Hi All,
Good news. Passports are back. We spent a lot of time looking at the tracking of the passports from Australia. They went the long way: Sydney, Australia; Leipzig, Germany; Bratslavia, Slokavia; and finally Vienna, Austria. We raced out to the DHL office in Vienna and retrieved our passports as soon as we spotted that they had arrived. No problem getting the pack with my drivers license. So we are legal again after travelling in Germany for almost a month without our passports. Phew.
It was good to get back to Vienna. We found a near perfect hostel (wombats) near the train station (westbahnhoff). Petra was away on business until Saturday so our first stop was the markets for anther 1kg pack of green wusabi nuts. Mmmm.
Decided to cook pizza in the kitchen and sipped away a carton of our old friend sangria while chatting to Jeremy, a new Zealander, Fiona an Australia and a few others. Vanessa and I each had a 350g Pizza before heading down to the hostel bar for our free drinks before heading to bed. Ooops. That was a mistake. We got talking and it was a few more beers and about 1am before we actually got away.
next day. Early start to catch up with our Austrian friend Petra. First stop was an traditional Austrian coffee shop for some Apple strudel and Sashatorte. Opening day for the Rathaus christmas markets so we wandered down for a look and a cup of hot punsch - punch in German - not said with a slur! We wandered back towards Petra`s apartment and dropped into a cafe for a light lunch before collecting our stored carton of equipment and heading to the hostel.
Later we met Helmut, Petra's boyfriend, who happens to be the marketing manager for one of the major beer companies, steigl. We headed out to a traditional Austrian restuarant well away from the tourist area and as soon as we were at the entrance he was greeted with enthusiasm by the staff. It was like being out with a movie star; Helmut was the man. After dinner we went to a cocktail bar. The bar was full but this presented no problem as we were with Helmut and almost instantly the staff had cleared some people from the bar and suddenly there was room for us! Almost as quickily I had strategically tipped part of my first drink onto the middle of my pants. Only Vanessa noticed. Luckily they dried pretty quickly. We had a couple of drinks before calling it a night. It was a smiling and enthusiastic goodbye from the owners. They were really nice.
Found out that Austrians enjoy a white wine with soda water in Summer when it is too hot for beer. Must be lost in the translation as it is never too hot for beer in Australia!
Next day. Helmut and Petra had another engagement so we headed out to the Schonbrunn palace, the hagsburgs summer palace. It was a lovely blue sky day which was a change from the grey skies and almost warm. We wandered out to the magnificent gardens for lunch and then down to the zoo before heading back to the hostel.
Next day. We went for a trip out to the Danube river to the Wachau wine producing region. Very pretty area with old castle ruins, very sleepy towns and terrace vineyards passing beside the Danube river. The imposing Melk abbey/monastery was clearly visible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melk_Abbey
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wachau
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%BCrnstein
Went back to the hostel and looked in the refridgerator for the beer that I had labelled and hidden. The beer was left behind by a previous backpacker and I had claimed it. Sure enough it was gone. The moral of the story is don't leave beer in the refridgerators in hostels as it will be stolen. Should have known better. Shame on you thieving backpacker.
Next day. Decided to sort out out the box and repack our backpacks before sending the unnecessary items to Australia. Don't think we will be camping in Russia or China in winter. Took longer than expected and had a bit of trouble with the grumpy Austrian mail person before managing to send 13kg of gear to Australia.
Decided to Pizza for lunch and each had a 350g frozen pizza again. Oink.
We went our for dinner with Petra and Helmut to an italian restuarant and had...Pizza again. A little too much Pizza in one day. Same as before the staff knew Helmut and after we paid for our food and drinks we were served a free round of Limoncello and a large plate of various italian desserts to share. Super.
Helmut drove us to a christmas market off the tourist trail in an old hospital but there were not many people. It was unseasonally warm which was good for the beer business but not for the christmas punsch market.
We head to Prague tomorrow.
Bye,
David and Vanessa
