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notmattHave a few minutes to post my thoughts an Austria. This will be a disturbing tale full of spelling errors and plot holes and in no very clear order.
Flew Austrian airlines from Dulles to Vienna. Long flight, but sucks less than any US carrier I've been on lately. They fed us even! Twice! Not great, but at least they tried. And I got to see Enchanted and National Treasure: Book of Secrets
Sickeningly easy to get from the airport to the hotel. My conference registration came with a pas for the train system, but I had to buy one to last me until that started. Apparently it's on the honor system, since nobody checks at the station and there are no turnstiles or anything. Anywhere in the city takes you less than half an hour. Even if you have to transfer lines. The trains run every 3 minutes during the week and every 5 minutes during the weekend, so there's not much waiting around. And the trains and stations are clean. Puts the best mass transit system in the US to shame, that's for sure.
Checked into the hotel (which was under construction) and given a keycard to my room in the new wing. You don't slot this into the lock, you simply hold it against a sensor on the wall. Once to get into the building, once to get into the alcove containing your room, and once to get into your room. At least it's secure. Then I about lost it. Lights wouldn't turn on. There was a window, but not in the bathroom, which I needed at that point (but there was sufficent ambient light for my purpose). After a detailed inspection I found a slot near the door. You have to insert your card there to power up the room. Any card will work, but that's the obvious one.
Then my voltage adapter wouldn't work. It was obviously designed by someone who'd never been to Austria. The prongs looked right, but the plugs are all recessed into the wall, and my adapter wouldn't fit into it. There was an electronics shop in the mall next to the hotel, but they only had stuff converting the other way. And at 6 pm, everything shuts down. Having failed in my electronics quest I was purchasing a pastry unaware that it was right before everything closed. I paid, stepped out, turned around and they'd shut down! I asked the hotel staff where I could buy a plug adapter and they said I couldn't because the shops aren't open on Sunday. But they had a box of old discarded adapters and I found one in there. It seems to work, but flakes out periodically. I think my laptop slightly exceeds the power rating for the adapter. There's no internet at the hotel (apart from an ancient terminal at the lobby), but there's open access at the conference center.
Sunday, after I got some SLEEP (I can't sleep on planes), I went into the center of town, Stefansplatz just to wander around. I came out of the station right in front of the St. Stefan Cathedral just as the bells were going off. I didn't go inside, because there was probably a Mass in progress that I wouldn't want to interrupt. There were also a lot of horse-drawn carriages around. So I started walking and ended up taking the audio tour (in English) of the Imperial Silver Collection, Sisi Museum, and the Imperial Apartments. Those took several hours, after which point I needed food. So I wandered back towards Stefansplatz until I found something that looked Austrian and went in.
I've been trying to conduct all my encounters in German. I don't speak the language, but I have a phrasebook. I can make myself understood, but then the other person will reply in German and I often can't parse it well enough. So I end up having to ask if they speak English. Everyone I've talked to speaks at least some English (certainly better than my German), but I hate to assume that. I don't want to be the Obnoxious American Tourist (OAT). Like the one I met at my hotel who I learned doesn't even _try_ to speak the language, and instead speaks English loudly while dropping the articles. That annoys me. If you visit a country, at least TRY to speak the local language. Nobody expects you to be fluent, but it's not _that hard_ to learn a few phrases!
Well, gotta go. More later. I have plenty of pictures; they'll be posted ... whenever. I still haven't got around to posting the Disney World pics from December. You'll just have to deal with it!
Flew Austrian airlines from Dulles to Vienna. Long flight, but sucks less than any US carrier I've been on lately. They fed us even! Twice! Not great, but at least they tried. And I got to see Enchanted and National Treasure: Book of Secrets
Sickeningly easy to get from the airport to the hotel. My conference registration came with a pas for the train system, but I had to buy one to last me until that started. Apparently it's on the honor system, since nobody checks at the station and there are no turnstiles or anything. Anywhere in the city takes you less than half an hour. Even if you have to transfer lines. The trains run every 3 minutes during the week and every 5 minutes during the weekend, so there's not much waiting around. And the trains and stations are clean. Puts the best mass transit system in the US to shame, that's for sure.
Checked into the hotel (which was under construction) and given a keycard to my room in the new wing. You don't slot this into the lock, you simply hold it against a sensor on the wall. Once to get into the building, once to get into the alcove containing your room, and once to get into your room. At least it's secure. Then I about lost it. Lights wouldn't turn on. There was a window, but not in the bathroom, which I needed at that point (but there was sufficent ambient light for my purpose). After a detailed inspection I found a slot near the door. You have to insert your card there to power up the room. Any card will work, but that's the obvious one.
Then my voltage adapter wouldn't work. It was obviously designed by someone who'd never been to Austria. The prongs looked right, but the plugs are all recessed into the wall, and my adapter wouldn't fit into it. There was an electronics shop in the mall next to the hotel, but they only had stuff converting the other way. And at 6 pm, everything shuts down. Having failed in my electronics quest I was purchasing a pastry unaware that it was right before everything closed. I paid, stepped out, turned around and they'd shut down! I asked the hotel staff where I could buy a plug adapter and they said I couldn't because the shops aren't open on Sunday. But they had a box of old discarded adapters and I found one in there. It seems to work, but flakes out periodically. I think my laptop slightly exceeds the power rating for the adapter. There's no internet at the hotel (apart from an ancient terminal at the lobby), but there's open access at the conference center.
Sunday, after I got some SLEEP (I can't sleep on planes), I went into the center of town, Stefansplatz just to wander around. I came out of the station right in front of the St. Stefan Cathedral just as the bells were going off. I didn't go inside, because there was probably a Mass in progress that I wouldn't want to interrupt. There were also a lot of horse-drawn carriages around. So I started walking and ended up taking the audio tour (in English) of the Imperial Silver Collection, Sisi Museum, and the Imperial Apartments. Those took several hours, after which point I needed food. So I wandered back towards Stefansplatz until I found something that looked Austrian and went in.
I've been trying to conduct all my encounters in German. I don't speak the language, but I have a phrasebook. I can make myself understood, but then the other person will reply in German and I often can't parse it well enough. So I end up having to ask if they speak English. Everyone I've talked to speaks at least some English (certainly better than my German), but I hate to assume that. I don't want to be the Obnoxious American Tourist (OAT). Like the one I met at my hotel who I learned doesn't even _try_ to speak the language, and instead speaks English loudly while dropping the articles. That annoys me. If you visit a country, at least TRY to speak the local language. Nobody expects you to be fluent, but it's not _that hard_ to learn a few phrases!
Well, gotta go. More later. I have plenty of pictures; they'll be posted ... whenever. I still haven't got around to posting the Disney World pics from December. You'll just have to deal with it!
