You would think I would know travel by now

The next day, my plan was to make my way over to Bratislava again, maybe do some sightseeing, then take the plane to Barcelona. It was going to be great to see the sun. My reading of the bus timetables was totally wrong, and I made another mistake by going all the way to the other side of the city to take the train at the beginning of the line at the Südbahnhof , rather than just continuing on the U3 a little further to Simmering. Had I made that decision, I would have gone to Barcelona.

In the end I missed the plane. On an adventurous trip in a taxi through the streets of Bratislava, I had a bit of a whirlwind tour. “How long does it take to get to the airport?” The taxi man's eyes lit up and he asked if I needed to go fast. I strapped my seatbelt on tightly. I still missed the plane.

What to do now, what to do. I went to the ticket desk and asked how much a ticket on the next plane would be, it was going to Liverpool in England. 350 Euros was the response. They had free wifi at the airport so I browsed that for a while, letting various social media websites know just how much of an idiot I was, whilst searching for a solution. I wasn't so sure. Maybe I could stay in a hostel and fly out the next night. I decided I needed to get moving westward, I had 48 hours to be back in London. I didn't want to miss my plane back to Australia.

Back to Vienna I went. On the trip I wondered where I should go. I thought if I could get a train that was going somewhere overnight, somewhere far away, that would be a good idea. Frankfurt and Munich were sounding good, maybe I could even get through to France. There was a train to Zurich, that sounded like a good option, it cost a whole lot more than my plane that I'd missed though.

I had a couple of hours wait, so I went to an internet cafe for a while. I struck lucky and got talking to my friend Flavio and arranged to meet for a morning coffee in Zurich the next day. He was going to come over from Luzern, about an hour away. I got a kebab for dinner, which is also what I had for lunch. They are so cheap there, it's hard not to eat them.

On the train trip I met a guy who had a much worse day than me. He was working on cruise ships, but had planned to fly to Belgrade, I'm not so sure why. He was turned back by the Serbian authorities, then the Austrians told him his visa only got him one way travel through Austria. He talked them into letting him into the country, he was heading for Linz where his ship was docked. By the time we got to Linz, around midnight the ship had sailed on for Passau. He was also having trouble with the immigration officials on the train. They spent a good while looking at my passport, which was in good order, but they spent at least an hour looking at his. I looked at of the train to see if they would be taking him away, but it seemed like he was walking away, passport in hand.

The rest of the way passed uneventfully. My compartment was shared with some German speaking ladies. They would say things to me that I vaguely understood, I nodded with a stupid grin on my face, then tried to drift off to sleep. I looked out the window at a particular stop, and thought “hey, we're in Liechtenstein. I'm sure many of the Austrians on board wouldn't have noticed that, but they may not have walked across the country from one side to the other.

Österreich/Bratislava

I was flying from Stansted to Bratislava in Slovakia. I wasn't in the best condition, but I got myself onto the plane. I sat down and went almost immediately to sleep. I woke up as we started our descent after a good snooze. I had slept all the way to Stansted on the bus, then almost all the way on the plane. That meant I was running on about 3 hours sleep. I wasn't in great condition. Outside it was freezing cold and raining. So this is Spring.

I thought about doing a bit of sightseeing in Bratislava, but decided that could wait til I came back from Vienna, on my way to Barcelona. Anyhow, the next train to Vienna was coming in ten minutes, why bother wandering around in the rain. So I went to Vienna and wandered in the rain there. I had no map, not really a lot of idea where I was. I spent a week in Vienna last year, I thought I had a pretty good lay of the land, but as a matter of fact, I thought wrong.

I stopped at a schnitzel haus, I think this was an excellent idea. I wasn't really sure about my plan of attack, I had to wait until my friend Alex finished work, then I would go to his house. I had a long wait ahead. I thought about just checking into a hostel and sleeping there for the first night, but I didn't see any in my wanderings. I was also hoping to find somewhere where I could get free Wifi. I ended up going to Starbucks because you can get half an hour free if you buy a drink. A lot of people had the same idea, it was very warm in there. For a city famed for its cafe culture, I didn't see a lot of cafes in my wanderings.

I wandered down to the Museums Quartier, decided to go to look at a museum. Unfortunately in Vienna, the museums cost money. I went to the Leopold Museum, which is a collection mainly of Austrian modern art. The first painting was a self portrait of a male nude. A pretty full on beginning. I should have known better than to go to a modern art gallery, but once again, it was warm in there. My time in the gallery mainly consisted of sitting down in the chairs at the centre of each gallery with vague looks at some painting.

Once out of there, I decided to just take a train, somewhere. I got on and decided to go to Ottakring, the end of Linien U3. Why not. I got out of the station, walked around the block, and went back to the station. I wasn't sure where to go next, I think I fell asleep and rode the line either way a couple of times.

I got out in the city and wandered around a while, then it was time to call Alex. He was home from a big lunch for his mum's birthday. That evening we went to meet some of the other Footbag players at Verena's house. All the Austrian players were so nice to me at Worlds last year, even more when I visited them in Vienna, it was great to visit them again.