Vienna

Day 2 - Saturday, September 17, 2005

We arrive only an hour late, not bad since we were about 2 hours late leaving Canada. Unfortunately I felt like I'd just been scraped off the bottom of somebody else's shoe so was looking forward to doing nothing other than getting to the hotel and lying down.

However, that didn't stop me from noticing that all signs in the airport in Vienna were in English. All the ads and directions on where to go. You had to look really hard to find something in German. I knew they'd speak English here, but it was a little weird.

Anyway, after picking up our luggage, we are picked out of the crowd by our tour director because we are using our Trafalgar carry-on bags. You'd be surprised how many people travel with tour bags, saw a large number of Trafalgar and Insight bags along the whole trip. Admittedly, the bags were very good, but I digress. Our tour director's name is Noel and he finds us our driver to bring us to the hotel, the Hilton Vienna Danube. A bit far out of the main city but right on the river. Very nice. Comfy beds too. I crawl in for a nap.

Next thing I know I have to get dressed and go downstairs to meet with the rest of the group. We get an introduction of things that are ahead of us and what our optional excursions will be. Then we all stand up and introduce ourselves and some of the group go off on their first excursion, to a restaurant. We decide to stay at the hotel and have their Bavarian buffet, watching the barges and tour boats on the Danube through the window.

The weather is rainy and quite chilly.

So, the second day of our trip and the most "foreign" thing I'd done was travel at incredible speeds along the autobahn in a Mercedes minibus :)