We finally found our hostel after lugging our bags in direct sunlight for probably two hours. This is due to the hostel making up their own address. They list it as 9-11. The city is in blocks 1-16 and each of those blocks has suites 1-20. It is logical to think that it was on block nine, suite 11. Oh no, it's on block 16. There is no 9 or 11 at all in the address. After finding our hostel we walked around downtown and didn't really see as many of the sites as we would have liked but we were only in Vienna one night and the next day was reserved for the countryside.
We paid 9 euros for a train and the lady at the train station specifically asked why we were going to whatever town Steve had suggested. She pointed out that there was literally nothing there. Taking Steve's word over hers, we said we would like to see for ourselves. Haha! What a joke. We got off the train, there was a tumbleweed blowing across the tracks. When she said nothing, she meant nothing. As in no mountains, embankments, stairs, terrace farms, foothills, a butte, a steppe, or raised ground of any kind. The town wasn't even quaint. At this point we are furious at Steve because it's 12pm and it's too late to restructure our day. Jan suggested that he saw some hills at the stop before this so we got back on the train and went back a stop. And we arrived in Parma, Idaho. Well not exactly, but this town had the same kind of a feel. Stacy was really disappointed but we tried to make the best of a bad situation.
Talk about country. We had to walk about a mile on this path beside the road (which had no lines). There were deer leaping through the farm fields. There were rabbits the size of a medium dog munching on the crops. We saw maybe one car but at least four tractors in the time that it took us to get to the first neighborhood. Well by first, I mean the only neighborhood. The sun was beating down on us. We decided to climb the hills which were basically foothills (Stacy referred to as little humps). We walked through the neighborhood and came to a path leading up a "hump." Needless to say we weren't calling it a hump as we were gasping for breath and sweating profusely while trying to walk up it. The path led through a vineyard, a patch of trees, and to a field with a huge power windmill in it. I loved it. This was my second favorite place of the entire trip. It reminded me a lot of Honey and Grandpa's old farm where you might be on someone else's property, but they didn't care. You could just run around exploring and there was never and end to the things you could discover. It's great freedom and you can never get bored. I don't think the other two were as ecstatic about open land as I was. We went back to the train station. Well station is an overstatement, went back to the bench beside the tracts. We waited an hour in the beating sun. For a train that is supposed to come every 20 minutes, there was no train. A ton of cargo trains had passed, but no speed train. So then we get this brilliant idea. Stacy says that she saw on the Girls Next Door (a show that follows Hugh Hefner's girlfriends) that you could put coins on the track and when the train runs over them, they become flattened. Well since there was no sign that said stay off tracks, we decided to try this. As the saying goes "idle hands..." We made Jan go down and put three coins on the track as Stacy and I kept watch for trains. Soon a train came and indeed the coins were gone and there was a little mark on the railing of the track. Stacy and Jan went down to look for the coins but never found them. So then we decide to put more down, as if this idea wasn't bad enough the first time. This time we put 10 dispersed between tracks going each direction. After two trains we looked for them. Jan found only one coin. Indeed it was flat! Instead of paying 51 cents to use those machines at the zoo to flatten pennies, we decided to do our own. Wouldn't suggest it again, but it was fun. Our train didn't end up coming for almost two hours.
We went back to downtown Vienna and walked around the City Center. We picked up our luggage from the hostel which was nice enough to store it and went to the train center. We had to change into our PJs in the bathroom in preparation for the night train. We had to pay 50 cents for the bathroom. This wasn't the first time either. I probably spent about $25 using bathrooms. You have to pay for all of them, even in some restaurants. Anywhere from a small donation to 1 euro.
The train ride was an adventure and a half. We ended up being in a box with 2 older Austrian ladies on a day-trip to Venice. They were likely a mom/daughter. The box had 3 chairs facing three chairs all inside a little plastic box. We were so cramped, suddenly 12 hours was looking like forever. The experience was just like in the Harry Potter movies. You are in the box, the snack cart drives by. It was surreal. Two things happened that still have Jan, Stacy, and I laughing right now.
At about midnight, we had reclined four of the chairs and made a bed for Stacy, Jan, and I. Now these ladies had taken quite a liking to Jan even though we didn't speak the same language. We were getting comfortable and readjusting. None of us had blankets since that wasn't the priority in packing. I had my jacket over my legs and I was freezing. The younger Austrian, while explaining herself in German, leans over all of us as I'm furthest from her and snatches my jacket off my legs without even looking at me, proceeds to wad it up, leans over, lifts up Jan's head, and puts it under. Then waves her arms as if she is so proud of herself for providing him with a pillow. I'm still in shock that she just snatched my jacket without asking to make Jan more comfortable. We didn't want to be rude so Jan just kept my jacket for a few hours, and I just froze for a few hours. We were all looking at each other and trying to keep from laughing. As we tried to sleep, Stacy, Jan, or I would just have random bursts of laughter that we couldn't control.
Oh no, the story gets better. This is sort of a you-had-to-be-there moment but I'll try to explain. We stopped somewhere and a ton of people got off. Stacy, Jan, and I were hoping to move to another box so we went and sat in the empty one next to ours until more people got on. We look outside and see that the younger lady (who still has to be at least 50 and is on the hefty side) was out there snapping pictures of the older lady. The old lady is just waving and smiling like look! I'm on a train. And then we hear "Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep! Snap" the doors closing. And the train starts moving backwards in a hurry. The younger lady outside is just clicking away until she sees the train start moving and then she throws her camera and starts chasing after the train.
The look of shock and horror on her face was priceless. We are sitting in the box watching this unfold thinking, no way is this happening. The older lady is freaking out and she's so feeble that we try to figure it out. You can't call the captain, you can't push a button and open the doors, you can't warn someone. But then, the train switches tracks and goes forward again. The lady is bawling on the platform. Then we go back again. Jan goes forward in the train to try and figure out if he can open a door up there. The train goes forward to a different platform. Jan is able to pry open the hydraulic door just enough the lady can squeeze in. Her hair is crazy, her cheeks are wet with tears, and her face is flushed and she kissed us all on the cheeks saying "danke" (thankyou).
Here we are trying to reinact the photo, her realization that the train was leaving, and chasing it down...And what do you know, people got on the train, and we had to move back into the box with them. We slept maybe two hours that night. We got to Venice in the morning still laughing about these women.
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