As of my last update, I was in Berlin. The sky was gray, rain was coming down, and Robert and I were going to see a castle. Which we did, but they charged us an arm and a leg for it. 7 Euros for a very short and uninteresting tour to only see a quarter of the building. The gardens, as so often seems to be the case, proved more exciting, beautiful, and free, then the interior. Also, we got to go to a Picasso museum, which was wonderful for me and a little less wonderful for Robert.

About Picasso…I tend to fall in love with various artists on various vacations. Last year was my Calder crush, this year it’s turning into a Bouguereau (though I started to realized that I’m developing feelings for Cezanne, which I never thought would happen, not to mention this weird thing I’m getting for Dali, and I won't even get started about Braque) and my senior trip to New York it was Picasso. Ever since then I’ve been a hopeless sucker for the guy, rambling on and on about his works to anyone who will listen (and unfortunately for him that was Robert last Thursday.) I also used to think I was so lucky, that wherever I went there seemed to be an enormous amount of Picasso, always there when I was. But now after seeing approximately the 7 impressive collection of his works, I’m beginning to realize that the guy just painted a lot.

After the museums and some extremely unhealthy but extremely delicious currywurst, I made it to the airport. Speaking of health, I should mention that my diet has been probably the least healthy it’s ever been. I’ve always been a sucker for carbs, and in Europe it is all-to-easy to just grab a croissant or baguette and go. Also, I’m an adventuresome eater, and I like to experience “authentic” food. My response to “what would you like to eat?” is always along the lines of “what should I eat before leaving this city?” or “what is the most traditional dish?” As nobody’s traditional dish seems to be a salad, I’ve been eating Doner and Cheese and Kabab and Cheese and Currywurst and Cheese not to even mention the absurd amount of desserts. But don’t worry Mom, I’m actually not putting-on weight. Due to all the walking and the student budget (which means pretty sparse eating some days) I’ve maintained weight with minimal sagging and/or bulging.

Okay, back to Berlin. Or I guess the next thing I did was fly out of Berlin, so on to Vienna. I got there, and it was warm and dry. Good false impression from the start. Turns out the Austrians speak less English than the Germans and this was my first time without a translator. After several frantic hours of wandering down random Vienna Street, having to resort to my version of German and frantic sign language, I made it to my hostel frazzled but alive.

Now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: Andy in a hostel. In the past I’ve heard the adjectives “high-maintenance,” “ridiculous,” and many less polite terms applied to me, but I will let you know that I can rough it just like any other guy. (Okay, maybe not as long as any other guy, but I still can do it.) I realized the first night that I had no plan for Vienna, no friends, no real knowledge of the language, and worst of all, no towel. It all worked out in the long run, resorting to undershirts as towels (I know, I know. I pack undershirts but not towels), and really it’s only a little worse than living in a dorm. (Probably the only reason living in a dorm was as bearable was because Kyle equally hated living in a dorm and so we simply pretended that we didn’t.)

Back to the hostel: I would love to tell you how wonderful it was. No towel as already mentioned, no flip-flops (why would I bring flip-flops? Oh wait, public showers…gross), sleeping in a room with 3 other random men, one of those men thinking it would be great to quiz me on a random US geography and scream “wrong! Apparently you don’t know your country well!” whenever I got a question wrong, and one of the most disgusting bathrooms that I’ve had to use repeatedly. Otherwise, it was quite lovely.

Now about Vienna; instead of a day-to-day, I’ll just give an overview. Vienna is beautiful, old, and in terms of the old city and where all the sites are, relatively small. I fully expected to fall in love, but I didn’t. Actually it left sort of a bad taste in my mouth. All the sights are too close together; the result is a kitschy tourist playground that takes over the whole city in a way that I’ve only seen rivaled by Disneyland, except you expect it from an amusement park more than a city. There was no possible way I could imagine Mozart, Strauss, Haydn, Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Beethoven, Czerny, Schubert or Freud wandering around; there is no way they could walk past 2 shops without seeing one of their names plastered all over it. All the music played in public was the most cliché Mozart and Strauss waltzes. Also, after the initial first beautiful day, it rained every single day. As my umbrella is in the suitcase in London that also has my sweaters, warm clothes, and flip-flops, I frequently found myself cold, wet, and miserable.

Also, I was terribly lonely in Vienna. I may come off as outgoing, and I would never use “shy” to describe myself, but I suck at making that initial conversation. I’m fine once we start talking and I can even start it myself if I have something specific to talk to them about, but I’m simply no good at small talk with a stranger unless they are directing it. After a month of museums (and the prices of museums in Vienna) I was less than enthusiastic to go to more and more museums, so I frequently found myself in Starbucks, hating the rain but loving my book. But it’s not fair for me to give a completely negative report on Vienna, as many things were nice and many of you might love Vienna for very just cause. Vienna is just not an Andy city.

Here are some of the good things about Vienna: It’s a laid-back and relaxed city that’s in no hurry to wake up (very unlike me) so I got to watch it “wake up” each morning, which was wonderful. The Imperial Apartments and Schonbrunn Palace were amazing, but the modern art museum was not all that great, though very impressive from the outside. There are parks everywhere, beautifully manicured, and I even had a favorite rose park that I would go to everyday and read for a least an hour. The music stores, once you could get past all the tourists oogally the “Favorite Mozart for Beginning Piano,” were incredible as seems to be the trend in the German speaking countries. Also, every night I would go to Vienna’s version of “Movies in the Park.” It’s every night all summer in front of the Rathaus, and it’s almost always a recording of a famous classical music production, normally one that has been performed in Vienna recently. I watched an unfortunate film version of La Traviata, (vocally wonderful, visually blah) the Vienna 2010 New Year’s Concert, (J. Strauss on steroids…never listened to so many waltzes in my life) and a great Eurotrash Don Giovanni (Loved it w/Schafer and Hampson, except was a little uncomfortable by the European comfortability with public nudity, etc.) Also, I should mention that the Kebabs are AMAZING. I had one the first day, and went back every day it was so good, and so cheap!

God must have known how lonely I was, because on Sunday he sent along a friend. At the Strauss New year’s Concert a random girl sat next to me and had the habit of commenting throughout, which was more than okay with me as it was J. Strauss and I hadn’t had a proper conversation in 4 days. After the concert I said something along the lines of “Umm, I never do this, but do you want to hang out tomorrow? I mean, I’m desperate for a friend.” She laughed and we made plans for dinner the next day and Don Giovanni after. It turns out she was visiting from Israel, and before she had immigrated to Israel she was from Russia. She brought a friend to dinner, who lived in Vienna but was from Croatia. I was so excited to finally have friends! At Don Giovanni we met another one of her friends, who was also living in Vienna, but was from Bosnia. As it was freezing, this girl and I both left after the 2nd act. She lived out by my hostel, so we walked and talked. Turned out she was fluent in 5 languages ("which really isn’t a lot," as she put it). I was grateful that one of them was English.

Okay, I’ve written a novel, so I’ll stop now so those of you that have made it this far can get on with your lives and stop hearing about mine. Next I’ll write about Paris, but I’ll give you a preview: I LOVE IT! Let me briefly interview myself:

ANDY: What’s your favorite city in the world currently, andy?
andy: Definitely Paris. It’s pretty much the greatest thing in the world, and I think I want to live here.
ANDY: Really? Please share why?
andy: No really, I’ve written way too much for now. Next time.