Full Moon over Vienna
While riding the bus back from Salzburg to the boat, I heard several people coughing. And not just an irritated throat cough. These coughs came from deep in the chest and sounded wet.
And I didn’t have a mask. We started wearing masks after that, but it was too late. Beth was the first to get sick, and then I came down with a congested chest and a stopped-up nose last night. One of the other passengers started calling it the “Cruise Crud.” Beth is much sicker than I am, but she’s not down and out yet. I can’t sleep with these sinuses, so I’m up writing this blog post at 03:30.
Vienna has a population of almost two million people, and it feels like it. Walking downtown, it’s difficult to avoid bumping into people, and most of them aren’t watching where they’re going. And younger people will often not even attempt to avoid you, assuming that you’ll avoid them. Even though it’s the off-season, the city feels like it’s choked with tourists, Beth and I among them. I can’t even imagine what it’s like in the warm months. The city feels like San Francisco in that respect.
However it is a clean city with low crime and unemployment rates. It has enchanting architecture, is the cradle of classical music, and there are coffeehouses everywhere.
After visiting the Lipizzaner Stallions at the Spanish Riding School, we went back to the boat for dinner, then got back on the bus to hear a Mozart and Strauss symphony. We never saw it, though, as there was some major equipment failure. So we went back to the boat again and played Scrabble.
We have one more day in Vienna (mostly spent in finding a good drug store) then we’re off to Budapest.
Memoirs of an Earthling 