Vienna

Matt dropped us off at the airport in Zagreb yesterday and dropped off our car, which was a fiasco. Are there any honest car rentals? They said we scratched the car and obviously that cost $2000, because we have that coverage through our credit card. And the €10/day insurance that we had to add was just… for what? It’s all so predictable and stupid and now we have to get with our credit card to be reimbursed. And I don’t want to give those crooks anything. I hope we can fight it. 

So anyway, that started the day off rocky, but we’ve got a common enemy so we’re all fine with each other. 🤣

We had a 35 minute flight to Vienna that was blessedly smooth and easy. There were at least 30 empty seats but we couldn’t move around because of the weight balance, which seems silly, but I guess is true?

Love a quick and smooth flight. 

Matt takes lots of flight pictures and shares them with me. 🤣

Then we got to Vienna and the real fun started. We hadn’t bought out transit passes and we were a little unclear because the airport was out of the main zone, so we went to an agent. He looked at the address of our Airbnb and did a double take and was like where is that? And then he told us it’s a federal holiday and busses aren’t running out there and we’ll have to take a cab. What now???

You know how things get thrown at you and you’re not thinking the most clearly and you’re frustrated and hungry and not sure what to do? That was us. We checked other options (our Airbnb shuttle, airport shuttle, etc) and tried uber but it wasn’t connecting. And that is how we paid €50 for a taxi. 😩😩😩 so now we’re out $2050 so far for the day. I’m sure we’ll get the $2000 figured out (🙏🏻 🙏🏻 🙏🏻) but we were still having some sticker shock. 

The plan was to drop our things and then tour Vienna, but now we needed to figure out rides. And we were very close to the airport, but very out in the country, with no sidewalks and too far to walk anywhere. 

We went through all our options - go back to the airport and rent a car, uber to a bus and hope for the best, not tour Vienna, or uber all the way to the city (uber finally started working, obvi). 

I’ve been thinking a lot about a family member who had to check their child into an inpatient facility and a friend with a new cancer diagnosis and really focusing on gratitude, and in that moment of frustration, I suggested we pray and make a decision. Adi offered the most lovely prayer and it calmed and centered all of us and we decided to uber to a train stop and go from there. 

So we get to the train station and it’s under construction, no trains at all. 🙃 Our driver offered to drive us all the way to Vienna but we’d learned our lesson that haste makes waste and we decided to find food before we made any other decisions. We walked to a good restaurant Adi found and… closed. I was like, I should have been documenting all our L’s!

We laughed it off and everyone picked a positive (hey, we landed safely!) and found another restaurant tha was delicious and we found a bus and we bought our passes online and save €.50 each and Delaney (the child) was free because of the holiday. 

So we get on the bus and he asks for our passes and he’s like, this is for Vienna. And I was like yeah. And he was like Vienna? And I was like yeah. And he was like, we’re outside of the core zone. And I was like? And he was like that’s €4 each. 😩 So Matt tried to pay with our credit card and it was cash only. 😩 And I was like ok cool, let’s get off girls, and he was like, nah it’s fine. 🤗

It felt like it had been a long day and it was only 3:00. 

We took a metro and walked and made it to the cutest Easter market ever. Everything’s looking up!

Frankie’s fighting for her life back there. 

It’s in the square for Schönbrunn Plaza which was on my list so perfect. 

They took their Christmas market stalls and made them Easter in a truly smart marketing move. 

We walked all around and I didn’t dare buy anything because of all our L’s for the day and I really wanted to, so that was the tiniest bummer. 

We’d managed to consolidate and empty a suitcase for just in case souvies, and that empty suitcase stayed empty. No one even wanted a treat and I wanted that too but abstained. 

I feel like I could make these and I feel like I want to also. 

We walked the grounds and it’s very beautiful. 

We made our way to a lookout and asked a nice Austrian lady to take our picture and she even clarified that we wanted the palace in our picture. I always say Asking people to take your picture is like a box of chocolates.

Love this girl! I hope she had the best time and is happy with her trip choices. Even with all of our many lessons learned, I am. 

The palace we didn’t see behind us. 

Frankie was hot to go. You know that end of a trip feeling when you’re just kinda antsy to get home. 

Sisterly love and hijinx. Right before Adi dropped her. 

We voted against a tram tour (free with our pass!) and headed home after our walk. 

Not before Matt left his last little piece of Maryland though. 

It took us over an hour to get home, but we acted like we knew what we were doing and were never questioned about our passes again. We waited forever for a few busses, but only spent €20 to get all the way back to our apartment after we got as close as we could with the busses, so that was sort of good. And we didn’t find any open treat places so no treats for us. 😞 

We were up and at em at 5:45 to catch the bus from our apartment at 6:15, because after that there wasn’t another until 10:30. Success!

It was an easy bus then train ride to the airport and we hit the corto at the airport for grocery store brekkie for €20 and got to our gate 3+ hours early. Our first easy travel through Vienna. 🙃 And chandeliers in the airport? Amazing. 

This was by far our rockiest overnight layover. I think there will just always be unexpected circumstances and you just gotta roll with it as you travel. At one point we saw a Marriott and then paid travel groups on busses and we questioned why people would use those, but we learned some lessons from that hubris. There is safety in a tour group and American hotels we know. We’re always learning.