Vienna

Arriving in extra late thanks to a storm that hit Zurich just as we were boarding was one thing but the flight itself was more like and hour long ride on the Mad Mouse at the show. The pilot was not even looking like turning the seat belt sign off. We flew with Niki airlines (Niki Lauders airline) and I have to say for a cheap airline they were really good. Free snacks on the flight, TV during the flight & free magazines and news papers as well. PLUS the cabin crew were top notch although Jane will be writing a letter regarding their outfit She thought jeans were way too casual.

Now on to my dummy spit for the week. As we left Vienna airport via the train and arrived at our station Jane took it upon herself to lead the way to the hotel knowing that our street was not on the map. On leaving the station we saw an information booth but Jane said it was only 100 metres away and she had a good idea where it was.... 20 mins later we headed back to the train station, David quite tired and cranky where we asked for directions and finally made it to the hotel @ 11:30pm. THEN the key to our door wouldn’t work. It took us a further 15 minutes to get into the rom. No one would come up to help us and as you may know I am not a patient man at the best of times. I vowed to Jane that they would feel the wrath of Dave the next morning.

Friday/Saturday

The door still wouldn’t work for us the next morning so I grabbed one of the non English speaking cleaners to get her to open it with her card. She couldn’t so I said I wanted it fixed.... she went back into the room she was cleaning and continued to clean. I could see my point was not being made so as we left to do some sight seeing I spoke to reception stressing my desire to have it fixed by the time we got back... more on this later.

Austria, or little Germany as I call it, is filled with old buildings, friendly people and home to one of the dodgiest looking Australian pubs I have ever seen. We spent the day walking around all the different tourist attractions like Karlzplatz, Stephen Platz, Stadt Park, The Albertina, The Danube which was dirtier that the Torrens after a storm and the old Palace & Parliament buildings.

There are not as many beer halls here which I am sure Jane and my folks will be happy about, I’m sure it sounds like we’ve done nothing but drinking... that isn’t true I promise.

Anyhoo back to the hotel and we had a new key (swipe card) so I thought beauty it’s been fixed.... No all they did was replace the card. By this time my rag was well and truly lost so I went down again to have a go at the new person in reception. He get’s someone to come up and she gets it with her first go. It seems that I haven’t fully mastered how to open a door properly and the 2 times I did manage to do it correctly was just sheer luck. Standing there red faced I thanked her and tried to laugh it off but I know deep down she was saying sucked in idiot!

On the last morning we had a few hours till our train to Prague left at 1:30. So we headed back into the city then went for a walk around the ringstrasse which circles the main city (kinda like Canberra) before jumping on our train. That will do for now. I’ll write more once we leave Prague on the 11th.

Tschüs