"Excuse me, madam," said the woman with a thick German accent. I turned my attention from the book I was reading on my iPod to the flight attendant addressing me. "Would you care for some complimentary champagne?" Music to my ears after hopping an airplane out of a dry country (and when I say "dry", I don't mean the desert country of Kuwait that I currently live in).
It was just after midnight on New Years Day, and I was on my way to Austria (via Frankfurt) to visit my brother for the holiday. (For those of you who don't know, my brother is in Vienna studying German for a semester.) I must say, that was definitely a great way to kick off the new year! When I landed in Frankfurt for my plane change, the flight attendants were handing out roses! That might have just been what Lufthansa always does, but I still LOVED it. I did not, however, love the discovery that European airports really don't have that many moving sidewalks (at least there was only one between my two gates in Frankfurt, and it felt like they were about a mile apart... and I only had a 30 minute layover). Still, I made it to my gate in time and before long I was landing in Vienna.
One thing I was continually impressed with throughout my whole trip was having a professional car service driving me to and from the airports, train stations, and hotels. My first driver was Turkish, and he spoke only a little English. He was fluent in German, but of course I knew about as much German as he did English, so we both spent the ride trying to decipher what the other was saying. I thought it was fun though; meeting new FRIENDLY people from all over the world is awesome. :)
Since I arrived so early, the hotel didn't have a room ready for me yet. Luckily, there was free wifi in the lobby, and the lady at the front desk was seriously the nicest. I was able to get a message to my brother to let him know where I was. He took me out for my first meal in Austria, and you'll never guess what it was. Good old McDonald's.
We hadn't really planned to do much that day, so we walked around the downtown area where I was staying, and hit a tavern to get some Stiegl - an authentic Austrian beer. It was pretty good, but after not drinking alcohol for so long, I could only drink a couple. We wandered a little more, I took some pictures of the amazing architecture, and my brother took me to a street vendor selling Bratwurst, my favorite! We still had a lot of time to kill after all that, so we hopped a couple trains and my brother showed me some of the sites and the places that he frequents. In one of Vienna's main train stations we got some sushi from a Chinese vendor.
The next day we planned to go snowboarding. I had gotten directions and the train schedule from the concierge at my hotel, so we had everything planned. Well, I overslept so we didn't make it up to the mountain until close to noon. Plus we found out that our directions were slightly inaccurate. We stayed on the train one stop too long, but we both thought it was pretty funny. We ended up catching a taxi back to the right town instead of waiting for a train. When we finally made it to the mountain, it was super slushy in the sunny areas and straight up ice in the shade, so we only made a couple runs before we decided to call it quits. Snowboarding always makes me hungry so we found a nearby restaurant. We shared a pizza and a couple bowls of the absolute best chili ever... EVER. And of course, as with every meal (except McD's), we had some awesome Austrian beer - Puntigamer.
The third day was supposed to be the day we got to Italy. My travel agent had warned me that Euro Rail tickets could be tricky to schedule, but I couldn't really understand the tickets to start with, so I just trusted that they would get me where I was going... WRONG. The car picked us up from my hotel as scheduled - again, I absolutely love this service! We caught the train we were supposed to be on, but after that is where things started to go wrong. We were supposed to catch a BUS (could've fooled me since the tickets had EURORAIL all over them) from a little town in Austria called Villach to Venice Italy. It didn't really matter since the bus we were scheduled for had left about 2 hours before our train from Vienna even pulled into the station at Villach (tricky schedule!). Fortunately, the customer service lady in the train station spoke English well enough to put us on a train leaving for Venice at 4AM the next morning - more to come on that. The little detour in Villach actually turned out to be a good thing though. As I said, the customer service lady was fantastic and she directed us to a cozy little hotel a few blocks down the street. I was able to get an internet connection at the hotel to contact my agent and figure out our new travel schedule, and we got some of the BEST steak ever at a little hidden restaurant down a dark street. I really wish I had made a note of the restaurant's name... darn.
So far, Austria, you're pretty darn awesome! In Part 2, I'll recount my adventure in Italy as my brother and I visit Venice and Milan. Thanks for reading!
One thing I was continually impressed with throughout my whole trip was having a professional car service driving me to and from the airports, train stations, and hotels. My first driver was Turkish, and he spoke only a little English. He was fluent in German, but of course I knew about as much German as he did English, so we both spent the ride trying to decipher what the other was saying. I thought it was fun though; meeting new FRIENDLY people from all over the world is awesome. :)
Since I arrived so early, the hotel didn't have a room ready for me yet. Luckily, there was free wifi in the lobby, and the lady at the front desk was seriously the nicest. I was able to get a message to my brother to let him know where I was. He took me out for my first meal in Austria, and you'll never guess what it was. Good old McDonald's.
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| St. Stephens Cathedral |
The next day we planned to go snowboarding. I had gotten directions and the train schedule from the concierge at my hotel, so we had everything planned. Well, I overslept so we didn't make it up to the mountain until close to noon. Plus we found out that our directions were slightly inaccurate. We stayed on the train one stop too long, but we both thought it was pretty funny. We ended up catching a taxi back to the right town instead of waiting for a train. When we finally made it to the mountain, it was super slushy in the sunny areas and straight up ice in the shade, so we only made a couple runs before we decided to call it quits. Snowboarding always makes me hungry so we found a nearby restaurant. We shared a pizza and a couple bowls of the absolute best chili ever... EVER. And of course, as with every meal (except McD's), we had some awesome Austrian beer - Puntigamer.
The third day was supposed to be the day we got to Italy. My travel agent had warned me that Euro Rail tickets could be tricky to schedule, but I couldn't really understand the tickets to start with, so I just trusted that they would get me where I was going... WRONG. The car picked us up from my hotel as scheduled - again, I absolutely love this service! We caught the train we were supposed to be on, but after that is where things started to go wrong. We were supposed to catch a BUS (could've fooled me since the tickets had EURORAIL all over them) from a little town in Austria called Villach to Venice Italy. It didn't really matter since the bus we were scheduled for had left about 2 hours before our train from Vienna even pulled into the station at Villach (tricky schedule!). Fortunately, the customer service lady in the train station spoke English well enough to put us on a train leaving for Venice at 4AM the next morning - more to come on that. The little detour in Villach actually turned out to be a good thing though. As I said, the customer service lady was fantastic and she directed us to a cozy little hotel a few blocks down the street. I was able to get an internet connection at the hotel to contact my agent and figure out our new travel schedule, and we got some of the BEST steak ever at a little hidden restaurant down a dark street. I really wish I had made a note of the restaurant's name... darn.So far, Austria, you're pretty darn awesome! In Part 2, I'll recount my adventure in Italy as my brother and I visit Venice and Milan. Thanks for reading!
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