Final Days in Vienna

I guess it was inevitable that my time in Vienna would come to an end but it’s the fact it snuck up on me and caught me by surprise that I hate the most. By this point in my trip I thought I would be ready to go home, feeling homesick, over the responsibilities of living alone, missing friends and family like crazy and ready to return to the routine of home. Now while some of these things are true, most are not. I could live here forever, but since this isn’t the case, I’ll write this post reliving the final glorious moments of the semester of a lifetime (dramatic much?)....

After arriving home from Spain I launched straight into the study. I had a day and a little bit to get through a semester’s worth of work so it wasn’t easy. On June 23, I became a university graduate – yes, a graduate – at long last. Now what better way to celebrate than to watch Australia beat Serbia in the World Cup at the Aussie Pub (a place I did actually swear I would never visit)? We had a great night and winded up at a microbrewery called 1915 and we were at long last introduced to the love of Nikki Halliwell’s life.

The following days were a mix of trying to catch up with everyone I knew, recovering from a nasty cold, packing up my life and all the bits and pieces this entails. I also went on the opera tour as I figured I’d been to so many ballets it was about time I saw what goes on behind the scenes. This led to a walk up Kärntner Straβe where I shopped much more than I should’ve and the discovery of an outdoor pool that literally floats on the canal where Shannon and I whiled away the afternoon. After dinner we visited the famous coffee house, ‘Cafe Central’, where the likes of Freud and Beethoven pondered life under the vaulted ceilings and baroque architecture. The highlight of the week however, had to be the Donauinselfest – Europe’s biggest outdoor festival. Being Heather’s big two-one we started the day with a champagne breakfast with all the girls then headed to the festival where we picnicked by the various stages, played games with blow up balls, won ‘I Love Vienna’ t-shirts, bought ridiculous bright blue sunglasses that are only acceptable when worn at a festival and we reminisced upon our months together. It was so hard to believe that a day we had talked about that had always seemed so far off was finally here....