I’m sitting in a fantastic little place called the Travelshack in Vienna, typing out a post whilst I wait for my toasted vegemite and cheese sandwich. Yep, I’m in Austria and I’m getting vegemite. It rocks. They also offer FREE wireless internet (cannot tell you how much I love this place), cheap washing, a second hand English book store and if you don’t have a laptop, cheap internet access anyway. It is bloody awesome.
But…I would be lying if I said I’d prefer to be here than at home at the moment. Suffering from a major bout of homesickness with a good dollop of regret and guilt – just wish I could have made it home for the boys’ 21st. All I can do is look at the photos and get teary. But…I have to remind myself that I’m in Vienna and it’s a sunny beautiful day.
It wasn’t always like this….as you will see from the photos, it was all grey skies the day of the party (which I thought was somewhat apt). It has been overcast and raining since we’ve been here, and now the sun has finally come out and we’ve spent half the day talking to people online.
But….to Vienna. It is a beautiful city full of old buildings and some strange things. Much of the buildings have that extra sense of aesthetic decoration on the already beautiful European architecture – whether this is an Austrian thing or not, I’m not sure. But I like it! We are back to the gorgeous turquoise copper rooves contrasting beautiful white buildings, but also many are very dirty; presumably a remnant from coal-fire days. They haven’t cleaned up a lot of buildings, including the beautiful gothic church in the centre. Mind you, this church is a little different – dirty gothic walls topped with previously bright mosaic tiling….not exactly conventional.
Andrew walked me around the city on a walking tour, trying his very best to distract me from my misery at not being home, and he did a pretty good job. He was even NICE to me. I know, you are all reeling back in horror. I was stunned initially, but decided to take it in my stride because that won’t be happening again for a LONG time.
Apart from the beautiful architecture, there were many strange monuments around. One depicting a headless woman giving birth, others of men checking out their guns (in the non-literal sense), many of men fighting one another and beasts…and even a misplaced Egyptian statue. Crazy Viennese. One crazy Mozart-esque person tried to convince us to go to an orchestral concert….which although would be nice, we weren’t doing for 30 euros each (the discounted price). They are a little obsessed with the whole Mozart thing as well….he had a house here and about twenty million statues of him or dedicated to him. Okay, well we saw two. But I’m sure there are plenty more.
My one bad experience stems from our hotel. Some ASSHOLE threw out half our food in the fridge. The staff claim it wasn’t them, as the fridge is cleaned out every Monday and Thursday, and we discovered this yesterday (Saturday). So some piece of crap threw out our perfectly good and LABELLED food and I have no idea why. Most of it was salvageable, but it put me in a kill-things mood, particularly as so many people are lazy and incapable of cleaning up after themselves. Oh, the dishwasher is full. Better leave my plates and pots in the sink then. Asswipes. Ah well, I used my anger force and beat Andrew in chess twice. I thought I was pretty good, but Andrew didn’t (obviously). Sore loser I say.
Anyway, my vegemite toasty just came so I am going to gobble it all up. Hope you have all had a nice weekend and next time you hear from me I’ll be in the Czech Republic!
Ciao!
XX
Food
Vienna photos
