Day 42 - A ferris wheel, schnitzel and Mozart (Vienna)

I went to bed relatively early last night at 10pm.

I had scattered sleep last night and woke up a couple of times but finally got out of bed at 7:30am.

I had a plane to catch!

Well, the plane didn’t leave until 12:10pm, but you know how air travel goes.

Gotta get to the airport, gotta get there early and then wait, and wait, and wait…

Getting to the airport

I was overprepared for this one.

There is a bus (1A) that runs every two hours to the airport for 3€ ($5) and I had taken note of the schedule and marked the two stops in the city center on my offline map.

I even had the Kosovo Bus App downloaded on my phone that actually showed the bus running between the stops.

I was ready.

I was prepared.

The bus stop closest to me was still a 20 minute walk but, no worries, I left in plenty of time.

I left the hostel at 8:40 to catch the bus at 9:10.

I got to the bus stop and I noticed something.

The street it was on had no traffic on it.

I stood there for a few minutes and no cars went by.

Oh crap, is this street closed?

Do I have to go to another bus stop?

Time is running out!

I went to look up the next stop on my Kosovo Bus App only to find that, yet again, my Kosovo data plan had let me down and I had no internet.

Arrrrrrgh.

Eventually 9:10 came and went and I knew that I had missed the bus.

I walked over to where the taxis were resigned to my fate.

The taxi driver said the buses weren’t running here any more and the street has been closed to traffic for quite awhile now.

Of course there were no notices displayed anywhere. Hell, even the app still showed those bus stops as operational.

Oh well, just another travel adventure, I guess.

The taxi to the airport cost me 15€ ($22) and got me there in plenty of time to check in so it wasn’t the end of the world.

At the airport

I got to the airport around 9:45, a full 2 1/2 hours before my flight.

Checkin and customs was quick as there really wasn’t any lines for either.

My customs officer glanced at my passport and then, in perfect English, asked me what happened to my hair.

I couldn’t stop laughing.

That was the funniest interaction with customs I’ve ever had.

After we both got done laughing, we wished each other a good day and I was through to the departure area.

It was 10am.

Two hours to kill…

On to Vienna

My journey home started with a flight to Vienna today. Well, technically it’s a flight from Prishtina to Zurich with a 20 hour layover in Vienna.

No problem with the layover though as Vienna ain’t a bad place to spend an evening and I had plans.

The flight was only 90 minutes and I was actually through customs and out of the airport in less than a half hour.

That has to be a new record for me.

To get into the city via metro there are two options.

There’s the CAT Express Train which goes non-stop into the city in 16 minutes and costs 14.90€ ($22) and then there’s the local regional S Bahn train which is a bit slower at 23 minutes but is priced at a fraction of the cost at 4.40€.

Of course I went for the cheap option.

Problem was I bought the ticket to Wien HBF instead of Wien Midi which is the station I needed to get to.

Long story short, I wasted 4.40€ on that ticket and because I panicked and didn’t know what train to take and wanted to get outta there cause I kind of had a time crunch this afternoon, I ended up on the CAT train anyway.

Oh well, what a few more euros wasted, right?

I was on the train at 2pm and at my hostel and all checked in just 45 minutes later.

The hostel is one of those meat market places as I call them. Literally a hotel with a bunch of dorm rooms.

This hostel has 5 floors and 123 rooms.

Imagine that. 123 rooms! How many guests is that?

I’ve come a long way from those hostels in the Balkans where there were less than a dozen people staying there.

Anyway, like I said, I was in a time crunch today.

I had plans and I had no time to waste with my very limited time here in Vienna.

The oldest ferris wheel in the world

I was in and out of the hostel in a quick 20 minutes.

It was 3pm and I had a dinner reservation for 5pm so that only gave me a couple of hours to see some of the city.

I had Prater Park and its’ giant ferris wheel marked on my map so that’s where I was headed.

The ferris wheel, built in 1897, is actually the oldest one in the world so it wasn’t just any old ferris wheel.

What I didn’t realize is that the Prater Park is actually an amusement park and the ferris wheel is just the jewel in the crown of a whole bunch of rides.

So many rides!

Maybe another day, I guess. Today, I only had time for the ferris wheel.

The ride was 13.50€ ($22) with the ludacris option of posing for a photo with a fake ferris wheel background for another 12€ ($18).

I mean, who does that in this day and age?

Just take a selfie on the actual damn ride!

Of course, just as I think that in my head, the couple in front of me ponied up the money and smiled for the camera.

The cars on the ferris wheel hold up to 15 people and they’re the old timey kind of cars. The ride itself took about 15 minutes to do the full 360 and it was cool to see the city from high above.

Definitely worth the money and now I can say I’ve been on the oldest ferris wheel in the world.

At 4pm I was done the ride and out of the park.

Dinner wasn’t for another hour but I figured I’d just take the metro to that part of town and look around a bit.

I was actually hoping to poke my head into a drug store or pharmacy to see if I could find some more Breathe Right strips for my nose as I had gone through my entire supply the night before.

Trust me, when you have a deviated septum like I have (look it up), those strips are a God send when you’re trying to sleep.

The first couple stores I was led to a shelf with bandaids. Close, but no cigar.

Then the third store, the lady immediately took me to them and I couldn’t have been happier.

Mission accomplished! I would sleep well tonight!

Schnitzel for one

I had made a dinner reservation at Beim Czaak a full 2 months ago before I even embarked on this trip.

They’ve been around since 1926 but, more importantly to me, they offered gluten free breading on their schnitzels if you so desired.

And I so desired!

I ended up getting the Hausschnitzel which was a baked schnitzel filled with ham, cheese, onions, and mushrooms for 18.90€ ($28).

Couple that with a glass of Riesling and I was doing it right tonight.

For dessert I had their only gluten free option, the vanilla ice cream dumplings filled with apricot.

Oh.

My.

God.

Sooooo good!

Dinner came out to about $60 but, hey, I’m in Vienna now and not the Balkans.

The next couple of days here and in Zurich and Lichtenstein are gonna cost me a few bucks.

Whatever, I deserve it, right?

Speaking of spending a few bucks – I had a concert to go to!

A change into pants and I was on my out into the city.

A walk in the park

I had a good hour before I needed to show up for the concert I was going to so I just slowly walked towards the concert hall.

I knew there was Stadtpark, a large park in the middle of the city, on the way there so the plan was to just kind of stroll around the park for awhile.

People were out in droves enjoying the park. There were a ton of benches everywhere, people having picnics and people walking their babies or their dog babies.

In total I spent about 40 minutes just wandering around the park until I decided to finally get going to the concert hall.