June 12-08 Vienna & Slovenia

Ok, a lot has happened since the last post, The car was fixed & I bought a house.

I'll fill you in on the details later.

11-06-08
So far the trip has been pretty uneventful.

It started off a bit of a circus on check in at Auckland.

Flight delayed 5 hrs, now departing at 10pm.

They were going to also fly me to Frankfurt in Germany & then I would double back to Vienna, turning the trip into a near 50hr ordeal! Not a nice thought when I've only had 3hrs sleep the night before! All Mitch's fault U know ;)

But anyways, you never know what might happen next, as I write this we are flying over Iran & it's a beautiful clear day, so Osama & his buddies could have us in their sights. (just kidding)

The view out the window is spectacular! From Dubai we headed due north across the gulf & then flew parallel to the gulf (north west). Looks like we are heading past Baghdad to the left of us across Turkey & maybe straight across the Black Sea & Romania to Vienna.

(Click on the pictures to get full size image)

The plane is only half full so I have a whole row of seats to myself, nice & I could do with a good sleep, but I don't want to miss the landscape! All the way from Auckland was night flying to Dubai, pretty crowded & boring, very hard to sleep too with a fellow passenger snoring his head off next to me.

Right, my battery is going flat so I'll go find somewhere to charge it.... Chow!

13-06-08

So I made it to Vienna in one piece, that's always a good thing I reckon.

Vienna is an ok place I spose. I think there are many other cities in Europe that have more character & charm, There are some nice buildings thou. Here's a few pics.

This is an old church, one of many...

What do ya reckon? Do I look like a European with my beard?

Well to tell the truth, very few Austrians have beards! They're an interesting race to observe, one trait that is hugely noticeable is that their cell phones are almost permanently glued to their ears!

They're a helpful bunch even if a little introverted.

As I was cruising around, the city filled up with Polish soccer fans! Yep it was serious stuff & the mania was quite intense. Poland Vs Austria.

There seemed to be equal numbers of Poles / Austrians on the streets, oh & Police!!!

The honking, tooting, singing & chanting was very enthusiastic & deafening down in the subway!

Poland drew with Austria this time.

The public transport is great in Vienna, $10 gives you a 24 hr transport ticket on any train, tram or bus & there are plenty to choose from. I randomly rode the tube & trams & ended up in this giant theme park.

I was sitting on a bench just relaxing & a woman sat next to me.

She asked me to take her photo in front of one of the rides she was on.

We got chatting (her English was almost non existent) It turns out her husband owned several of the theme park businesses & they were from Moscow, and holiday in Pragque in their own home.

Well as one thing leads to another it didn't seem to take long for her to decide that I needed to meet up with her sister, who is single & 30. Hummm... Talk about Russian brides, I didn't think it was this easy!

So she wanted my phone number, lol! I left her with an email address.... So what do U reckon?

This is one of the rides her Hubby owned.

Really who knows, but I got plenty of entertainment & it was free!

Vienna was ok but I got bored with it after a day, so caught the train to Slovenia.

I figured it would be nice to escape the crowds of fanatical chanting Poles & cities don't do a lot for me anyways.

I hopped on the train, couldn't find anywhere to sit with my pack & was immediately befriended by..... You guessed it! A Polish soccer fanatic!

His name was, well the closest English equivalent is Gregory. The most out going Polish soccer fanatic I've ever met! This guy was non stop alcohol fueled hospitality!

This is him on the left, the only time he wasn't with his beer in hand.... (that sign is part of the train signage)

Really nice guy, but would be better in small doses

Sort of the alcoholic version of someone else I know ;)

It was non stop hard out chat for 3hrs straight, except when he had to go get another beer or head for the WC.

He chatted about everything, Politics Stalin, soccer, love,divorce.... on & on! He even shared his drink with me, I mean on me, sigh! & was dead keen for me to spend a day or two with him where he was staying.... um thanks but no thanks.

After 2hrs of standing we ended up in a compartment with an Austrian guy (soccer fanatic) & a lady from Albania.

I think they deeply regretted letting us in their compartment, no I mean I KNOW they regretted letting us in. Well more passionate debate & spilling of beer, this time shared with our new friends.

Finally he fell asleep, it was like someone KO'd him & I now had time to figure that I was meant to change trains about an hour ago...when we were yacking, never mind, Peter the Austrian said I could still make a connection to get to my destination, a place in Slovenia called Bled.

I had heard a lot about Slovenia last year while at the backpackers in Bulgaria. The people are great! very friendly & the Slovenian language is quite beautiful & expressive.

Bled is in the mountains & unfortunately it is raining as I type this... too bad & very unusal for June. They were having constant 30C days even in May apparently, now I can see snow dusting the peaks, very pretty!

This may be eastern Europe but it's not cheap! probably because the Euro is now used.

Tomorrow it's time to head South to Croatia, another popular Eastern European destination. From there I'm not sure which way I'll head, South by ferry down the Adriatic, or East through Serbia & Romania. we'll see....