the HILLLS are alive, with the Sound of MUUUUSIIIIIC!

There was a time when I’d think of Austria I’d think of Schnitzels, I’d think of apfelstrudel, I’d think of singing ‘the hills are alive with the sound of muuuuuuuuuuusic’, I’d think of Vienna cream coffee.

Now when I think of Austria I still think of coffee and strudels, schnitzels and orphans. But now I also think of Hangrr, I think of ice spikes and ferris wheels, photo bombs and opera.

We had timed our Vienna stop to coincide with a few friends, it was perfect for us to add a few people to our crew for a few days and really lovely for me to meet a new bunch of people, the Canon Crew as we grew to be known as (5 or more Canon camera owners – represent!!). It was also exciting for Phil to get some new friends. Kiwi, Lambert and Lambchops – together they had a pretty sweet all expenses paid friend fest – Lucky Bastards.

On the first night we met up we went to a cute Austrian (NOT Australian) restaurant that the rest of the Canon Crew had been to and loved the night before. Because we were 8 we had to wait 1½hrs for a table, only to arrive and see that they had 3 separate tables for us, not a good start. The waiter was really pissed that we reset the tables and it led to what would have been a horrible dining experience had it not been for the great company! The food was good, although had we believed our impatient dick of a waiter, we all ate deer, because that’s all he told us was on the menu. Even though 3 of the items were Pork, 3 were Deer and 3 were Venison. TWAT. He then hovered over each of us waiting to take our plates away the second he could, even when we weren’t finished. When we asked if we could please see the dessert menu he flatly told us NO and that if we really wanted to we could go ask the chef ourselves. F*&$ing WHAT?!!!! Let me just say that if we had been in an English speaking restaurant that measly self righteous prick would have been ripped to shreds and left begging for his job back by the time I was done with him and his boss.

The next day, after another night of blog inducing behaviour at the hostel, we met up again to have breakfast at Café Sperl – a beautiful typical Austrian cafe filled with Strudel, coffee, delish omelettes, old school chandeliers and funky decor. On this particular day it was a breezy -13, the Canon team were pretty cool, in both senses of the world. On that cool morning I noticed a few things;

• There is an Asian restaurant every 100m

• Austria is the 2^nd most liveable city in the world
• That Vienna is also spelt Wiener.. hehehe

• The constant feeling that I was in Germany

• Spending time with the Kiwis was making me NZ sick and it made me want to go home and watch a few episodes of Flight of the Conchords – Fou do Fa Fa!!

• There are huge metal spikes every 5 metres to crack the cruel winter ice

• The Austrians LOVE rock climbing

• When someone gets Hangrrr in a group of 8 act fast

• Vienna is home to the world’s oldest Ferris wheel.

• Vienna is an incredibly beautiful city at night time.

While in Vienna I started to have RESET problems my brain was so muddled up from my bilingual Christmas, speaking Bahasa Malay is Malaysia and trying out my German I was totally loosing it. I was structuring sentences completely wrong, conjugating horribly and using the odd French word in an English sentence. These moments of confusion quickly became RESET moments as I would have loved to have been able to reset my brain! I’m still having reset moments over 4 weeks later!!!

The Canon Crew decided to check out a show at the State Opera. Seats are normally a minimum 30-50 Euro and hard to organise 8 seats together. We decided to go for the 3 euro option I had heard about. Standing room only on the very top balcony, totally obstructed view. But hey, it was only 3 euro, so who cares.
I splurged and got myself some fancy binoculars but still wasn’t a huge fan as I found it hard to listen to the opera let alone follow the plot line when it is in a totally foreign language – fortunately someone pointed out about ½ way through that each person had a subtitle screen in front of them! All the same I fell asleep at one point but is was an awesome experience all the same!!

That night after saying our goodbyes Amy and I stumbled on a fantastic bar on our way home and decided to head in for a cheeky shot of Apple Schnapps which quickly turned into a wee sampling of their extremely fine cocktail menu.. Perfect ending to a perfect few days!