Week 6: London, Austria, and a Very Happy Heart

I've been looking forward to this trip all semester and it exceeded all expectations! Warning y'all now that this week will be full of my obsessions with both the British Royal Family and the Sound of Music...

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Monday:

As expected, I woke up both tired and sore for a full day of classes. In lit today, we did a dramatic reading of the play we were reading, which made for the fastest that class has passed thus far! Quite a few of the buses were out of service that night so I had to wait a while to get home where Marivi warmed up some turkey for dinner. Afterwords, I packed for tomorrow and headed off to bed.

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Tuesday:

I forgot that my Econ class starts at 10:05 and not at 10:30 so I’m very glad that I was running “early“ per usual and still made it on time. Sadly, our professor didn’t open our essay until later in the evening so I couldn’t work on it during my break. After classes, I ran through a thunderstorm to get the bus back home where I showered, changed clothes, prayed for my shoes to dry (they didn’t) and caught the bus to the train station. Marivi and Ricardo made me sandwiches to bring with me since I wouldn’t have time to eat dinner.

I managed to catch a shuttle to the airport in time to get through security which closed at 11 (I got through at 10:52!) I then took another train to the international terminal and passport check (many thanks to Brexit for making this all harder) where I luckily found a lawn-chair-type reclining seat where I could sleep for the night. It definitely wasn’t great sleep with lights turning on an announcements being made, but it was the only way to catch my flight to London the next morning and was not the worst night I have spent in the airport!

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Wednesday:

I finally decided to stay awake when I woke up around 7:30 and found a pastry stand for breakfast. Then off to my gate to wait for boarding at 8:30. Slept a little bit on the plane and eventually made it to customs. There was a cool little machine for US, UK and EU citizens to use that scanned your passport so you didn’t have to wait for a staff member. I then made it down to the underground to get on the Tube (my friend Libby from Notre Dame is studying abroad here and gave me all the instructions for how to get into town.) In this Tube ride alone, I saw more diversity than in my entire time in Spain haha! And everyone is obviously speaking in British accents which makes it all so much more fun!

I left my bag at the hotel, and along the way to the Tube I saw a red telephone box and Agatha Christie’s memorial!

After a quick correction to get on the eastbound Tube instead of the westbound, I arrived at the Tower of London where I sat and ate fish and chips (surely the most British thing ever, innit?) The main highlight was the Crown Jewels, which are incredible and amazing to see in person instead of just in pictures or on the TV! (No photos allowed though)

I’m also just blown away by how old everything is! William the Conqueror founded the Tower in 1066 and it was completed in 1076—700 years before the American Revolution. This is also where Anne Boleyn was executed and where Richard III is thought to have murdered his nephews in order to become king.

Then I headed towards the Thames for a great view of the Tower Bridge and walked along the river to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Alas, there was the Annual National Service for Seafarers going on so I couldn’t go inside, but I got to see the outside and a bunch of people in suits and dresses waiting in line.

I then then checked out the Globe Theatre, which I also couldn’t tour the inside of, but still super cool!

My friend Libby then texted so I headed back to meet her in Trafalgar Square where we headed off to our dinner reservations. I ordered prawns and we both had gelato for dessert.

It was then time for our show so we headed over to the West End to see Jersey Boys! Fantastic show and the Jersey accents were pretty spot on for Brits haha!

Then Libby took me the “scenic route” back to her flat, taking a bridge with views of Big Ben, Parliament, and the London Eye. It was nice to be able to see her setup and chat with her roommates before taking a double decker red bus back to my hotel!

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Thursday:

The day began with a gorgeous hour long train ride through the English countryside to Windsor Castle. From the station it was a quick walk to the entrance through the quiet town, fairly empty save for me and several retired Packers fans who must’ve flown out for the game.

My self-guided tour begin with St. George’s Chapel, a beautiful church that also served as the burial site of several British monarchs, including the late Queen Elizabeth II (No pictures allowed inside.) The chapel was full of history, and it was nice to pay my respects to the Queen.

I headed out of the chapel just in time to catch the Changing of the Guard ceremony. Finally, I walked through the castle state rooms, which were absolutely gorgeous – they certainly gave the royal Palace a Madrid a run for its money (No pictures allowed there either.)

I caught the next train back to London and found a lunch restaurant advertising “British baked” chicken (how it’s different from American chicken, I have no clue) but it was quite good and served with crisps!

After lunch, I walked over to Buckingham Palace and saw a horse-drawn carriage bring someone up to the doorstep (it must’ve been someone important, but I couldn’t see his face.)

I then strolled through St. James Park as I headed toward Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abby which are conveniently all in the same square!

I was able to tour Westminster Abby and was amazed by how many famous people are buried or memorialized there, on top of all the incredible events that occur there (coronations, royal weddings, etc.)

I was sad to find out that 10 Downing Street could not be seen from behind the security gates; I was hoping to thank Liz Truss for her economic plan that crashed the pound and helped my dollar go so much further here haha! A walk through Trafalgar Square brought me to a Tube which I rode to 221B Baker Street, where I lived out of my Sherlock Holmes dreams and tried on a deerstalker hat.

Then I headed back to the hotel, got changed for tonight’s show and picked up a quick dinner along the way (clearly I prioritized seeing as much as I could over dining experiences—which I figure probably works out just fine since the British aren’t exactly known for flavorful food.) I walked towards St. Martin’s Theatre for the 28,860th performance of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap—the longest running play in the world (70 years now!) It was a great show and I didn’t guess the murderer—I almost never do with Agatha Christie—so it made for a great end to the night before the early start tomorrow’s traveling would bring!

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Friday:

If there’s a theme to my travel mornings, it’s that I get no sleep because I always seem to have to wake up ridiculously early. Today started a little before 5 so I could catch the 5:30 bus to meet my friend Libby at the train station where we could catch our train to the airport. Luckily all of the traveling went off without a hitch and we got to the airport with enough time to get some breakfast. Unfortunately, our flight was then delayed about an hour and a half, so we had gotten up so early for nothing. Nevertheless, we made it onto our flight and arrived in Vienna, Austria around 2:00. Another hour got us out of the airport and into the heart of the city where we enjoyed a late lunch of chicken schnitzel, which was amazing!

We dropped our bags off at the hotel, sad that there would only be two of us in our triple room as our friend Annie could no longer join us due to a last minute scheduled exam.

We headed back out into Vienna and first visited St. Francis of Assisi Church which was gorgeous and also had great views of the Danube River (the second largest river in Europe!) It is also known as Mexico Church by the locals since it’s in the middle of Mexico Plaza, which was named in recognition of Mexico being the only country to file a formal complaint in the League of Nations when Germany annexed Austria.

We had decided to take a bus tour that evening, knowing that we did not have much time in the city, especially after our delayed flight. Along the way to the bus stop, we peeked our heads into both St. Stephen’s Cathedral and St. Peter’s Church (who knew Austria had so many pretty churches??)

The bus tour was informative and fun and I tried to capture some photos of the city at night:

Afterwards, we found a nearby restaurant for dinner where I had Viennese pulled pork and potatoes—another incredible meal! Dessert was the city’s famed sachertorte, which wasn’t as sweet as I had hoped, but was nevertheless still chocolate cake and therefore still good. We caught the metro back to our hotel, which was funnily enough above an IKEA and tried to get some rest before the next day’s travels.

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Saturday:

Today didn’t start terribly early as our train to Salzburg didn’t leave until 8, which gave us plenty of time to get to the station and grab something to eat, including a pretzel! The three hour train ride was spent looking out the window at the gorgeous Austrian countryside and watching the Sound of Music, which was filmed in Salzburg and also the primary reason for our visit.

We dropped off our bags and headed off to find lunch, which ended up being a pretzel and Austrian rump steak salad, another consistently good meal in Austria!

We headed into the city center as Libby wanted to see the Salzburg Cathedral (once again, shocked by the amount of pretty churches in Austria!) and outside we found the horse fountain that appears in the movie so we were already getting a head start ahead of our tour haha!

We wandered around some more, entranced by how beautiful the city is, and  then headed to the meeting point of our Sound of Music tour.

The tour started in the city where we visited lots of filming locations, including the lake at one of the two houses used, the iconic gazebo (which had been moved to a pavilion at a nearby palace after tourists kept trespassing onto private property to get a glimpse at it, and was locked since one girl had been dancing in the gazebo and her leg shattered a pane of glass that had to be fixed,) many spots in the Mirabell Gardens, and views of the Nonnberg Abbey.

We were then driven out to the Austrian Alps, which were stunning!! Finally, we stopped in the small town of Mondsee to visit the chapel where the wedding scene takes place and enjoy some warm apple strudel!

The tour was also a sing-a-long and the retired couple sitting in front of us asked if we were professional singers, not long before the lady in the row across from us started to film us and chant “Sing!” in a strong Austrian accent, so we left the bus feeling pretty good about ourselves haha!

Our tour guide recommended a restaurant known for its Backhendl (Austrian fried chicken) and along the way, we found Mozart’s birthplace. Dinner was once again amazing, confirming that Austria definitely has the best food of all the places I’ve been so far.

We did in fact get on the bus going on the opposite direction since it arrived around the same time our correct one was supposed to, so luckily it just circled around and we eventually made it back to our hotel. At the furthest point though, we thought we might end up in Germany since we were about half a mile from the border!

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Sunday:

And so we return to early mornings, catching our train that left at 6 AM. Thankfully the hotel called a taxi since the buses weren’t running, which saved us a half hour walk in the dark. It took a while before there was enough light to see the view, but it was just as pretty heading back. The train brought me back to the airport, where I parted ways with Libby who was just starting her spring break and waited for my flight to Mallorca, where I’d have a layover on my way back to Madrid. Used the layover to get some work done and the flight back to Madrid, along with the following metro and bus rides back to Toledo were a success! It was an absolutely incredible long weekend and I will most definitely have to come back someday and explore all the cities I visited with more time!

I love and miss you all,

Ich liebe und vermisse euch alle,

Bryce