Vienna and More Couchsurfing

We have been in Vienna since Saturday night, after taking a fairly smooth train ride through a thunder storm. I have enjoyed the train so far but they tend to run late, and this one just randomly stopped for an hour. Our second couchsurfer host met us at the station. He has been pretty good but definately a change after our last host Ray. Ray was an expatriot from San Francisco and very easy to relate to, while Stefan is Vienna all the way. He lives in the same house that he was born, in the 10th district, and hopes to get the house from his parent and continue to live there. The house has 4 floors and he has about half of a floor, as well as sharing his parents bath and kitchen. His sister's family and some other family friends live on the other floors. His parents live in a second home in another district outside of Vienna. We have not seen them but it is interesting to see a typical family structure.

Sunday we walked around the city center and saw most of the tourist spots. Vienna is more modern, with some larger building and wider streets. I think I prefer Prague because it seemed less American, seemed to have more interesting streets and architecture, and more of an atmosphere. The food in Vienna and people have been nice though. My favorite meal here was this pancake dish filled with great cheese, nuts, and vegetables. The city is amazingly safe, as most of the places over here are. People from Vienna call the neighborhood we are staying in 'the ghetto' but it is bussling with shops and free of danger. The only reason they label it in this way is because of all the foreigners. We see lots of muslims, women in veils, unlike anywhere we saw in Prague.

Last night we went over to this girl Susi's house for a great homemade Austrian dinner. I met her on couchsurfing as well, and we had a fun time eating, drinking wine, and talking with her and her friend Max. They were both originally from a small town in Lower Austria but are studying and living in Vienna. We share similar views on music, politics, and religion, and got along very well. We may meet up with them again tonight.