Hey everyone! After a year of hanging out at home and spending time with family, Jimmy and I are ready for another international trip!

This time we are heading off to Austria, spending some time in the city, cute towns, and the mountains. We will also get to meet up with some friends who are making the trip as well. Most importantly, we will be exploring as many Austrian Christmas market as possible.

Jimmy and I flew out yesterday (although at this point it just feels like one giant day), and landed in Vienna around 12pm.

On the plane

Yes, I am one of those people who spends half the flight tracking where the plane is.

First arrival pic. We don’t look a too bad all things considered.

Wonderful! We have lots of time to enjoy our first day.

We started strong by walking to a Christmas market at Maria-Theresien-platz, which is a square near a bunch of the museums.

I didn’t get a very good pic of the market as a whole, mostly because plane food is awful and I was so hungry, so I was on a mission. Enter market food pics!

First we got an apple pretzel

Don’t let my weird face fool you, it was delightful. Not a bad start. Not bad at all.

Next we moved on to Langos. They are fried bread with different fillings. We got the “toast” version which had ham and cheese inside. This thing was so tasty, but was also a giant garlic bomb. Loved it

I kept hearing from everyone about the importance of Chimney cakes, so I was excited to find them! More fried dough, this time made into a twisted hollow cylinder and coated in different flavors. I got strawberry, and it came out fresh and piping hot rolled in freeze dried strawberries.

Drinks are also a big deal at Viennese Christmas markets. Gluhwein is like mulled wine, but their various flavors of punsch (alcoholic punch) is what they’re famous for. Different booths and different markets have unique flavors, and they also have kinderpunsch which is non alcoholic.

The drinks come is these cute little mugs, and you put a deposit for the mug then can decide to keep it or turn it back in to get your deposits back. I thought this mug was pretty cute. I ended up with marzipan flavor, which had a chunk of actual marzipan melting in it.

Jimmy and I found a seat on the steps of one of the museums to enjoy our treats.

Then we wandered the craft stalls a bit

By this point, it was 4:30 and Jimmy and I were feeling like going to bed. We went back to the room meaning to watch tv for a bit, but Jimmy fell asleep so I woke him up and we hit the streets to keep ourselves from going to sleep too early.

We wandered lovely Mariahlfer straße which was lit up for Christmas.

Then we headed to a traditional Viennese cafe for a snack. Vienna is famous for its atmospheric cafe’s, and this one, Cafe Sperl, has been running since the 1800s. The inside was opulent but cozy, and they had billiard tables, areas for reading newspapers, and a live piano player.

Luckily for me, the coffee houses here do decaf (I try to stay away from highly caffeinated drinks), and rather than waking us up, it was the perfect pre bed experience. Now it’s 8pm, Jimmy is snoring, and I’m heading to sleep. Fingers crossed we wake up at a halfway decent hour!

Goodnight.