Tag: austria

Weekend Recap…

Ok, So I am on the plane now and thought I would take some time to write about the weekend.

Lets see, I really didn’t do to much during the week. I went to the gym with Dustin one day and no gym the rest of the week. Iw as pretty lazy. Friday I went out with Sirin and Christian to this place in downtown LA called Seven Grand. It’s a whiskey bar that Guerrilla Gay bar was hosting at. Tons and tons of fun! We hung out and talked and played pool and what not. Matt was there and I tried buying him a drink, but he declined. How sad! 🙁 OH well.

Drove back to my place after that and the three of us drank the bottle of wine that Constantine and I brought back from Austria. It was not very good. Christian spent the night and Saturday morning I drove him home and then was getting my car washed when I got the first of many bad news phone calls during the weekend. I had planned to hang out with a bunch of people and go to a gallery opening that night, but I cancelled all those plans and just ended up sitting at home all day reading and doing random computer stuff and debating about what I should do.

Sunday I got up and went rock climbing. It was just me and Jerry setting up so that was fun. We talked a lot and he taught me some interesting stuff. Jenny and Megan showed up and some other guy. We all did some rock climbing on three different climbs. I made it to the top of two of them and then failed on the last one. The last one is called Birdshit crack and I have yet to make it up that one. There’s this weird move you are doing because you’re coming out of this crack and have to turn and get yourself up somehow. Anyways, it’s hard to explian, but I just can’t keep my footing on it. Very annoying.

Had a great time rock climbing, but I got two calls during that with more bad news. After climbing we went up and had a picnic up on this mountian thing and just chatted and stuff. Lots of fun!

Drove home after that, called Constantine on my way home and of course he didn’t answer. I was debating about what to do and ended up just calling my boss and he said to go home and work from there. So I bought the tickets and then freaked out because my flight left at 5am Monday morning and this was 5pm Sunday night. So I had to arrange someone to take care of the cats and drive me to the airport and I had to pack everything. What a mess. I was freaking out.

My friend Rob came over and we hung out for like 45 minutes and watched some TV and caught up. It was relaxing to have him chill with me. He’s very laid back and cool.

Called Constantine again and left another message about me being in Houston on Monday for 3 hours and seeing if he wanted to have coffee or something.

He called back a little later and we talked. I was very angry with him and with everything else that’s going on and called him an asshole. As soon as it came out I felt so horrible. I wish I could have taken it back, rewind the tape…I didn’t know what to do. We talked about a lot of random things. Sounds like he’s having a great time in Houston, sounds like he’s moving on and forgetting about me and all the great times we had together. When I got back from Lone Pine….(stop me if I wrote about this already??) anyways, I noticed that someone from houston opera house and Halliburton had both spent a LARGE amount of time reading EVERY entry about Constantine and I all the way back to when we first met. I find this very very strange, why are they reading about all this a month after it happened. Why are they spending so much time going back and reading about everything that’s happened… I don’t get it. He said he knew they had done it. Sirin has her theory, but I am guessing that’s not the case.

Anyways… Being in Houston, being so close and yet so far away from him. In the short month I feel like we’ve already grown so far apart. I’m moving on very well, but with all this shit going on, I just want him back. I want to hear his voice and have him comfort me. After readin “Call me by your name”. I keep hoping that he’ll show up in Iowa, we’ll see each other from across the room, run into each other’s arms and kiss and swing each other around and be so happy (ala the wedding scene). I kept hoping while I was waiting in Houston that he would show up at the gate and say. “I’m comging with you”. I know that he won’t, but I need support right now, I could really use someone to lean on. To cry on his shoulder, to hold him and have it feel like everything will be ok. I wish he could be there in Iowa, to sit in the hot tub, watch the sky and talk about my grandpa with me.

My crying has been so random lately. I just can’t stop it. It’s very annoying.

On a funny note. There is this spanish couple in the seat infront of me on this flight, they have lunch on this flight (amazing!) anyways, they don’t speak ANY English, the flight attendant was aksing everyone if they knew how to say “Turkey” or “Ham” in spanish. No one knew. She had chicken, beef and fish on her little translation card, but no Turkey or beef. Anyways she started making farm sounds. It was really funny. Then they answered by mimicing the sounds. Very entertaining. lol. On the flight from LAX to Houston, I had the whole exit row to myself. That was very nice. 🙂

Restaurants in Prague and Vienna

While we were out and about in Prague and Vienna we ate out a every night. Here’s a list of some of my favorite places we ate at while there (in no real order):

Vienna

1) Cafe Central – Vienna. They had some very good cakes and desserts. As well as excellent Coffee and Tea
2) Hotel Sacher – Vienna. You must visit this place for the famous Sachertorte. It’s well worth the price. Plus the waiters were all hot. 🙂
3) Cafe Frauenhuber – Vienna. Excellent Wiener Schnitzel. Also a great atmosphere and history as this is the supposed last place that Mozart’s last public performance took place here.
4) Cafe Landtmann – Vienna. A fairly expensive place, but well worth it. The food was excellent as well as the atmosphere. I’d suggest sitting inside in the “Smoking” area as it’s much nicer then the outdoors area. However, when you sit in the glass enclosure outside you get a wonderful view of the Rathaus.
5) Haas & Haas – Vienna. Stop here in the afternoon for a wonderful drink of tea and some excellent desserts. They have a WONDERFUL chocolate brownie type thing. Just amazing. I can’t remember the name, but ask your waitress, it was the first item listed on the dessert menu.

Prague

1) Jama Pub – Prague. Stop in here for a quick bite in the afternoon. They have some pretty americanized food. But it was excellent and everyone was very friendly. This is also a great pub to stop into at night for a quick drink.
2) I honestly don’t remember the name of this place and sadly I can’t find the business card we took from there, but it’s right next to Jama Pub in Prague. You can find it because they are next door to each other (there’s a car lot in between then, it’s down the street towards Vodickova) and this one has a fish tank in the window.
3) Marie Teresie Restaurant – Prague. Another great place to go eat, it was a little dead when we went, but we were there early and on a week night. It’s in the basement and they had some excellent decorations and history.
4) Restaurant Gratia – Prague. This was probably my favorite place we ate at while in Prague. Located in the arcade of the house is a commemorative board reminding of the fact that at that very place, in November, 1989, by the brutal suppression of the peaceful students’ demonstration the “velvet revolution” started. The food was soo good. You can see a picture of me and my food here!
5) If you’re there during the Winter Festival/Christmas Market time, be sure and stop at one of the stands and pick up some Staroceske Trdlo . I’d highly suggest hanging around and watching it be made too. It’s pretty interesting.
6) And lastly, if you’re feeling adventurous! Try out one of the MANY MANY stands located between Mustek and Museum metro stations in Wenceslas Square. You can smell the meat cooking from a long ways away! It was actually really good. 🙂

Vienna Wrap Up

So Vienna…

Vienna, was not my favorite city. We got lost, constantly!

So we got there at the Southern Station and then had to go to the Western Station where our hostel was. We got on the tram and there was no where to put luggage, thankfully this really nice older guy gave up his seat so that we could get our luggage out of the isle. He also told us how many stops we had to go. Really friendly guy.

Got to our hostel and they told us we’d have to wait 3 hours before our room was ready! This was at 15:00!! So we put our luggage in storage and explored the area around our hostel some, found a grocery store to buy food in. I was carrying around a bunch of things of yogurt. Well, I dropped one and right next to where someone else had JUST broken a whole bottle of wine. Well the lady who was cleaning up the wine started yelling at me in German and I didn’t understand! :'(

Anyways, the first full day there we headed over to the Hofburg Complex. We wondered around that for a while and then went and saw the royal Imperial Apartments and Silver Collection. Both were very cool. After that we wondered around some more and they were setting up for some crazy Luxury living event thing. After that we tried finding our next activity, but we got lost and ended up next to the Rathaus City hall building where they were having a Christmas Market. Which is honestly one of my FAVORITE things about traveling in Europe at this time of year. They are absolutely wonderful! We shopped around there for a little bit and got lunch there. From there we headed over to the Sigmund Freud Museum which was very cool to see where he actually worked and lived. I wished they had more of his original stuff there, but they did have the waiting room setup the way he had it. We ended the day going to a Imperial Crypt in a church which wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, but still kinda cool.

The second day we walked around a lot, saw the Stephansdom which was neat. Around the corner from it was a place called Haas & Haas, we went back a few days later for some AMAZING dessert and tea! , found a cool Memorial which was all in Russian, so Constantine could read it. lol. I can’t remeber the exact name of it though and I don’t have the book with me to look it up. I was honestly surprised it was still standing. After that we headed over to the Belvedere and saw all the art there which was nice. That evening we went out and found the State Opera house which was really pretty all lit up at night and we saw a concert at the smaller Music theater next door. There were three encores! It was really good and I’m glad we went to it. After that we headed over to the famous Sacher for a slice of Sachertorte. Amazing! 🙂

The third day we headed to the nation museums which were cool in the MuseumsQuartier. We saw Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien and the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Both of them were really cool. It was also sunny that day so we took advantage of that and walked back over to the Stephansdom to take more pics of that. That night we headed out to Mango Bar which was lots of fun.

The last day in Vienna we went out to the Schloss Schonbrunn Palace. This place was amazing, and I highly suggest the longer tour as they save the best rooms for that tour! I was sad that it was so cloudy that day! That evening we headed back over to the Rathaus to take night time shots. Did some last minute shopping and then ate dinner at Cafe Resturant Landtmann which was just delicious! We then headed out to another gay bar called Heaven. The place was a dud. 🙁

The next day we took the train back to Prague and spent the night at the hotel by the airport. We totally wanted to go try and find some hot Czech boy porn, but the only place that looked any good was closed that night! 🙁

The flights back to LA were hellish. I got yelled at by the Air France people because the place was “Ready to leave”. I got stopped TWICE at different security points. The second one was AT the door to get on the plane and the woman was a total bitch. Made me take EVERYTHING out of my backpack. My wallet set off the metal detector because I have an extra key in there, so she made me empty that entire thing. All while the Air France lady is yelling at ME to hurry up because the plane is ready to go. Then we get on the plane and there is no where for me to put my baggage in the overhead thing and they are yelling at me to take my seat. They run out of Chicken dinners by the time they get back to me and only have Salmon, and I don’t eat that shit. Just an absolute nightmare! UGH!

Thank god the rest of the trip was excellent.

If you want to see our tracks that we did here’s a few different ways:

1) Download the GPX file and load it into your favorite program.
2) Download a Google Maps static image.
3) Download the Google Earth KMZ file. Download Google Earth here.
4) Or view it directly in your browser on Google Maps.

You can see all 531 photos from our trip to Vienna on the photodump.

Prague Wrap Up

Ok, So where to start with this trip! This is going to be one long as entry probably. Unless I get lazy!

Wed Nov 14th we packed up and headed to the airport. Got there and got through security with no problems. We were extra early because of the shuttle bus thing, but it really wasn’t much of a problem. We got the inner row (no windows) of the plane, but one of us had the isle, so that was good. I was sitting next to this older lady who was pretty funny. The flight was 10 hours from LAX to Paris. The TV screens on our seats didn’t work and about half way through the flight my glasses broke. Thankfully the old woman next to us had a nail file, so Constantine was able to screw them back together. At one point the turbulence was soooo bad that the old woman was praying! So Cute! Landing was HORRIBLE! We bounced and on the second time hitting it felt like the plane was going to tip over! Like EVERYONE was suddenly jolted hard to the left!

Got to Paris and had to take a bus to our next plane. Got on that and that flight was pretty good. Got into Prague and our luggage was no where to be found! We filed a report and headed to the hostile. Since our luggage was missing, that basically killed our plans for going out. Thankfully our host at Shelter Pension was very nice and stayed around so that we could go out for a little bit. I didn’t have my jacket on me (it was in my luggage) so I borrowed Constantine’s light jacket and we explored a little. We were very close to everything so that was great. We could easily walk to Wenceslas Square which was just perfect!! Spent most of the night in our hostel room though.

The second day we got up and our luggage still wasn’t there. They said it might be delivered at night, so I hardly slept at all because every sound I heard I woke up thinking it was them. The hostle guy came again at 9:30 and said they called him last night saying they would deliver at 2am, I guess he told them not too and what not. He again agreeded to stay for a while and Constantine and I headed out in the opposite direction from our hostle. We found a neat park and some other cool stuff in our area. Came back to the hostel because the guy had to leave and we waited an hour or so for our luggage. I finilly just decided to go to one of the THREE H&M stores within walking distance of our Hostel and bought some warmed clothes. Of course, once I got back our luggage was there! That afternoon we headed out to the Dvorak Museum. We also got very lost, saw lots of interesting squares and other stuff in the city. Saw a wonderful sunset from the banks of the river.

The third day we headed out to Prague Castle, which was just amazing! We saw St. Vitus Cathedral, Dailbor Tower, Powder Tower, Golden Lane, the Old Royal Palace, and lots of other stuff in the area! The whole thing was just overwhelming! From there we headed over to the Loretto and some other churches in the area.

Day four was a good day, but a little light on things. We basically went to Little Quarter and saw some churches, Charles Bridge, the Kampa Museum of Modern Art, the Hunger Wall and the Memorial to the victims of Communism.

The last day we had to fit in both the Old town and the Jewish Quarter because of the luggage mishap. We started off with the Old town and the Powder Gate and then wondered around the old town square area while waiting for the Astronomical Clock to go. That was totally a waste of time, but I guess it was probably reall cool when it was built 1410! We also saw the Church of the Holy Ghost. The day was very clear, so we climbed the tower at Charles Bridge, headed over to the Jewish quarter and saw a few synagoges and the jewish cemetery. We walked from there over to Prague Castle again and this time walked up the steps from the Little Quarter and saw the Cathedral again. The inside was just AMAZING this time! We also climbed the tower and it was a wonderful view of the city. That was our last night out so we went to this really nice place to eat which was in a basement but it was done up really cool! I can’t remmeber the name of it right now, I have the card or something at home. On our way back to the hostel we stopped at this cute little street vendor who was selling Staroceske trdlo

I was a little sad that we didn’t get the 6 inches of snow they had forcasted, but on the third day it snowed a little bit in the morning. On the flight in and the trainride out, there was SNOW everywhere! Idon’t know why it wasn’t in Prague! :'(

If you want to see our tracks that we did here’s a few different ways:

1) Download the GPX file and load it into your favorite program.
2) Download a Google Maps static image.
3) Download the Google Earth KMZ file. Download Google Earth here.
4) Or view it directly in your browser on Google Maps.

You can see all 959 photos from our trip to Prague on the photodump.

Apartments in Prague
Provides a variety of cheap and luxury serviced apartments for short term rental in Prague.