Monthly Archives: May 2014

Day number 2 in Austria was full of surprises. Good ones, don’t worry!

We had been playing around with the idea of taking the train fro Vienna to Salzburg and getting our Sound of Music on for the day. But when we looked at tickets, it seemed kind of expensive. So we asked at the front desk of our hotel about finding a car rental company in the area. Their response was fantastic: the hotel had a car that hotel guests could take out for the day free of charge. Gas included. The only requirement was that we have the car back by 10pm! And the car was SUPER cute (even if we were a driving advertisement for the hotel – which was actually fine because it was an awesome hotel; we were happy to promote it!)

We opted out of breakfast in Vienna in favor of getting on the road – we wanted to get going and figured we could find something en route. Surprise #2 was the rest stop along the autobahn. Let’s just say Austria’s rest stop food is far, far, far superior to the Shoneys, Golden Corrals, and Cracker Barrels of U.S. highways. We walked into the restaurant to find a massive spread, with everything from a strudel station to a meat carving station to freshly squeezed orange juice. AMAZING. Plus there were indoor palm trees.

A few hours later we made it to Salzburg – it was rainy and cold, but still very lovely.

Cold and hungry after the long drive, we consulted our Lonely Planet guidebook and tracked down an adorable old pub (which is probably not called a pub in German, but that’s the idea). Goulash and pork and dumplings was on the menu and we ran with it, along with mugs of Salzburg-brewed beer. Hit the spot on a rainy day!

Fueled up, we took to the streets of Salzburg. In yet another surprise, we found a set-up for a marathon that was to happen the next day! Thinking about a run through beautiful Salzburg definitely provided food for thought for next year!

As our time was running short, we decided to do a self-guided tour of a couple of Sound of Music sites. Up first, Nonnberg Abbey. (Where God closed a door.)

After a walk around and a number of photo ops, we hopped back in our cute little car and miraculously found the mansion used as the exterior of the Von Trapp house (where He opened a window).

By that point, we had had about enough of the cold and rain, so it was back in the car and back to Vienna, where we opted for Chinese food for dinner. After food and some bonding time at the hotel, we headed to bed. Sadly that was about it for our quick trip – the next morning we met up for breakfast, then one by one we took ourselves to the airport and returned to our respective homes.

FABULOUS time, though! We all agreed that we have pretty cool jobs that allow us to do stuff like this on a whim. We’re lucky folks, that’s for sure!

Vienna is GORGEOUS. And it’s super efficient to get around. Given the lack of ability to get around easily in Algiers, it’s always SO nice to escape to a country with clean, straightforward, easy-to-navigate public transportation. And sidewalks. I never take sidewalks for granted anymore.

I arrived at about 7:30 in the evening, met my friend who flew in from Albania at the airport, and we made our way to our hotel. Which was AMAZING. Weird, but amazing. It had a sort of a youth hostel feel to it, but it was much nicer and was an actual hotel (bonus: it had a rooftop bar). Also, as we found out later, they had a free car for guests to use. The hotel had kind of a weird clown theme, bizarre, but it gave it character. In case you’re ever in the region, it’s called the 25hours Hotel.

Our hotel room decor

After checking in, we headed out to find food immediately (sausages, of course), and ended up taking a lovely evening stroll through a park and past Vienna’s Rathaus – beautifully lit up at night.

The next morning, while our friend from Riyadh was still in training and our friend from Sanaa was sleeping, my friend from Tirana and I went in search of coffee. We were hoping for Starbucks (I know, I know, why go to Starbucks when you’re in Europe – but when you live in countries without Starbucks, it’s OK.) However, we didn’t find one. Instead we found a funky hippie neighborhood that was way too cool for the 2 of us, but we found an amazing chocolate shop and then, finally, coffee! After a bit more of a walk around, it was back to the hotel for lunch and beer.

Then we got back out to enjoy the beautiful weather and wide open spaces plus the freedom to explore them, which none of us enjoy in the countries where we live. Have I mentioned how GORGEOUS Vienna is?

We ended up walking quite a ways, finding various parks, stopping for gelato, and finally ending up at Schloss Belvedere, one of the Habsburg palaces. We opted just to explore the gardens as opposed to going inside due to the beautiful day – and despite an enormous group of tourists waiting in line to take photos of themselves fondling the breasts of the nude statues, it was idyllic.

We also learned a little something about WWII history – outside the palace complex there was a massive monument with a bunch of Cyrillic writing on it. Evidently the Soviets kicked the Nazis out of Vienna. Who knew?

Actually probably lots of people knew. Just not us. Now we do, though!

We still had plenty of daylight left, so it was back to the hotel to try out the rooftop bar – it did not disappoint.

Happy hour was followed by some more walking about – this time hitting up the city center, passing by the Hofburg Palace (the Habsburg’s winter residence – they had a lot of residences. There was also a Starbucks across the street, so belated success on that search), and St. Stephen’s Cathedral, en route to amazing dinner at this little hole in the wall. We had asparagus soup and then basically a plate of meat and potatoes with mustard and shredded horseradish on the side. No shame. We were on vacation!

So that was day one of Austria – next up; Austrian ROAD TRIP.

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, one of the highlights of living in Algeria is how gosh darn easy it is to get to Western Europe. After a number of not unstressful weeks working on a whole host of things (plus that S visit thrown in there too), international labor day provided me with a long weekend at just the right time!

May 1st is a holiday in more than 80 countries, including Algeria, so yay! I decided to celebrate workers by going to Vienna, meeting friends from my foreign service orientation class (A-100), eating pork and drinking beer. I think workers everywhere would approve.

I decided to put on my big girl pants and drive myself to the airport. Traffic and parking can be intimidating, to say the least, but I had been assured that airport parking was easy and plentiful, and I figured the morning of a national holiday would be a good time to brave the highway. Correct on both counts. Easy peasy drive to the airport, easy peasy parking, easy peasy check-in, at the gate 2.5 hours before my flight left. Which was OK, because my bid list for my next tour JUST came out, so I had plenty to do! More on that in a separate post. Also more on how it actually turned out to be a really bad idea to drive to the airport.

Finally boarding time came, which meant more security checks (the Algiers airport loves its security). It was made more entertaining this time when I arrived at the final checkpoint before boarding the plane. In the gangway, security guys do one last manual search through your bags (even though they’ve already been scanned twice by this point). My guy was rifling through all my stuff when he landed on some feminine hygiene products one cannot generally find in Algeria. Use your powers of deduction on that one. After a good amount of scrutiny, he apparently determined that they were not harmful to the plane or its passengers, and he let me proceed.

Flight number one from Algiers to Frankfurt went well except for the FIVE screaming children in the row in front of me (noise canceling headphones are the best invention ever). Flight number two from Frankfurt to Algiers had significantly fewer screaming children. Both flights (Lufthansa) were on time. Let’s hear it for German punctuality!

So I made it. Stay tuned for more details on our Austrian getaway.