Vienna wrap-up.

Vienna, Austria

 

Tomorrow morning I'm off to Prague for a few days. Prague was never part of the original travel plans, but that's the beauty of essentially not having any real plans to begin with. You're as flexible as you want to be, it's a pretty cool feeling. This afternoon I went over to the bus station and purchased a one way ticket to Prague for 19 Euros. Bus ride is about 4.5 hours, but I've got at least one travel companion and probably a third if he gets a ticket tonight. From Prague I'll probably make my way down to Bucharest, then to Istanbul. Of course, anything could change, and already I've learned to not plan things more then a day or two in advance.

 

Vienna has been fun, a great way to really kick off the solo part of my trip. After arriving doing some basic walking around on the Monday that I arrived, then meeting "Rob the Biker" Monday night at the hostel pub, I was pretty excited about the week to come. Sadly, Tuesday morning brought more bad weather. Overcast, foggy, cool and damp. Quite the change from the previous day. I swear that I've been bringing the bad weather with me on this trip. It didn't help that when I checked in on Monday morning the receptionist was so excited to tell me that it would be sunny all week. Right then I knew that it wouldn't be, she had just jinxed it.

 

This is old news now, but I spent most of Tuesday morning booking my train ticket from Vienna to Istanbul. It turned out to be way easier then I thought. I could have save a few hours of internet research and just walked into the train station and got the ticket. However, the train ticket agents here have one little gotcha... They won't tell you the schedule for a given route. For that you must go to the information booth. As logic would have it, the information booth has one little gotcha as well... They won't sell you a ticket. Brilliant system. So, when you don't know this, it goes something like this...

 

1. Figure out the difference between "Ausland" and "Inland", assume that "Ausland" means trains that are bound for other countries.

 

2. Get in a line behind a sign that says "Ausland".

 

3. Tell ticket agent you would like to go from Vienna to Istanbul on Friday.

 

4. He will respond by asking you on which train.

 

5. You will ask him which trains exist.

 

6. He will say he doesn't know, can't tell you and point to his left, towards the information booth... Which looks an awful lot like any normal tourist information booth.

 

7. So you tell the information booth person that you want to get a ticket from Vienna to Istanbul on Friday. With like 5 hits of the keyboard, maybe less, he prints you out the itinerary. It's like 3 lines long. Vienna - Bucharest, Train # then Bucharest - Istanbul and the Train #.

 

8. You take this piece of paper back to the "Ausland" ticket agent, getting back in line again of course, who with only a few keystrokes himself is able to print up the ticket and the reservations for each overnight trip.

 

9. Why the two get work together or be linked is beyond me, but since the Euro's seem so much further ahead with train travel then us North Americans, I'll just assume that they know what they're doing... /shrug

 

Anyways, back to my day on Tuesday. (Sidenote, this keyboard is driving me nuts because I just spent 2+ weeks getting used to a German layout, with the 'z' and 'y' characters swamped, now I'm back to a North American layout and I'm all screwed up... But I digress...)

 

So Tuesday afternoon I walked back down towards the Hofburg Palace, the Parliament Buildings, took a tour of the State Room at the National Library where I didn't make too many friends with the security guards when I started to setup my mini-tripod.. Photography without a flash was ok, there was no sign that said "No tripods". With the crummy weather I really didn't take many outside pictures and ended up getting back to the hostel around dinner time. The hostel pub serves food, so I had dinner there and just chilled in the lounge that night, it was pretty quiet.

 

On Wednesday morning I had breakfast down in the Hostel pub and Kacey, a girl from Colorado who's being traveling for the last few months throughout Europe. We started talking and decided to head down to watch the National Day Parade together. We were told the parade started at 9.30am, so we got down there with plenty of time only to see the army just starting to setup the parade route. The engineer in me quickly concluded, based on the amount of unfenced road and the rate at which there were laying fences, that the parade wasn't starting anytime soon. Sure enough, the parade started at 2.30pm.

 

So we again walked through all the big palace areas, this time full of people admiring Austria's fast military arsenal (that's a joke, in case you missed it). After a few hours of walking around, we met up with 3 friends that Kacey was traveling with down by the main cathedral. There was Lara the Australian, Adam the Texan, Tom the Kiwi, Kacey the Coloradan and me, the Canadian. Together, we explored a few more landmarks including the KarfsKirche church, the Belvedere Gardens, where there was a rather impressive looking palace with a huge neon outline of Austria hanging from the front. I only hope that that was there for the celebrations, but something tells me it hangs there all the time... Shame full, if you ask me.

 

By now it was about time to check out the parade. Somehow, Kacey and I lost the others, so we just pushed in front of everyone lining the streets so that we could sit on the street/sidewalk in front of everyone and have a clear few of the parade. Sometimes having a big camera, with a big lens and a huge flash mounted to it makes you look important. I used that to my advantage when I needed people to move. No one wants to get in the way of the "photographer". When in doubt, lie on the ground or get in some weird position as if there's no other way to get the angle for this shot... People will think you really know what you're doing and move back. Works just about every time.

 

The parade was decent. We're still trying to figure out if the entire army was in Vienna or just a portion of it. It felt like the entire army, but we couldn't tell. Regardless, hearing heavy tanks roll past you while you're lying on the street is pretty impressive. The noise is awesome at times. Of course, jets and helicopters flew overheard, but the tall buildings and tree coverage obstructed the view.

 

Once the parade was over we started walking back towards the main street that gets us back to the hostel  only to discover that the parade wasn't over... The marching parade was about to start. (Previously, we had only seen vehicles rumble past, no foot soldiers.) Apparently the foot soldiers didn't want to talk as far down the parade route as the tanks, so they turned off earlier, moving the end of the parade up about 500 meters.

 

Now I don't know everything about this holiday, but it does have something to do with Austrian liberation, so it was interesting to see the foot parade led by members of the US Marine Corps, the UK guys in red with big black hats, and some Russian dudes. Behind them, it seemed like a parade of nations, at times looking like the Olympics, which probably a few dozen military units represented by their countries flags. For some reason, maybe I was blind, or maybe it just wasn't there, but I didn't see the Canada flag. Did Canada not help in the liberation of Austria? I know we were part of D-Day, so at a minimum one would think we should have been represented somewhere in the back, but maybe we didn't make it past France? Anyone?

 

So the foot parade ends, which I should mention Kasey and I watched from the roof of a bus stop this time. The old stand by of "My camera is bigger then your camera" didn't work here, the crowd was just way too deep. Kacey and I head back to the hostel to hopefully meet up with the others.

 

There's a new guy in my room, Collin from Alaska. He's hungry and I'm hungry, so we head out for a quick bite to eat down the street. Turns out he just flew in from Delhi, India after spending a month traveling throughout the country. Had some great stories to share with me, so India looks to be exciting. We get back around 7.30pm and Kacey and Adam are off to watch a Mozart Concert. (Yeah, I know Mozart is dead, but they still called it a Mozart concert, even though it was the symphony playing Mozart music...) Tom, Collin and I decide to head down to the... Drum roll please... The Casino! Ahh. Tom was pretty amped on playing roulette, or least trying out some new "streak theory" he had. I'm always a sucker for playing blackjack, and Collin was looking for a poker table and they had this weird deal whereby they gave you 25 Euro in playing chips if you bought 21 Euros worth, so instantly you were up 4 Euros.

 

The place was small, a few slots, one roulette table and two blackjack tables. I wasn't feeling it and quickly got down around 90 Euros, which sucks at Tahoe when I'm employed... But when you're unemployed and traveling, it *really* sucks. So I switch to the other table and my luck turns. After about 45 minutes I'm back up to even, down a bit, then back up to +25 Euro. I call it a night, can't take the pressure and want to meet up with the others. Tom's already left, but Collin decides to take my seat. He quickly wins 50 Euros in about 8 minutes... I should have stayed seated.

 

We head back to the hostel and meet up with Kacey and Adam, who had a great time at the concert. The inside of the concert hall looks awesome and I guess it goes without saying that the music was pretty awesome. Since it's still National Day (remember), the hostel pub is the place to party tonight. It's pretty full, lots of music, free shots if you stood on the bar (like I need a reason to stand on a bar!) and some foosball, though I have to stay I'm not digging these Euro foosball tables, but that's another story. We all party till around 1am, then I head up knowing that I have an earlier morning on Thursday as I need to get to the train station to cancel my ticket to Istanbul.

 

(Wow, this is a long update... Thankfully, I'm waiting in the common room for my laundry, so it's not like I'm wasting my time in Vienna on the internet.. Honestly, I'm doing laundry.)

 

So today, Thursday, Tom, Kacey, Adam and I meet up over breakfast. After a slow start, we all head over to another place called Belveder Gardens. It's way different then the other place, but for some reason shares the same name on the map. Sadly, when we arrived, Tom realized that he forgot his camera back at the hostel. He returned to get it, but we didn't see him again until dinner time.

 

Since today was SUNNY, I finally got some decent photographs, I think. The leaves in the park/garden were changing colors, so that was pretty cool. After spending a few hours just wandering the grounds and soaking in the warm weather, we headed back to the hostel for lunch and to regroup. After lunch, the three of us headed out to the bus station to secure tickets to Prague. Adam was leaving Thursday night for Prague, while Kacey and I decided to leave Friday morning.

 

Adam is actually living/studying there for the semester. He's taking the bus back tonight, has some errands to run Friday morning, then is catching a flight to Rome for a few days. After just a week of hosteling, this type of jet setting lifestyle is rather common place. Crazy what Europe offers for travelers... 

 

So Kacey and I left Adam at the bus station and went to check out some neighborhood with some wickedly weird architecture. For those in the know, it was inspired the by the famous architect named Gaudi, who's work is found throughout Barcelona. The area was cool, but the postcards make it look way cooler. I have no idea when they took their pictures, but it sure wasn't this afternoon. Regardless, it was worth the effort and at least I've given Gaudi somewhat of a second chance.

 

From their, Kacey and I made our way back to the hostel, where I've been doing laundry for the last hour or so, while I type this update. Tonight we'll probably just hang out in the hostel pub, have a few drinks and laughs, pack and get ready for our 8am bus ride to Prague tomorrow. By tomorrow afternoon we should be settled into a hostel in Prague and walking around the city.

 

Till then,

 

Kenny