When Travel Plans Go Wrong

Our original plan for once we arrived in Vienna was to get a ticket for an overnight train to Venice then explore the city for a few hours. Now I'm definately not one who likes things to go all pear-shaped so you can guess the world of lost I was in once the overnight train was all booked out and the proverbial pear was thrown in the blender.

There were other trains the next morning but the thought of wasting a sunny day travelling instead of experiencing a new city wasn't one I was prepared to entertain. The non-English speaking information officer at the train station then sent us on a wild goose chase for a bus to Venice that didn't even exist. This was made even longer looking for a second bus station that the guy at the main bus station told us to go to, but it too also didn't exist. It must have been the stress of that day as well as almost missing the bus in the morning that erupted a huge fight between Kat and I. Finally we decided to stay in Vienna for the night and catch the next night train. Of course, that was booked out as well but by that stage the available 6am train the next morning sounded like a first class private jet.

I rung the Busabout hostel and we managed to get a night there so I guess we were lucky that wasn't another drama we needed to work out. We spent the night wandering the city alone for some much needed space after all the commotion. I didn't get to see much apart from some really old, gothic-style church before it started to rain. Oh yeah, and some weird guy from Boston who started talking to me in the street and asked if I wanted to go to a bar! Tell me again how horror tales begin?

Once the rain looked like it was settling in I grabbed some fantastic cherry gelato and headed to the hostel bar. I spent the night talking with the couple from Prague that had almost missed the bus as well, Matt and Sally, and playing pool with a few guys from Canada. I guessed I needed to get at least a few hours sleep, you hear all these scary stories about the train so I wouldn't want to sleep on that, and I headed to bed around 1am.

Not an overly exciting stay in Vienna but I do have plans to do the more eastern European countries at some stage, including Austria. Let's hope these come to fruition in any other shape than a pear.