Vienna, Austria + Munich, Germany

When I started planning our trip to Europe it was based around the fact we were going to visit our friends Katie and Grant in Vienna. I first met Katie at our CrossFit gym in College Station and we became fast friends! Hands down the Spences’ are some of our favorite people on the planet!

We arrived in Vienna pretty late on a week night but we were greeted at the airport by Katie and Grant and may or may not have shared a bottle of wine before calling it a night. The next day our first stop was lunch at O-M-K and I finally got to try the pork bun I had been dreaming about since Katie posted about it on her blog! We met up with some of their friends and rented an “island” to cruise the Danube River with. It was such a great way to beat the heat because it was seriously scorching hot while we were there! We cruised passed a couple of nudist colonies that were well… interesting to say the least. We wanted the Spence’s’ to take us to some of their favorite places so we had dinner and drinks at Ulrich (amazing!), Veganista for dessert (wait… vegan ice cream? The maple pecan was surprisingly good!) and drinks in the museum quartier. It was a full but fun day with friends!

I could seriously eat at least 4 of these pork buns in one sitting.

Tan Tan Don from O-M-K… also delicious!

How cute is this little boat?!

The next day Kurt and I were on our own. We visited the Naschmarkt and explored through the different shops and had a few snacks. We visited St Stephen’s Cathedral and the Mozart monument. We stumbled upon the butterfly house and decided to check it out. Little did I know that bufferflies lived in a rain forest and it was probably the worst idea I’ve ever had. The 100° temperature outside felt fantastic after we emerged! In order to avoid a meltdown we spent a couple of hours in the air conditioning at Starbucks! We had a late dinner at a traditional Austrian restaurant that was quite good! I have NO idea what I ordered but it was basically a kick-ass mac and cheese with bacon. 🙂

Probably the hottest place on Earth.

I woke up on our last morning in Vienna feeling quite sick with sinus issues/a head cold. The Spence’s shipment arrived with all of their belongings from the U.S. The good news is now Kurt can never tell me I have a lot of stuff again because Katie really has a LOT of stuff. 🙂 We picked up some Tastee Donuts and they were so fluffy and I won’t even tell you how many I ate. Overall, I loved Vienna! It was so clean, easy to navigate and we had some amazing food there! Kurt really impressed me with how much German he could speak, but it was easy to communicate in English as well.

We took an afternoon train to Munich and had a beautiful train ride through the countryside.  After we arrived we wandered through Marienplatz, had pretzels, a traditional German meal and beer at a beer garden. After several hours of wandering and more German beer for Kurt we boarded our night train to Amsterdam. We had a tiny sleeper car with a bunk bed and while it probably wasn’t my worst night of sleep ever but far from my best! Kurt said it was a once in a lifetime experience… as in never again! In actuality it was cost effective and we traveled overnight so we didn’t lose any time traveling! Next stop, Amsterdam!