June so far has been varied.
It started off with Ali going home early as the labyrinthitis (makes you dizzy ear infection) he’d had for the previous month hadnt got any better and he generally wasnt feeling very well. It was sad to see him go, especially with our last trip out to brandauers as a group, but ultimately he wasnt well and getting better was more important.
The first weekend was another (I know, isn’t it nice for us) long weekend, with thursday and friday off. The weather continued to be rubbish for the thursday and friday, but picked up epically on the saturday, which was topped off with a visit from Zen and Ross. Much sigghtseeing was done, along with muchos cake eating. The saturday was topped off with a visit to Brandauers where Ross managed the ribs, and half an apfel strudel!
Zen and Ross at the Gloriette in Shoenbrunn looking over Vienna
Sunday was more sightseeing, and cake eating, before spending a lovely afternoon relaxing in the Stadtpark. After seeing Zen and Ross off on a train back to Graz, where they were visiting one of Zen’s friends from uni, we headed off into town to enjoy the sunshine at the Hermann Stadt Bar, a big bar with beach chairs on the canal. There was however one deck chair empty…
Me and Anna with our cocktails
The chair that was missing Ali
The rest of the week continued pretty uneventtfully, with both Lucie and I making it finally to the pool for the first time this year! Although we havent been able to go back since 
as the weather has again been too rubbish.
The following tuesday was the annual Shoenbrunn Sommersnacht konzert, basically 100,000 people or so in Shoenbrunn park listening to a classical music concert put on by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra for free. The theme this year was stars, moons, and planets; so basically Star Wars and the song Mars from The Planets as well as a famous (apparently) piano player who came in from New York and played something by Franz List. Despite not being the biggest classical music fan I really enjoyed it. We took along a picnic with Pimms and made a really good evening out of it.
The stage, plus lasers with the Gloriette in the background
The following weekend we headed off for our final trip to Munchen. A pretty uneventful train journey (although Lucie is adamant she nearly died!) for us got us to the central station and our hostel, which was about 10m away! After dumping our stuff we headed down to the bar to plan our evening, where we were met by loads of English people! Our planning lead us through the town and past an awesome band busking on hte main square to Sausilinos, a mexican themed bar where for dinner we had tortias with chicken, tacos, chicken wings and other bits and pieces all in a massive tower of food. Our evening ended back at the hostel bar with tiny free beers.
Lucie and her free tiny beer
The night spent at the hostel was unbelievably hot, so none of us got a particularly good nights sleep. To wake ourselves up on the saturday morning we headed back into town for breakfast at an amazing find of a cafe. I had french toast with fruit, Aleks and Anna had full English (American) breakfasts and Lucie had a lovely looking patisery (sp?) A morning of sightseeing later and we headed off to the very un-English English gardens. I’ve never seen English gardens with a nudest area, a surfing wave and a fast flowing stream that people willingl swim in. Needless to say even though it was warm we didnt swim, we dabbled our feet and wrote postcards, like the good English kids we are!!
Our wander through the English Gardens culminated with finding the biggest outdoor permanent beer garden in Munich. It was an off-shoot of the famous Hoffbrau haus beer hall in the centre of Munich. And obviously, when in Munich one has to do as the Munichians? Munichites? Munchens? do, and so we ordered litre tankards of beer, pork knucles, and pretzels as big as your head.
Anna being mummy and cutting up our pork knuckle
Lucie mit bier and brezl
Our afternoon was spent watching England direly attempt to play football against the US in the world cup, before heading out on the town to a really fun electro club, via a cocktail bar which we found when attempting to find the club.
Sunday started slowly, very slowly. Munich beer is strong!! Breakfast in a cafe near the station was “improved” by the random German TV show, whose hosts managed to change the words of the england football song “three lions” to three lines on a shirt to fit it to the German team. It was all very odd. A trip to the Nymphenburg palace for a hangover curing walk, a quick look around a random comic museum and a trip up a tall building overlooking the Rathaus in the centre of Munich finished off the weekend.
To top off a busy week last friday we headed to the Staatoper to see the ballet Mayerling. Despite not following much of the story (its basically about a guy in the Austrian Royal family who kills himself and his lover after having lots of other lovers) it was a lovely classy night out.
This evening we got to speak to Ali on skype and he is getting better which is really good news.
Later this week we have the BI sommerfest to look forward to as well as seeing Albin’s band, among others at the Donauinselfest, Europes biggest free music festival. And then, a week tomorrow it will all be over and i’ll be on my way home
