It’s Thursday, the 6th of July 2017! Just another
day of summer in Europe, and I am literally left with 3 days to enjoy my life
in Vienna. Yes, the last 3 days of my time in Vienna out of 2 years, since I
came in 2015. I received my master’s degree 3 days ago, and I am so excited to
follow bigger opportunities in front of me. Of course, I will have to go back
to Indonesia and finally start my PhD in Sydney. After this it will be a long
time ahead to plan to come to Europe again (maybe for my honeymoon, haha) and I
never know when I will come back. So, I want to list out things that I will
definitely miss in Vienna, things that I have enjoyed and what this beautiful
city has offered me. This list will contain mixture of places, sites,
neighborhood, landmark, and most importantly…food.
1.
My lovely neighborhood, Landstrasse
Landstrasse, oh I love this 3rd
district of Vienna. I am so lucky to be able to find a home here. My flat is in
hafengasse so I can always choose to take the S-bahn from Rennweg or U-bahn
from Kardinal-Nagl pLatz. But my favorite is always walking along landstrasse
and experience how urbanized the neighborhood is. I can always feel Landstrasse
to be lively and quiet residential area at the same time. The shops, the rochus
market, the ice cream parlor, and the mall wien mitte are what I like most
about landstrasse. All these places speak to me whenever I get bored and I just
wanna walk. When I want to sit outside and enjoy the sun, read my notes, or
iPad, I would walk a bit to Stadtpark and stay the whole day. When I want some
real Pizza, I go to Amore. The bus 74A is also a nice experience of
landstrasse. Oh I am gonna miss this.
2.
Strolling or jogging along the donau from
schwedenplatz to doblinger brucke
When I lived with my boyfriend in
Schottenring, we used to enjoy the donau a lot as it is just in front of our
house. I would jog along, even when I moved back to landstrasse, I would run to
the donau and jog along. I would admire the graffiti, the bridges, the art
installations, and the public garden. I hear the metro sound running and I know
this city works just fine. I see people jog too and dogs, people cycling,
sometimes the ship to/from Bratislava would pass by taking tourists, and I feel
like I am part of the city. I also study my notes by walking here sometimes.
Whenever I feel tired, I just take the U-bahn back home. Life is so simple in
Vienna.
3.
Cycling with city bike in Prater hauptalee
Another favorite thing to do, also when My
boyfriend used to live here. We would take bicycle from prater or nestroyplatz
and cycle all the way to Lusthaus. I would pull over at WU, the uni where he
went on an exchange and admire how orange and woody it looks, while the other
white building looks like spaceship. One day we also took a tandem bike, and we
raced other couple who happened to cycle there too. When I came alone, I also
like cycling here and have a picnic in the park. I also like walking around
prater themepark and see how people get excited in the roller coaster or the
high tower. it s always fun!
4.
Kebap from UBox
My favorite street food! I bet this is the
best one! None of the kebab stall in Vienna will give this kind of vegetarian
kebab with this much fillings. It is so worth it. That’s why I keep coming
back, especially eating it in front of the stall in schwedenplatz is kinda
nostalgic. It reminds me of the time when I first had it, all those happy
moments were linked to Ubox kebab.
5.
Wiener Eistraum
The public Ice skating ring which allowed
me to learn how to ice skate. It is always nice to celebrate spring with other
people of Vienna by ice skating. I went there twice, with my boyfriend who had
patiently held my hand because I suck at it. But the second time I got better,
I could ice skate many laps. I also didn’t fall that much. I miss it and I
would not mind going alone and use the kids lane so that I can learn, haha. the
kids might have to fight for the penguin with me. Oh, I like the wiener
eistraum season. I like that everyone is welcomed because I could not ice skate
at all. it was about having fun and being brave enough to try.
6.
Spar
My favorite supermarket! Even if there are
other supermarkets (Billa, Hofer to name a few), I always would prefer to go to
Spar. I would walk further from home just to go to any closest Spar. The reason
is I like the products quality. To me, Spar produces lie in the range of middle
to upper class. And they are priced very reasonable (middle price point
compared to other markets). Also, I like the moment when I always go groceries
shopping every Saturday. Spar branches are always of large store with wide
aisle in any type of Spar (Spar Pronto, InterSpar). The items are always sorted
nicely, and the prices displayed are unambiguous. Spar brand products are also
not bad, for example Spar oats, rice, pasta, canned beans, milk. Few
supermarkets might sell them cheaper but it always comes down to quality.
7.
Walking from landstrasse to the city
As I really like strolling along
landstrasse, I realized that it can get me to the city in just 15-20 minutes. I
could go to church, Stephansdom, and walk down to schwedenplatz, or just follow
the and end at hofburg, Volksgarten, and Rathaus! Or The other route will be
towards MQ and I could find the Natur-/Kunsthistorische Museum. Really,
everything looks nice when you are inside the Vienna ring, and its walkable
too. I will miss the atmosphere, the smell of coffee and ice cream in summer,
snow on the roof of Stephansdom in winter. I will definitely miss this small,
beautiful city.
8.
Computer lab at my uni
This is the place where I used to spend my
semester days, or during exam day. I could do anything I need to do and stay
productive. I made notes, study, eat, and also make friends with almost anyone
whom I ask or who ask “hast du hier unterricht?” (Do you have lecture here?),
just to make sure that the computer room is free to use. I also like it when
nobody is around and I can play some music, or switch the AC on/off as I wish.
All the computers there are of windows ones, not Mac, so no compatibility
problems. Overall, this place is always a nice place to study and I will miss
it.
9.
window shopping at ringstrasse or mariahilfer
str
Never have I ever shopped above 200 euros
in Europe, except that time in Milan when I bought the handbag for mom (she
deserves it). Especially in Vienna city centre, where the expensive brands like
Burberry, Furla, Hilfiger and so on. So I can only be amazed and entertained by
how luxurious those items are, and how expensive they are that one day I want
to make sure I can afford maybe one of them for my mom. Yeah, so window
shopping for such stuffs is always fun. This city allows you to do that.
10.
My landlord (the best one I ever had)
My landlord who owns the flat in Hafengasse
is a friendly Austrian lady named Helene Bubbnik. She, unlike other
conservative old Austrian, is very fluent in English, very understanding, kind
and helpful. I learned a lot from her, including my Deutsch. She accepted me to
stay since October 2015 until December 2016. For my exam In July 2017, I came
back and she still accepted me to stay. I thank God for a person like her,
because she trusts me in anyway. She is also a grandma of 2, and after my exam
she took me for ice cream and gifted me a book that she wrote with her other
women community in Mank. There are lot more things that she had done for me.
She gave me home in a country where I have no one to feel like home.
That's all guys! See you in the next post!
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