there for about 20 minutes just eating and watching people passing by. The city was very lively but didn't seem busy. Everyone seemed very chill and happy. Maybe it's because half of them were tourists? I don't know.

The day ended at St. Steven's Church, another big church that's famous in Vienna. I also saw a parade for......something. Just check the photos.

The cake place.

St. Steven's Church.

The church and the streets.

Part of the parade.

Managed to finish Vienna in one post. This concludes Austria. Two more countries to go!!! Well, technically four, but 2 are really small. Sounds like I'm almost done, but these 2 countries are Italy and France.....so yea......

Next stop: Venice, Italy (woo hoo!)