Day Twenty: A Night in Vienna

On the bus ride to Vienna from Prague:

How do you handle being sad when you’re in a new country and you only have a few days to enjoy being there? It isn’t the country’s fault. It’s just there, being beautiful, waiting to be explored, open to letting people make the most of being there. So how do you handle it on days where you just don’t want to? When you woke up from bad dreams, are still tired, are homesick, or just not fully there?

This is a question for life. Traveling or not, bad days happen. We’re just more aware of our responsibility to make the most of them when we’re conscious of how little time we have there, but isn’t that still true for every day? We don’t ever know how much time we’ll get in a place or if it’s ever really okay to waste a day feeling sorry for ourselves because we’re just “having a bad day.” It’s an idealistic approach to life; everyone has bad days, and I don’t really think it’s wrong to give into them sometimes. But it’s not less true that no matter where we are or what we’re doing, how we choose to handle it and how much we let it affect us is up to us. I’m on a bus to Vienna, Austria. I’m not having the best day. There are things I can do to make it better, so when I get to my new Airbnb I’m going to do them. Then I’m going to go out and keep enjoying my world.

//It’s amazing how acknowledging that I’m not having a very good day makes it so much easier to move on and fix it than denying the feelings because I know I’m “supposed” to be enjoying myself. It’s also amazing how easy it is for beautiful old buildings to instantly remind me where I am and excite me/make me feel better. I love this city already, and all it took for me to have a better day was to see a glimpse of it. I’m so excited to see more.

Conclusion post-bus:

It’s impossible to have a bad day here. Or like, out anywhere. Even if it isn’t the best, there are just so many incredible things to see and taste and experience, it’s really hard to call any of them “bad days.” At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how I feel. A gorgeous building is a gorgeous building. Dogs are dogs. The temperature is cooler than in Texas and Spain, and it’s almost impossible for me to be unhappy when it’s chilly outside. I have a place to stay, I know how to get around generally, and I don’t mind getting lost. I love walking. I love the buildings, the art, the cafes, the parks, the food. It’s so hard to be unhappy at the end of a day unless I just don’t do anything, which I am not doing.

After breakfast in Prague and a 4.5 hour bus ride to Vienna, I took a shower and got cleaned up. My night turned out to be what most people would consider a dream date night, but I did it by myself and enjoyed every bit. I went to a somewhat nice dinner across the street from the Opera House because I wanted to sit down to eat and I’d read that this restaurant had good prices, good food, and was in a great location. I would agree with all of those. I don’t remember the name of the dish I had, but it was essentially eggs and dumplings (two things we tried to get in Prague), salad, and the popular apple strudel for dessert. I took a bit of Prague spirit with me and carried my book to dinner. After I ate, I walked around to see some historic buildings and sat at the pond in front of St. Charles’ Church. Then, I took a walk around the city to see more beautiful buildings, and finished the night with ice cream and a casual stroll past the Opera House. My first impression is that it’s an extremely romantic city, and sightseeing at night felt fitting even though it happened by accident. Now I feel like I can take my time tomorrow and have a comfortable day of eating good food and seeing amazing things, and I can’t wait.