Vienna day 2

Today was our second day in Vienna and we started it off with an early morning walking tour. Let me just take a second to say how amazing these tours are. Not only do they teach you the history of the city, but they are also FREE! Ours today was actually very long and took up the entire morning. On our way to the tour, we stumbled upon the Naschhmarkt, which is a huge strip of the local market. We were so intrigued while walking through that we knew we would head back later. So our ending point for the walking tour was exactly next to the St. Stephens Cathedral, so we walked inside and were amazed of how much it reminded us of Notre Dame. Look at us young travelers making cultural connections! After the cathedral, we headed back to the market and slowly walked through the various clothing, merchandise, and food shops while getting bombarded with the street vendors. Yes, we have found it slightly annoying to get harassed by these locals trying to skeev us, but today, it worked out in our advantage. The food markets were filled with delicious dried fruits and each shop gave us a free sample. So basically, after walking through the entire market, we had enough to eat just off the samples alone! We thought it was comparable to Costco's free sample day, except at least you don't get harassed in Costco... After this stop, we spent the rest of the day at the schonbrunn castle garden. Our happy,  sunny day suddenly took a turn for the worst when it started down pouring. Add in a strong wind and loud thunder, and then you will have a perfect scene of our day: watching hundreds of tourists sprint from the delight of the garden into the safety of the castle. However, it was quite pricey to actually look around inside, so we found an inch of dry space and curled up as best as we could. It turned out to be really entertaining to sit in the rain and watch the tourists flock to shelter. We are very good at staying preoccupied and were able to pass the time with singing and laughing. After the rain stopped, we were able to make it back to the market area where we enjoyed a delicious dinner and now await a long night on a train!

-ruby and sarah