We began our journey
to at 4:15 Saturday morning! I’m sure Katherine loved seeing my perky face that
early as we shuffled to make sure we had our passports/wallets/visa letter to
get back into the UK…you
know, all of those little details necessary to travel across borders! We booked it to our travel mates’
apartment, where Kelsey had knocked on Aileen’s door and got no response. So
the three of us stared at each other in early-morning-foggy-brained panic, and knocked
obnoxiously on her window until Aileen came to the door, probably (and
rightfully) annoyed. (But Aileen is way too nice to say anything.)
We finally got on
our train to London. A hop, skip, jump, and a Ryanair plane ride later, we were
in Bratislava. For those of you who don’t know—which included me about a week
ago— Bratislava is in Slovakia.
Security to get into
the London airport was super duper friendly. I got a nice pat down. A very thorough inspection. Seriously, I am A) really
ticklish, and B) generally uncomfortable with people touching every inch of me.
But the woman was not sympathetic to my awkward cringes. It probably took twice
as long because she didn’t think I was funny.
When we finally
landed, they shuffled us off of the plane and onto a bus. THAT whole process
probably took 15 minutes. Then they drove the bus about 20 feet, a 30-second drive, and had us all get
off.
Rolling our eyes at
the inefficiency of this system, we then stood through a line at customs:
“Other Passports” while we watched the people in the “EU Passport” line zip by
us at least four times faster. No matter! We would soon have a very romantic
“Slovakia” stamp in our passports! (Even though we were going to Austria)
If we weren’t
already exhausted enough from the stress of finals the day before, we also decided
to stay up really late to
watch the Olympic opening ceremonies! Wholly intelligent? probably not so
much. WE WERE EXHAUSTED. We
were drunk silly on fatigue. So everything was really, really funny.
We got a car at the
Bratislava airport. A small, beautiful, peach of a car:
A Panda.
Yes. The model of
the car was a “Panda.” We fondly named him “Narwhal the Panda.” Probably
couldn’t explain that one if I tried. We spent way too long in the rental car
parking lot figuring out how to put Narwhal into reverse. And then finally, we
were on the ROAD TO VIENNA!
On the way we
laughed and laughed and laughed and screamed (when Kat pulled a perfectly
maneuvered u-turn before the border to Hungary) but then laughed some more.
Every phrase out of
Kelsey’s mouth is a clever fountain of understated hilarity. We made funny
faces of mutual understanding of not understanding as German flung around us.
I learned at least
one word of Germain, cause I saw it ALL THE TIME: “EINBAHN” which means ONE WAY STREET. It was a legitimate
miracle we found our hotel at all. Not only were there a million one-way
streets, and a ton of construction obstructing every turn, but the apartment we
were staying in, looked nothing like a hotel. Here is a picture of the route we
took to get to our beds:
Then finally! Our ADORABLE apartment:
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The first night,
when we retired to our apartment for the evening, a COLOSSAL grasshopper was
just chillin on a towel. It was the size of my hand. I kid you not. It was
quite friendly, so we wanted to give it a name. I suggested David. but that's too mild. We went with Goliath.
MOMENTS THROUGH
VIENNA:
Really cool modern church. "Wotruba Church"
some WONDERFUL
Austrian mission friends of Katherine’s. (more on that on a later post)
Vienna film
festival, where we ate delicious food and listened to a film about Elvis
playing in the background.
We took a tour of
THE Viennese Opera House. Which was gorgeous. And amazing. And I want to see an
Opera. (They’re not the epitome of efficiency, considering they only have one
profitable evening a year. With a few small tweaks, they could probably rely
less on the state. But I’m not in charge of their business plan. And apparently
nothing in Europe is the epitome of efficiency.)
I got a student
ticket for an off-season orchestra performance. 4 opera numbers, 4 ballet, and
several beautiful orchestra
pieces in a beautiful Viennese ballroom. No mics, just incredible acoustics.
Stromburg Palace. Where we waved like the royalty we are.
Albertina Museum
Yes. this is a REAL Albrecht Durer!--->
Pictures with
Mozart. I was starstruck.
Creepy drunk person
offering to steal our camera. It was really kind of him.
Bursting out into
sound of music. Pretty frequently.
Visited Bethoven and
Schubert’s graves. And listened to them decomposing! Pun intended. Bah ha ha!
I learned the best
way to take your mind off needing to go to the restroom is to think about
deserts. Really dry deserts. Thanks, Kelsey.
Really really delicious food. All the time.
standing next to Narwhal the Panda! isn't he CUTE??
General frolicking and merrymaking among wonderful friends in a cultural capital of the world!
After our small
shopping trip (mostly for Manner chocolate wafers) we RAN to the car park
(parking lot) where our Panda car had lived for the day. We tapped our feet and
grinded our teeth, and all but pushed the gentlemen in front of us out of the
way so we wouldn’t be charged an extra 2 euros for the next hour. We barely
made it… like 12.5 ish seconds later, and we would have had to shell out 2 more
euros!
On the road back to
Bratislava, we went all the way into the airport, before turning around,
getting back on the freeway, filling up with gas, where a language barrier (who
speaks Slovak?) charged us 20 extra euros for our tank.
We finally returned
to the airport, said a heartfelt goodbye to Narwhal the Panda, and speed-walked
to the gate. Apparently, Satan sent his stupidest minions to run the Ryanair
flight back to London. It ended up being 40 minutes delayed, we missed two trains
getting through customs, and when we finally got on a train to Cambridge, we
missed the connecting train by ONE MINUTE.
It was 1:00 am,
Vienna time.
After eating nothing
but crap all weekend (delicious,
and in large quantities, but still crap), running from flight to customs, customs to train, and train to next train, we were huffing and puffing and
thirsty, and out of water. An angel—sent to us in the form of a kind old
man—snuck us small bottles of water stocked for the vending machine.
We kept ourselves
busy by sharing covert information, thinking how much worse off we could
have been, and musing about
epithets.
After
8 hours straight of traveling, we arrived back in Cambridge and in our beds
around 1:30 Cambridge time. Exhausted.
It
was very nice to feel like Cambridge is home.
Some extra fun moments:
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| We played cultured Eye-SPY |
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