I had to start the day by checking out and checking back in, an annoying process that I've become regrettably familiar with. Fortunately they were able to check me into my room very early so I didn't have to hassle with leaving my stuff in a locker and then coming back. I talked with a new Australian roommate for a while before heading out to see the Wien (Vienna) Museum. It's a free museum about the history of Vienna and Austria more broadly. The exhibits were well done and interesting though I felt like some of the information wasn't presented very logically and could be hard to follow. I also noticed some strange narrative choices - there was no mention at all of the Holy Roman Empire or Austria's membership thereof, and they also referred to the empire almost exclusively as the "Hapsburg Empire" rather than identifying it as Austrian. Strange choices that didn't seem to be for any good reason. They're apparently very proud of their defeat of the Ottomans since they had multiple rooms dedicated to the Ottoman sieges of Vienna, though even these seemed strangely incomplete. There was no mention at all of the broader context of the battles or the heavy Polish-Lithuanian involvement, nor the Venetian and HRE contributions either. I get that they're focusing on Austria, but this other stuff is very important to the overall story and they left it out completely. I only know it because I read the Wikipedia page and noticed how much of the story had been neglected. They had a very well done section on Austria's decline into fascism and the Nazi era, though, so I appreciated that they reckon with that part of their history and make no attempt to pin it all on Germany. Overall, a very interesting museum that was well worth its completely free admission. It also has excellent public restrooms.

That night the hostel was holding a "free drink for solo travelers" event in the first floor's bar, so I checked it out. It seems that whenever a hostel offers something like this it's almost invariably some terrible mixed drink with a near indiscernible amount of alcohol, and that was once again the case here. Regardless, I met some cool people and had a good time. There was a Barcelona vs Real Madrid game on that everyone was going nuts for and I obviously didn't care at all about, especially since it was totally scoreless for the first half of play until Barcelona started to completely destroy Madrid in the second half. Anyway, people started going to bed weirdly early for a Saturday night in the city, and the bar scene in our area seemed pretty weak (possibly because of Austria Day) so we called it a slightly early night as well. This is despite the fact that DST ended at 3 AM, meaning that our day is slightly longer and we really had more time than usual. I had totally forgotten about this but the hostel sent us all a message about it. I met a really nice Mexican guy who I'm going to get breakfast with in the morning.

It's been a slow couple days in Vienna thus far - I think I tend to go through boom and bust cycles, and the busy days into long nights of my Slovene travels have left me a little less energetic than I otherwise would be. I do really want to see more of the city though, so I'll be sure to capitalize on that tomorrow. I'm still not really sure what Austria day is or how it's celebrated, since nothing seemed different today. There were no fireworks or big parades as far as I could tell. Maybe it's less important than the 4th to the locals? Tomorrow I want to see the palace since I've heard cool things about it, and the island in the Danube also seems like it's a nice park area and I'd like to check that out at some point. I think I'm ready for a little more action again and I think I can see a bunch of things if I don't get bogged down with random conversations or naps.