This year our Thanksgiving vacation was in Vienna, Austria. Even though Vienna was our main destination, the trip included day trips to Budapest, Hungary and Bratislava, Slovakia, as well as an overnight stay in Frankfurt, Germany. That meant four new countries for me to add to my list of countries I’ve visited. We, meaning my sister, brother, his wife and I, had five nights in Vienna plus one night on the trip home. I opted to fly with my sister on United, since she has status on that airline and was able to get us upgraded to business class on the overseas leg, which was from San Francisco to Frankfurt, Germany.
So on Saturday morning my alarm went off at 4:30 AM. I had packed the day before so it didn’t take long to get ready and head to the airport. I gave myself plenty of time which was good because there was a long wait for the shuttle at the airport parking. For some reason they didn’t have enough shuttles, and I waited 15 minutes for one to show up, as did 20 other unhappy people.
At the terminal, I met up with my sister and we checked-in with no issues. In fact, we were able to get our bags checked all the way to Vienna, even thought we booked two round trips – one from San Diego to Frankfurt on United and one from Frankfurt to Vienna on Lufthansa. After clearing security, where I did not have to be scanned by a machine or person, we proceeded to the United red carpet club, another benefit of traveling with someone who has elite status on an airline. Food and drinks are free here.
The flight to San Francisco was quick and once at the airport we once again entered the red carpet club. We had plenty of time before our flight to relax and check Facebook and Twitter posts. The trip to Frankfurt was on a 747, which was the first time I’ve been on at 747. Our seats were on the upper level, and it was the best seat I have ever had. You basically get your own “pod”, with a seat that can recline totally flat. Unfortunately, when my seat was reclined I couldn’t stretch my legs, but it was still way better than any couch seat. Plus, you get to watch any movie any time you want.
The flight to Frankfurt was 10 hours, one of the longest flights I’ve taken. After they served dinner, I attempted to sleep. I may have made a mistake by eating the mocha ice cream desert, as the caffeine may have kept me awake. However, I think I got about four hours of sleep on this flight, with had quite a bit of turbulence over the Atlantic. About 90 minutes before landing they served a breakfast.
After eating we landed in Frankfurt early. I was surprised to see that Germany didn’t require us to fill out any forms. We went through customs and got our passport stamped. Then when I went through security, my belt set off the metal detector and I got a rather through pat-down, but not as intrusive as the ones in the US. After checking in for the next leg we once again hung out in the red carpet club. It was now Sunday afternoon local time, so Saturday was basically a lost day.
The flight to Vienna left on time, and we arrived slightly ahead of schedule. We picked up our bags and proceeded to get a taxi to our hotel. I must say that the Vienna airport is a very nice airport. They make it easy to get a taxi by going to a taxi booth inside the airport and paying in advance. The taxi got us to your hotel in about 30 minutes. Our hotel was centrally located in Vienna, near at least one major tourist site and very close to the subway, or the U-Bahn (Untergrundbahn). After checking in to the hotel, which was around 2:30 in the afternoon, we quickly got ready to explore the local area. Because Vienna is so far north, the sun set before 4PM, so we had limited daylight.
After traveling for so long, getting very little sleep, we were very tired. I think because of this we made a few mistakes, or wrong turns, which actually turned out to be very beneficial and humorous. We asked the man at the front desk where go for a good beer. He gave us a map of the local area and marked where a local bar was. Once outside the hotel, where it was pretty cold, but I was prepared with gloves and a scarf, which I had not worn since I bought it in 1989. In fact, later I notice that the scarf was made in Western Germany! Looking at the map, we wanted to find the location of our bus pickup for the hop-on-hop-off bus tour we had booked for the next day. It was in front of the Schonbrunn Palace. However, we read the map wrong and ended up walking the wrong direction. You might think that this was bad, but it turned out to be quite beneficial. As we walked down the busy street, we passed a beer garden that served food, a café that served pastries and a subway station. Once at the subway station we realized where we where and that we went the wrong direction. But this is how you learn your way around a new city. We ended up eating at the café every morning because it had the best pastries.
As we headed back towards the hotel we once again made a wrong turn but then found the nearest subway station to the hotel. After looking at the map and wandering around some more we finally located the palace we were looking for. By chance we walked down a pedestrian walkway and up ahead we saw a brightly lit Christmas tree. So we headed towards the tree and suddenly found ourselves in a very crowded and festive Christmas market. There were lots of people walking around the many craft booths and a band playing German Christmas music. At this point our vacation officially began, as we knew we were about to have fun. After walking around looking at the interesting and unique items for sale in the market, we saw lots of people drinking out of coffee mugs. Soon we found the source of the mugs and my sister recognized a drink on the menu called Glühwein, a wine served hot with some added spices. So we ordered one each and after drinking half the glass I began to feel its affect. When you are very tired and hungry, alcohol hit you quick. Suddenly the atmosphere of the market became even more festive. So why stop at one? A second Glühwein made the night ever more enjoyable. A bit of advice, drink the wine before it gets cold. It is much better when it is hot.
We realized that we both needed food. So we walked back to the beer garden. When we walked inside, we realized that there was not beer garden because it was closed, probably because it was winter. Disappointed, we continued to walk past an old lady who mumbled something to us and then we walked by a room filled with people having a banquet of some kind. We turned towards the hotel just to discover a restaurant that had the same menu as we saw outside the entrance to the garden. So the beer garden was open, just not the outside part. The restaurant was Wienerwald and here we had our first mean and beer in Austria. The beer was Ottakringer Dunkles, a dark beer, and the food was a very large portion of Cordon Blue with fries. The beer and food were a perfect ending to the evening. We had a nice waitress who apparently understood English but spook very little. In fact, this was the case through out the trip. Everyone spoke English to us, once they realized we were Americans. There was never a problem communicating with anyone in the four countries we visited.
After eating we returned to the hotel. We had already arranged to meet our brother and his wife at 8 AM this next morning. They were not scheduled to get to the hotel until after 11 PM. So back in my room laid down in my bad and quickly fell asleep – at least for a few hours. Vienna is nine hours ahead of Pacific Coast time, so I woke up many times during the night and was lucky to get four or five hours of sleep. But hay, I was on vacation, and as they say, there is plenty of time to sleep once you die.
