Austria

I had a feeling that my friend Erik, who would go with me to Vienna, wouldn't enjoy my architectural interest in Austria's capital. Most people don't want to go around looking at houses, so I was happy to hear that he had the same interest.

Erik had arrived earlier than me since he was flying from Denmark's capital Copenhagen while I flew from Gothenburg in Sweden. He had already been to some of the museums that I had no interest in when I met him at our hotel. We hit the streets and we went to the Hundertwasserhaus, an apartment house built after the idea and concept of artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who is my favourite Austrian designer. 

The house features undulating floors ("an uneven floor is a divine melody to the feet"), a roof covered with earth and grass, and large trees growing from inside the rooms, with limbs extending from windows. Hundertwasser took no payment for the design of the house, declaring that it was worth it, to prevent something ugly from being built in its place.

Then we went to an "ugly building", but ugly in a good way, St. Stephen's Cathedral. It looks gothic and almost like it has the plague but with a colourful roof showing off the flag and the coat of arms. Erik wanted to visit the catabombs but they were closed for visitors this day. They are filled with the bones of some 11,000 people, these were taken from previous cemeteries at the site after an outbreak of the bubonic plague. Instead we took the elevator to the top of the church so Erik could be afraid of heights. Usually they make me uneasy too but since Erik was so scared he made me feel safer somehow, because I felt the need to act like it was no issue to try and make him feel calmer about it.

We arrived at another gothic church at night which gave it the perfect setting.

Then we went down to the Secession Building. 

Vienna is like an open art exhibition of grand buildings and wherever you look there's a new monumental building which intrigues you. Erik wanted to go to Karlsplatz Café which was a former train station that now was a club. It was almost empty when we were there, but it was trashy in a good way and I enjoyed it. We had some beers and met a punk girl who asked where we were from. When we answered "Sweden" she started to sing on the Swedish artist Basshunter's hit "Boten Anna" which was quite funny since it was the last song I thought a punk girl would know. She sang the Swedish version and not the English which I give her credit for. She was nice to hang around with but when she started to dance on her own on the empty dancefloor we felt it was time to get back to the hotel.

The next day we went to the Austrian National Library and it was amazing.

I have always wanted to be in such an old environment where you have ladders to get to the books. It made me feel like I was at Hogwarts. Then we went to a butterfly house and it should be nice but I was so scared to hurt the animals by mistake by walking on them.

They were literally everywhere and they didn't mind flying straight to your face. It was hot as hell in the gigantic room and even though it was a nice experience I didn't mind to leave either.

I wanted to see more of Hundertwasser's design so I took Erik all the way to the Spittelau waste incineration plant, in Vienna the industrial parts are also a piece of art.

Erik's feet hurt so bad from all the walking that he bought us both Metro cards so we could take the tram for the rest of the day.

We went to one of the Flak towers that is located in the park Augarten. Flak towers were eight complexes of large, above-ground, anti-aircraft gun blockhouse towers constructed by Nazi Germany in the cities of Berlin, Hamburg and Vienna from 1940 onwards. The towers were used by the Luftwaffe to defend against Allied air raids against these cities during World War II. They also served as air-raid shelters for tens of thousands of local civilians.

The tower suffered an internal explosion later on, and several floors near the top are missing on one side while birds, who has made the tower their home, is hovering above it. It makes it look like an old haunted house and I really enjoyed the view of it even though it's sad to know the story behind why it was built. "NEVER AGAIN!" is written in graffiti on it for an obvious reason.

Erik wanted to go to the Wiener Riesenrad which is a tall Ferris wheel at the entrance of the Prater amusement park and what makes it so special is the gondols that looks like train wagons.

Constructed in 1897, it was the world's tallest extant Ferris wheel from 1920 until 1985 and it has been in many movies like James Bond's The Living Daylights. Erik bought some Mozartkugels, small round chocolate named after the classic composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and I had always had a feeling that they would taste bad but they were actually nice!

We went to one last building designed by Arik Brauer before we went back to the hotel and I relaxed the rest of the evening in the spa. While I lied there I thought about how nice the trip had been and how spoiled I was to be able to see all of Europe, and I was looking forward to go and explore Slovakia the next day!

* Best things about Austria – Hundertwasser's art is playful and easy to enjoy and I really liked the joyous feeling at the Prater Amusement Park at the same time as I loved the eerie feeling at the Flak Tower and the grand pompous feeling in the Austrian National Museum, I could go on and on...

* Most mediocre thing about Austria – it's grand but also a bit stiff because of the pompous feel to it

* Worst things about Austria – expensive as hell so a big shout-out to Erik for his generosity

Best countries in the world according to the nerd (will be updated with every post):
1. USA
2. Croatia
3. Montenegro
4. Andorra
5. Cyprus
6. Turkey
7. Greece
8. Italy
9. Spain
10. Monaco
11. Malta
12. Netherlands
13. Iceland
14. Denmark
15. Sweden
16. Lithuania
17. Macedonia
18. Portugal
19. Hungary
20. Slovakia
21. Slovenia
22. Austria
23. New Zealand
24. Ireland
25. Germany
26. United Kingdom
27. Belgium
28. Poland
29. Vatican City
30. Estonia
31. Czech Republic
32. Switzerland
33. San Marino
34. Kosovo
35. Romania
36. Finland
37. Latvia
38. Moldova
39. Norway
40. Ukraine
41. France
42. Bulgaria
43. Luxembourg
44. Liechtenstein
45. China
46. Serbia
47. Bosnia And Herzegovina
48. Albania