Kaydence and Ben in Vienna!

Two of my college friends, Ben and Kaydence, came to visit Vienna today. They took the train from Italy, where Ben has been teaching for the past year. I took them on a tour of the city and I think we actually saw most of the important attractions. We started out at Stephansplatz with St. Stephen’s Cathedral and the financial district, stopped for lunch near the university, toured the “ring boulevard”, where City Hall, the Parliament, the Hofburg Imperial Palace, the opera, and the theater all are. We walked through the Museum Quarter before taking the train to the Schönbrunn palace and imperial gardens. After Schönbrunn, we were all drained from the sun and the heat (89 degrees is hot for Vienna!), so we took a break before meeting up again at night to watch the soccer game, Germany vs. Turkey. We were originally going to watch the game in the WUK, which has big-screen televisions set up outside in its courtyard, but five minutes after we arrived, it began raining, so we found a nearby café instead. The café, “Café Liberty”, was tucked away in a backstreet that I had never even seen before. It was small, cozy, and had entertaining staff. The owner was born in Vienna to Slovenian parents and Czech grandparents. He had flags of all of the European Championship teams hanging throughout the café, including the Czech flag and the Russian Communist flag on the inside of the front entrance. Russia is his favorite team and he thinks Russia and Germany will end up playing in the final. He could be right since Germany did win tonight, but time will tell. In any case, it was an interesting night watching the game. Thunderstorms kept disrupting the satellite signal of the game, which was being broadcast—out of all places—from Basel, Switzerland! (The game was in Vienna, so why Basel was broadcasting the game, I’m not quite sure.) Whenever the game was interrupted, everyone turned their attention to the storm outside. The café was situated at the top of a hill, so we could watch the rain rush down the inclined street. Eventually the satellite signal returned, but he interruptions made the game seem quite short. Germany won: 3 to 2. I haven’t heard much celebration, like I did when Turkey won. That said, I also haven’t heard of any riots or other fan-trouble, which is certainly a good thing. The rain probably robbed everyone of the energy to do much of anything. After the game, we all said goodbye to our fellow-café-gamewatchers and headed home. Kaydence and Ben will continue on to Graz in the morning. All in all, we had a nice, full day. Hopefully, we’ll see each other again soon, perhaps back on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.