osterreich

We're back.

The travel ordeal is over.
We managed to nudge ourselves onto Swiss flights yesterday to Zurich.

Once landing there, we had to push past people, begging to jump the queue, while getting accosted by officials about my Schengen visa (WTF, can't you see I fucking have one and I've got a plane to catch?!), then just making it onto another plane for London.

Once in London, our train from the airport broke down. Obviously.

But we're home, and madly rushing around to get our Christmas shopping done. What the dickens am I going to get my Brit?

In between working until tomorrow afternoon? I've never worked Christmas Eve before.

I've decided to bore blogland with a diary about our nippy little visit to eastern Europe.

And herewith:

16 December 2010

Jesus fuck, what kind of swine-avio strain of flu is this? My teeth are aching, my limbs feel like they will snap off. I've pumped 4000 miligrams of Vitamin C this morning already, and the Brit has it now too.

Great. We'll be bed-ridden in Austria.

17 December 2010

Dude. There was a dude from Take That on our flight. Or so the Brit says. It wasn't Robbie Williams, so God knows, it's probably the random drummer guy. I actually quite like Take That, but won't make a grand announcement of it.

We are here, staying in a hotel named after Johann Strauss. If there's one thing Austrians pride themselves on, it's their composers. Beethoven, Mozart, Strauss, they all lived in Vienna. We met two Brits on the plane, while coughing and spluttering all over them in the cab to the hotel.

The Brit told me not to tell them we had flu. I thought it was fairly obvious given we look like The Plague Walking. They said at the end, "Er...you should've mentioned this before we shared a cab with you."

Are they blind? My nose is falling off.

There is snow everywhere. Not a light dusting that is currently bringing Britain to a standstill, I'm talking gargantuan tons of the white stuff everywhere. I have to mulch my way across streets here.

We found a pub. "Zwei gluhweins, bitte schon!" The dude just laughed at us and poured a beer. Look, I'm a tourist, I'm sick and I came here for a fucking gluhwein. Why are you laughing?

You can smoke inside here. Suddenly European smoke laws don't apply beyond the Danube River. People are just banging away at their fags like there's no tomorrow.

18 December 2010

We dragged our weak, dilapidated bodies around town today. No doubt, this place is exquisite. The architecture is grand, gothic and baroque, all at the same time. It's also farking freezing, so we stopped at every 'punsch' stand possible.

Punsch is Christmas punch. You get 8000 varieties and you breathe alcoholic fumes afterwards. Splendid.

Then the Brit found Father Christmas' birth place. Seriously, I now know where he comes from. We found Christmas.

It was a 'weinachtmarkt' or Christmas market of steroidal proportions. Set in front of this emperor's palace, with reindeer and ponies running amuck, lights, tables of gingerbread, strings of homemade decorations, and cups of punsch runneth over.

It was a Christmas market like I've never seen. My toes were freezing off, but we were in heaven. We also smashed waffles and other shit in our faces.

Amazing.

Tomorrow Slovakia. I am so excited to find the Communists.