Friday June 29, 2007
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
Six Passport Stamps Later

I scarce can even type for the overwhelming number of adventures I need to relay to everyone from the past several days! As silly as it sounds I’m almost dreading starting to type because I am so afraid I’m going to forget one of the many thoughts I’ve about what I wanted to type in here for everyone to read. Don’t let me forget to tell everyone about Hungarian toilets.

Ok so where to begin?
How about right now. I am currently sitting in a rather modern style hotel room (hence the first internet access) in Munich, Germany with my Dad. Well actually, he is in the bathroom brushing his teeth, but in typical weird European fashion, there is definitely this glass panel looking from the room into the bathroom toward the shower so I could in theory see him doing that. Talk about awkward and lack of that infamous German ingenuity. We rigged up a towel to avoid what would otherwise make for some awkward turtles. I’ll post a picture soon, because to our American minds this is just dumb and we can’t picture it.

Before I get too into this, I wanted to post a “shout out” to Shirley, Ms. Shay, or whatever I should call her (lol) because it is her birthday and they are currently celebrating back in Texas. If I knew German I would say it Happy Birthday in German, but I don’t speak German, so Happy Birthday never the less from Munich.

So, Saturday. I woke up early and went to pick up Daddy at his hotel. Happy reunion. Apparently my parents thought it best to wait until like we were walking down into the U-bahn talking about randomness to spring “oh, you know Rosie [our miniature schnauzer] died last week.” Instead of telling me serious news of any kind right off the bat, they like to wait and just jump it on me so the delivery startles me more than the news itself. One minute I’m talking about breakfast and next thing I know our dog died. I have learned to find humor in their delivery. But for everyone else, Rosie died in her sleep after playing a hard game of ball, her favorite past time, so I cannot imagine a better way for a 13 year old dog to cross the rainbow bridge. Her barking will be missed? No, but we will miss Rosie.

Anyway, I kept us on a tight regime throughout the weekend. We started at 7:30, despite the fact my roommates were using this past weekend as their final shebang in Vienna and were awake at all hours of the night so I didn’t get any sleep. Our first stop was the Naschtmarkt, where we walked around the farmer’s market and bought fresh fruit and bread for our snacks later in the day. After that we headed to Schonbrunn, walked the extensive and beautiful gardens but missed out on tours because of the spawns of satan known as Austrian tourguides bringing their swarms of soulless tourists. Oh, we also did the Hedge Maze I had never had time to do. It was fun, yay.

So we headed into town, I showed him all around Karlsplatz, Kartnerstrasse, Stephansdom, and we had a traditional Austrian lunch. After that we checked out St. Michael’s crypt and while he got the tour I got to hear an impromptu organ concert.

Oh, and before lunch we were crossing the ringstrasse just as the funeral procession (and remember funerals are a huge deal in Viennese culture historically) for what I believe [excuse my lack of knowledge here] was an Austrian President and former Nazi! We got to see the procession go by on the way to the central cemetery! Our timing couldn't have been more perfect! 5 miles and 300 sets of stairs later, we got ready for the opera and went to see Lohengrin by Wagner at the Staatsoper. Our seats were the worst I’ve ever had, but that’s a Saturday in tourist season for you. The music was still phenomenal, and just absorbing the atmosphere was well worth it. I was so tired after that I could barely walk home.

Sunday. Whoo hoo. Woke up and beat the swarms of zombies to Schonbrunn so Daddy could have a tour while I read in the garden. Pleasant indeed. Afterwards, we went to Café Landtmann (Freud’s Café) for brunch and to take part in the Austrian tradition of being slothful. I will miss that.

Next stop the Freud Museum, which totally blew my mind [again]. NERD alert: I am so in love with Freud, his work, his passion, his old fashion brain slicer (animal not human!), and most of all his no-nonsense attitude that I bought a poster of him to hang in my dorm room. : )

Freud Story: Freud was Jewish. When the Nazis took possession of Vienna, they were sent to Freud’s apartment and practice to look for “incriminating” evidence. When the Nazi officers got to his door, Freud says he gave them his “Moses” look when he opened the door, and glared down at them over the tops of his spectacles with eyes that said “I don’t think so” and the Nazi officers were so scared they ran off without searching. Shortly there after Freud left for London.

I could go on and on with Freud stories. His fluffy chow named Paula and his Pekingese named Jumbo, his humor, ahhh! One more because I can: Freud had mouth cancer from all his smoking and chewing tobacco in his old age, and he said they kept telling him “oh, it’s getting better, the carcinoma is shrinking, the pain will end…” and his comment was something along of the lines “their exaggerations do not make me feel better and I do not appreciate it.” I walked around the museum basically with this enormous, uncontrollable grin on my face even though I was only there a few days ago. I read every caption and quote they had. All it takes is something related to the brain to make my day. Since we had to check our bags, I was forced to be like Freud's patient the "rat man" and carry Gulliver, my rat, around the museum for picture sake. More on that later. After that we picked up some Austrian Diet Cokes and sat in Freud park.

We then went and walked around the Belvedere gardens and then went out to the edge of the Vienna woods to a heurigen for dinner. At the Belvedere, Daddy ran to go get in the shadw while I took pictures. See above for proof.

After some wondering around, we stumbled upon this charming little local place that had the tastiest food I had had in four weeks. The lack of any spice whatsoever finally got to me. We split a giant meat platter and had “BBQ” sauce, which was mild but surprisingly good! We devoured it. As you do at the heurigen, we ordered wine. For the entire trip I have not once encountered a problem where the wine/alcohol was too strong for me and I wasn’t able to finish my glass. Well of course, the exception comes with my dad. I couldn’t even finish my glass of wine [although he admits, he had a hard time with his too] so now he thinks I’m just a light weight who orders alcohol I can’t drink. This is me being sad he now thinks that.

It was the best end I could think possible for Vienna.

After that I packed like crazy, and thank goodness Dad was here to carry my gianormous suitcase down the 5 flights of stairs. I would have otherwise been tempted to throw it out the window and call it a day. My roommates were up most of the night to prepare for their various flights, so I didn’t get much sleep unfortunately.

Monday

I put all my stuff in our home base hotel in Vienna and we took a 7 a.m. bus to Bratislava, Slovakia for 10 euros a person roundtrip. I was sad that the Slovakian boarder patrol came by and checked our passports but didn’t bring a stamp, so sometimes it’s just hit or miss there. We got into Bratislava and on the drive in you pass by a lot of Soviet style, ugly, apartments and you definitely get an Eastern European vibe. The bus just dropped us off at the bus stop and we found our way to the old city center. The buildings had a prettyish old feel to them and even though tourists were there it wasn’t so mobbed that it was uncomfortable. We went into the big church they had there and walked around, saw the now shrunken, mummified body of a Saint, which really is more awkward to look at than it is holy. It was in this hanging, or “floating” gold and silver, GLASS coffin behind bars at an alter. How does one respond to that, I don’t know.

Ok, I’m tired, time for bed. I will maybe update more in the morning, otherwise tomorrow we’re headed off to Dachau to see the concentration camp memorial. This is TO BE CONTINUED. Sorry I didn’t take the time to re-read, but I’m exhausted.

*Elaine

PS: Can anyone say racist?