Vienna through Ali's cold, wet eyes

I meant to do this post (the last of the Ali trilogy) justice, but I have too many other things to tell you, and not nearly enough free time. (Actually, once I got started I couldn't stop and fleshed it out pretty well)

As I said in the last post, we arrived in Bratislava with the intension of touring the city before heading back to Vienna. However, the bus to Vienna was coming soon, it was cheaper than we were expecting, and we were tried and hungry. So, plans of seeing Bratislava were quickly replaced with plans to relax in Vienna and cook supper. By the time we got to Vienna we were starving and our supper plans turned into McDonald's while waiting for the tram. Good start.

On Thursday and Friday I had to work, so Ali toured the city by herself with her little Vienna City Guide. Thursday night when I got back from work we made pasta (well, Ali made it while I "helped"). One funny thing is that Ali attempted to make an alfredo sauce, which is exactly what Pat tried to make when he visited in August, and both of the sauces inexplicably ended up separating into a curdy-oily sauce. It must be the milk here, maybe the preparation and pasteurization methods are different. Anyone have any idea?

After our delicious pasta (it doesn't matter what it looks like, just what it tastes like), we went out to one of my favourite breweries with Cora and her sister's (now-ex) boyfriend. The reason I picked this place was because they let you buy beer by the Maß (1L), like Oktoberfest, which is something different and kinda cool.
After work on Friday we went to the Staatsoper to see "Nabucco" an opera by Verdi. It was a modern adaptation and was pretty good, although we hadn't looked up the plot online first and were pretty confused for most of it. "Is she a princess or a slave? or both?" After the opera we went across the street to Hotel Sacher which is the nicest hotel in the city, and is world famous for the chocolate cake invented there, the Sachertorte.
After our cake and coffee we wandered down Kärtner Straße, past all the expensive stores, like Swarovski.
On Saturday it looked nice out, so I took Ali to the Zentralfriedhof, the huge cemetery in Vienna where all the composers are buried. However, while we were there, walking through the cemetery, the storm-of-the-century started within a matter of minutes. We were drenched, but only on one side of our bodies as the rain was horizontal.
We darted to the tram and headed into the city center where the rain would hopefully be finished. It mostly was, so we wandered around, stopping into some of the big landmarks which I have mentioned many times before. In the mid-afternoon we met up with Ali's friend Nicole who goes to McGill with Ali and had just recently arrived in Vienna on a semester abroad. We sat at an Aida, a Viennese coffee and dessert café and talked over some pastries and coffee. As we were leaving, Nicole invited us to her house-warming party that night.

For supper we met up with Szilvia and Gabi, co-workers of mine, for running sushi. It was a lot of fun, a first for Ali and I, and I ate far too much. There was just too much there to pick from and it was all-you-can-eat so my normal gluttony/frugality balance, which keeps me from being 300lbs, was upset.
After stuffing ourselves with sushi we walked to Nicole's place, which was just a few minutes around the corner. At first the party looked a little lame, a bunch of people sitting around a small table playing their own version of "Hedbanz" in German. Ali and I joined in, I was James Bond, she was Falco. At least we didn't lose, guessing our identities well before some others. Ali tried to play in German and did very well, copying questions asked by others or making half-English half-German sentences.

From Nicole's apartment we went out to a club, actually a first for me, at least in Vienna.
On Sunday we had planned to take the train to Salzburg, but bad weather and non-existent funds led to us just relaxing all day.

Ali's flight back to Montreal was to leave early Monday morning, so early that we thought the first airport-train wouldn't give her enough time. So, we planned for her to catch the last train Sunday night a little after 11pm. However, due to the windstorm (which blew trees onto the tracks, and toppled a crane onto Südbahnhof, Vienna's main train station) the train never came...

I freaked out a bit, thinking that Ali would miss her flight, and phoned my friend Stefan to try and figure out what I should do. He phoned the airport-taxi company, but they were booked solid. Finally, we decided that the only realistic option would be to go back to my place, and order a cab which could take Ali to the main airport-train station (which would hopefully still be open and running) in time for the first airport-train. She would have to rush, but would get there. It ended up working out, and Ali avoided an uncomfortable night in the airport, so it wasn't all that bad.

Overall Ali's visit was a lot of fun; expensive, but worth it. It's too bad that more of my friends couldn't visit, but the $1000 trans-Atlantic plane ticket is a harsh reality. The next post will cover the entire month of March (which felt 8 days long), and should be done soon, as I'm leaving on Friday for a spur-of-the-moment trip, which I will tell you all about when I get back.