Today Logan, Jack, and Brad all headed home, while Benton flew to Vienna.
Logan and Benton had flights super early (5am for Benton, 5:45ish for Logan), so we both woke up around 2:50am. Brad and Jack didn’t have to get up until 8am, but overall our travels were relatively uneventful, and another successful Europe vacation was in the books.
Upon arriving at the Vienna airport, Benton met up with Ryan (Elizabeth’s friend from Meta who flew from San Francisco), and then they took the train to near the Airbnb, where they got food at Cafe Naschkätzchen (Benton really liked this place; he got a stew type thing which was very tasty). The art in the cafe was pretty funny (it seemed to be a bunch of AI generated cat art which didn’t fit the cozy vibes of the rest of the decor). While we ate, Allan (Benton’s friend from DC) also arrived, and he managed to get to the café right as Ryan and Benton were finishing up.
At this point it was time to check into the Airbnb (near Obere Augartenstraße), so we walked over to check in (Allan’s luggage did not make his connection, so all he had was his backpack). Ryan was exhausted, so he took a nap while Allan and Benton settled in and showered.
After Ryan’s nap, we went to roam around some of the inner city. The weather was immaculate, and we had a good time looking at all of the impressive (and massive) buildings in the downtown area. We roamed by Rathausplatz, Austrian Parliament, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Hofburg, all of which were neat to look at. We tried to get the bike share to work (it was super cheap), but unfortunately could not the get the sign up to work, so instead we were stuck taking the trams (fortunately, the trams in Vienna are super reliable and move pretty quickly, so this wasn’t a huge issue; it just would have been nice to take some advantage of their bike infrastructure).
After walking around a bit more, we went to get beers and dinner at a French restaurant (Le Pic Brasserie), followed by one cocktail at Needle Vinyl Bar, before going back to sleep rather early. We made a quick stop on the way to get Allan some toiletries as his luggage wasn’t arriving till the following morning, but overall everyone was tired from their travels.
Also to note: We noticed that the city seemed generally super dead, and we attributed this to it being Sunday, and online claiming that Vienna is generally quieter on Sundays; this seemed to be a continuing theme with Vienna though. In hindsight it may not have just been dead because it was Sunday; Vienna just generally felt empty the whole time we were visiting (not really any people out, very strange vibes).
