As much as I’d like to stay, Paris is full. Totally full. I try a dozen or so websites, and there’s not a room or hostel to be had (short of $700). Hint taken, I try to get a train to Vienna. No luck. “Can’t you leave tomorrow?” *sigh* I may end up on the street…<\/p>\n
I eventually find a way to route through Munich on an overnight, and I’m on my way. Even on the intercity, it’s a long way from Paris to Vienna, and I bunk down in a crowded 4 bed sleeper with a nice girl from Wisconsin, and 6 Chinese (yes, this is a FOUR bed cubicle, but the Chinese are nothing if not space efficient!). The smelly feet and general endless loud snoring brings back memories of the capsule inn in Tokyo. <\/p>\n
I arrive Vienna in the early afternoon, and spend a few hours walking in circles until I locate my hotel (damn these ring roads!). Finally free of the accursed backpack, I set my sights on some nice downtown cafes, and a much needed bite of civilization. <\/p>\n
I pop into the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which turns out to be a bit more than I bargained for encompassing massive Egyptian artifacts, hundreds of Roman\/Greek statues, and an extensive art exhibit that rivals a wing of the Louvre. While I’m inside, the guards spend some time running circles around me, very upset about something… I don’t escape until 9pm, and find the world outdoors a mess. There’s been quite a storm blowing through Vienna while I pondered my swirls of paint, but the massive bulk of the building has completely isolated me from it. <\/p>\n
I seek out a traditional Vienna restaurant, and I find one billowing cigarette smoke and bustling with locals – perfect. Wiener Schnitzel and a nice Riesling on the table, and I’m soon chatting with two very talkative young ladies at the next table, Pia and Caroline. They’re having a monthly get together, and are chain smoking up a storm, but very energetic and great company. They explain that the storm I missed actually killed several people, blowing over trees and cranes (killing the driver). They also spin some very scary stories of their last visit to Prague, and how I, as a single male, will be the prey of every hooker\/pimp\/pickpocket in the city, and I’m taking my life in my hands going alone. Well, we’ll see \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As much as I’d like to stay, Paris is full. Totally full. I try a dozen or so websites, and there’s not a room or hostel to be had (short of $700). Hint taken, I try to get a train to Vienna. No luck. “Can’t you leave tomorrow?” *sigh* I may end up on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scott","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shambarger.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shambarger.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shambarger.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shambarger.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shambarger.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shambarger.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101,"href":"https:\/\/www.shambarger.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59\/revisions\/101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shambarger.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shambarger.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shambarger.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}