After an whirlwind few days with Pop and Anne visiting I was really tired heading to Austria. They arrived on Tuesday night and between work we managed to see A Merchant in Venice and Spamalot (both fantatstic and the Merchant was at the Globe theater no less). We wandered London, went to a couple museums, a Taste of London thing and I even snuck in a date in there.
Out the door Sunday morn to catch the 7 am train to Heathrow. I had to go to Vienna for a client install so I figured I would take the opportunity to see Vienna. The flight was delayed as per usual, I don’t think I have been on a flight in some time that wasn’t delayed. (I type this as I sit in the Nice airport looking at half the flights on the board with status of delayed and a quarter cancelled. The final quarter, including mine for now, have no status yet).
When I got to the airport, I decided to take the CAT shuttle to the center of town and find a cab there. I went to a cabbie and showed him my reservation and he refused to take me. Through the language barrier, I managed to decipher that the hotel was too close for him to bother. Just on the other side of the train station apparently. Unfortunately, that didn’t really help me. I went to the other side of the station and wandered around for a while until I found a Hilton. I went inside and asked them and they directed me. Turns out my hotel was down the road a bit and then back down an alley in the middle of a big block of buildings. Alley has some of the wrong connotation I suppose. It was a really nice alley. There were cafes and museums and such down the alley. The hotel was so far back from the road that I realized later that night, that I could hear absolutely no noises. This was a bit weird for me actually. Even the country has noises.
After check in, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. The town was mostly closed (par for Europe on a Sunday). I caught a cab down to the museum area. It was a beautiful sunny day. Not London sunny but actually sunny. I wandered around the palace and museum area and snapped some pics. Didn’t really feel like paying to wander their museums so I wandered around behind the museums in some shopping district until I found a microbrewery. 7 Stern Brau. It was actually a really good find. I had dinner there and the dinner was good. I like Austrian food. Sautéed meats and noodles covered in cheese for the most part. The good thing about this place was the beer. Everything I had was excellent but the Hemp beer and the heiferweizen were the ones that stand out in my mind.
After a couple beers, I wandered back to the hotel. Stopped at a cinema to see if the movies were in English. The only one in English was shrek 3 and not at a useful time. Ahh well, back to the hotel to pass out for many hours.
Work was fine, they managed to get the install through in one day. And we only wasted about half of the day. Not bad for a bank, especially compared to certain French type countries.
The plane back was late and I didn’t get back home until pretty late. This was Monday night by this point and I fly out to Nice on Weds night. Better get some work done in between.
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