Krysti's Big Adventure!: The Adventure Begins!

Whyyyy hello! If you have been following my previous blog about my time in Konstanz (http://kiwiinkonstanz.blogspot.com) you will know that I am currently in Vienna where I have begun my epic 2 month travel trip around Europe! This is my fourth night here and tomorrow I am off to my next destination- Budapest.
As I am pretty sure I'll be too busy having fun to do this properly, this blog will just be a very brief overview of where I am, a few fav pics, highlights etc. just for everyone that keeps asking what I'm up to! I'll try post at least once a week.

So a quick overview of my adventure I'm embarking on- the countries I am visiting (in order) are: Austria, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Ireland, England, France, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Italy and finally finishing in Germany again (for Oktoberfest).

First up- Vienna, which took a very long and uncomfortable overnight bus to get there (super cramped and my seat didn't recline, also I had a very large dude fall asleep on me...). Needless to say I got 0 sleep that night! I arrived at 6:30 in the morning though so when I got to my place I actually took a 3 hour nap haha- which helped!
Vienna is such a huge city and there was a lot to see- so I did my first ever hop on hop off bus tour. It was quite a good price for 72 hours and it also included walking tours and a river cruise which were all cool. I ate a lot of delicious Wurst (SO good), Apfelstrudel and Sachertorte (apple strudel and chocolate cake with apricot jam- both of which Vienna is famous for), and of course obligatory Wiener Schnitzel! For me food is half the fun, so bear with me. :p

I loved the big centre of town including the big Stephansdom church, the beautiful big buildings- the Opera House in particular was very fancy. One of the days I went out and visited the Schoenbrunn Palace (where Mozart played his first concert at the age of 6), and next to that was the world's oldest zoo where they had pandas! Of course I went! That was such a treat, I was really happy I got to see them (for those that don't know- always been obsessed with pandas).
It had some pretty cool other animals and there were heaps of babies around. I really enjoyed watching the elephants- they had a huge herd of about 8 and two of which were young. They were all playing and trying to sit on each other and push one another in the mud. It was so amusing!

I've been lucky here as I got my own small apartment to myself (through AirB&B) and I'm pretty proud that I got the subway system straight away and could navigate around like I lived here. But then, after London I'm sure most places are a breeze!
I did loads of walking around and exploring. I visited all the main places and historical buildings and learned quite a lot about the history here. Overall, very enjoyable stay. It was good starting in Austria because I feel very comfortable here- being a German speaking country. I even went Blusen shopping today for my Dirndl haha.
But off to the next part already! Budapest I think might be a bit more challenging for me. Apparently everything is super cheap though so I'm looking forward to eating and drinking like a king for the next couple of days!
Catch ya, few pics below.