Vienna w/e pt 1: shake that ass!

Finally, the time had come for my weekend away in Vienna - and more importantly, my first days off since I arrived in Austria at the beginning of the year. That's over forty days ago, in case you can't count.

I was pumped for a sleep-in, as well as the fact I'd be reuniting with an old school friend I hadn't seen in at least six years. I could tell it was gonna be a crazy adventure, just like old times.

I arrived late morning, and met my new Couchsurfing friend E at the dance studio where she said there were free classes for that week (good timing!). I was actually feeling fine, after my worries that the previous night's drinking would land me in a pit of fiery hangover hell, and keen to get my groove on to this bellydancing fusion thing.

The class was really fun, went for 1.5 hours, and I felt I did a good job as ass-shaking and hip movements are more my strengths when it comes to dancing. But I swear they make the mirrors fatten you up so you think you need more classes!! Maybe I'm just fat actually. Anyway, we followed up the first class with a stretching class which was also really good. Love a good stretch. Am hideously unflexible but it still feels good to get the muscles moving.

After, I split from E to meet F at the train station. From the moment I saw her, I knew nothing had changed. She looked exactly the same and as I soon found out, had all the same little quirks and characteristics as when I last hung out with her. It was kinda like no time had passed at all!

We headed to a restaurant straight away as we were both famished, and got stuck into the beers. A walk around the shopping district (and a new skirt - why, why am I spending money I don't have??!) later, and we headed to E's place to drop our things off and get ready for a night on the town.

E lived a 10-15 min tram ride from the city centre, so pretty convenient. At first I felt she was a little standoffish with me but at home she loosened up a bit, and we met her flatmate who was not meant to be there and now had to sleep on a mattress on the floor while we shared his bed. Felt so bad!

When we headed out, our first stop was the dodgy little pub with a pool table down the road. Love a dodgy pub. We had a flat Kaiser beer, played a game of pool on the miniscule table and I fought a turbulent stomach. Then we moved back into town and went to the bigger billiards hall.

After waiting longer than they told us we'd need to for a table, we gave up and went walking on the main strip looking for somewhere else to go. Well, this turned out to be a task not so easy, and before we knew it, we'd idled down to the end of the main road to a part with - although pretty buildings - absolutely no nightlife. It's like all the bars saw us coming and shut up shop. Weird.

My stomach was still doing somersaults and we were both a bit wrecked, so we decided to call it a night. A little disappointed we didn't find anywhere good to go, and also surprised, but in the end I prefered going home to pushing ourselves to stay out, spending more money and being more tired the next day. And plus, a warm bed and non-existant alarm was waiting for me back at E's place...