couches und wein in Wien

// couches and wine in Vienna

In Vienna I couchsurfed for the first time. Couchsurfing is like matchmaking for travellers ‑ you need a couch, someone has a couch, you speak to each other online and if you're lucky someone agrees to let you crash at their house.

Katy is a French girl who has been living in Vienna for three years. After failing to find a couch in Copenhagen she decided to host in Vienna so that other travellers wouldn't have to be lonely like she was. She's a biologist with a very open and happy personality and an incredibly generous nature. She fed me breakfast, cooked me lunch, washed my socks and guided me all over the city. By the end of the weekend we were good friends and I felt totally comfortable in the house of a girl who'd been a stranger only 48 hours ago.

For the first day in Vienna Katy took me on a personal tour all through the city. Resplendent in white stone, Vienna is far and away the most beautiful city I've seen. Older buildings are sometimes two‑tone, blackened by pollution but in the process of being cleaned to the original sparkling white; it adds to the romance of the place, almost as though the buildings are undressing for the tourists, or perhaps dressing up ‑ this is Vienna after all, not Amsterdam. The huge museums, opera house, theatres and palaces vie for one's attention, all decorations and angles and grandeur. Their imposing height somehow lends a cosy atmosphere to the streets without making them feel crowded. At this time of year Vienna is especially welcoming, with christmas lights in the shape of chandeliers or giant balls hanging in the streets, criss-crossing in gold and red, stars twinkling above the famous Weinachtsmarkts ‑ Christmas Markets. Flash floods of people crowd the streets and with all the looking up that the tourists are doing, there are a lot of collisions. In the centre of town, the writhing figures atop the Plague memorial shriek silently above a wasted and sallow old woman who personifies the Black Death, while an angel stabs her victoriously ‑ even this horrifying scene doesn't escape the Christmas decorations and the resulting festive death is bizarre.

Vienna is famous for her grandeur. Just being there makes you feel rich and privileged as you sip hot chocolate in the posh coffee shops, look at the luxury fashion, hear snatches of the opera (only 3 euros if you don't mind standing), visit the museums and marvel at the architecture (that word gets used a lot in descriptions of Europe doesn't it!). It's indescribably stunning.

My weekend there was like a weekend with friends. After my tour with Katy we went back to her apartment for a rest, and then went to a couchsurfing dinner party hosted by an excellent cook and her two playful cats. In addition to Katy and I, there were five other women, all intelligent, independent travellers. We ate mountains of lasagne and pasta and finished off with Japanese sweets and French chocolates, before being served a home made cake. We chatted well into the night, talking about our travels, exchanging information on various parts of the world, telling stories about the best and the worst couchsurfing experiences and being teased by the tomcat who thought it was hilarious to jump up from behind the couch and make everyone scream. (To be fair to the cat, it really was quite funny.)

By the end of the night we were all friends, it was just like hanging out with people from home. Even just being in a real house instead of a hostel was a welcome change, and having someone to look after me and show me around was such a pleasure after so many months of being independent. It was a really fantastic first experience and such a fun way to see the city. We shopped and drank Gluhwein and Orangenpunsch at the Weinachtsmarkt with our new friends. I bought a Christmas decoration that may or may not make it home in one piece and enjoyed feeling so at home in such a lovely city.