University of Minnesota Athletics
Golden Gophers Visit Vienna for the Day
6/18/2006 12:00:00 AM | Volleyball
Minnesota went to eat lunch right away at a local Turkish place, which served Kebab’s (gyro-like dish). Following that, the team went back to the hotel to rest for about half and hour, before departing to take the subway to downtown Vienna.
The team went to a historic part of Vienna that had a lot of extravagant buildings. As the tour organizer explained it, during the time of the Austro-Hungarian empire all the money was poured into Budapest and Vienna. Therefore there are a lot impressive buildings. As we walked through the area, there was one impressive building after another. Probably the most impressive structure was the church, which had unbelievable art pieces inside and had beautiful painting all over the building.
Following the visit in the church the team had about three hours to wander around Vienna on their own to shop and sightsee. At 6 p.m., the team met up and ate dinner. The tour organize set the team up at restaurant where everyone was served chicken Wienerschnitzel. Everyone seemed to enjoy the dish.
After dinner, everyone had time to either go back to the hotel and rest up or go shopping. Another group also decided to go see the local Symphony in concert. The symphony played a collection of music from famous composers such as Mozart and Beethoven among others.
Tomorrow, Minnesota will head for its fourth city on the tour as it goes to Maribor, Slovenia. The Golden Gophers will play the Croatian National team at 6 p.m. (local time) on Monday, June 19. It will be the first of three matches in Maribor for Minnesota. The Golden Gophers will stay in Maribor until Thursday when they depart for the final city of the tour, Venice, Italy.
Jessy Jones Diary:
Being on this trip has forced us to experience things we would never have experienced back in the states. I say forced because at most times we have no choice but, to experience the culture of the Europeans. The biggest culture shock our team is having is definitely that of the choice of cuisine. Instead of having bagels and cereal for breakfast we are having or shall I say, trying to have, an assortment of different kind of meats and brie. If you want cereal your milk is warm. If you want eggs then they are only boiled. Today most of the girls went hungry for breakfast, but then some stepped out of their comfort zone and tried a sausage looking item called “Keilabasa,” and ended up loving it! It was a small step from the outside world but a huge step for most of our American eaters on the team.
We traveled to Vienna, Austria today, it took about two-in-a-half hours. When we arrived in Vienna we were told we would be staying in a traditional European hotel where none of the rooms look a like and you only have your essentials. We entered the rooms after lugging our bags up the stairs because there was no elevator, and the rooms were huge and had about five beds in each, which is not what we expected at all. As we all were getting excited about how spacious the rooms were in comparison to all the others we began talking about what soccer (or futbol) game was on TV today. We then realized there was NO TV! The lady did say only the essentials, and she meant it.
After checking into the hotel we walked about six blocks to the historical area of Vienna. Everywhere you looked there was a huge amazing, castle looking building. They call Vienna “The Grand City of Europe” because I guess in the past a lot of money was put into this city, and you can definitely tell. The sights and views we saw today were unbelievable and there are no words to capture what we saw. We all feel so lucky to be here, sharing this experience with each other.
After walking around, people watching, taking pictures, and visiting Starbucks for a little caffeine fix we all met for dinner. The place were we met was right outside the Opera House of Vienna. We sat outside which allowed us to continue to enjoy sights some more. We were served “Viener-Schnitzel,” we all love it! I think that is because they got us chicken instead of veal and it pretty much tasted like fried chicken.
For the rest of the night we hung out in the hotel...which meant we talked and acted like the fools we are, for about five hours because again there is no TV!!!! Gute nacht! (Good Night in German).
