ein Prosit, ein Prosit, der Gemütlichkeit!!!

Okay, so as the title of this installment of the blog says, it signals my arrival at my favourite festival in the world!

So after leaving Krakow, saying goodbye to all my girlfriends and such, I was on my way to find a bus to Munchen....which was a very long ordeal. I arrived at the bus station, and the bus that was supposed to be taking me there was nowhere to be found, so I was starting to get a bit worried. It wasn't even showing up on the schedule, so I was confused as to what was going on. Eventually, it did arrive and I was on it but had to make a switch at some point, which I wasn't entirely sure of. We arrived at some city later in the evening, and a bunch of people got off, and I was unsure if it was where I was supposed to get off or not, since the driver only spoke Polish....fortunately there were some younger women sitting behind me, and they were able to help me out. I got off that bus and found my next bus, which I wasn't entirely sure if I was meant to stay on it for the whole way to Munich, or if I was meant to change. The bus ticket I had wasn't really very easy to follow, so it was an interesting time. At one point, the second bus actually forgot someone at a petro station, so we had to make a 15 minute detour to go back and pick them up, much to the chagrin of some of the older passengers who started yelling at the driver....fun times!

So anyways, after 15 hours of bus riding, I arrived in Munich, and quickly found my hostel. The last time I had visited the Oktoberfest, I hadn't made any accommodation arrangements, and just used a locker at the train station to store my bags and found people who would host me every night, but this time around, I actually found a decent priced hostel called "The Tent" which was about 15 minutes from the festival grounds, so I went there. I had tried contacting Wes but couldn't get a hold of him, so I just rocked up, and was about to head out with some people I had met in my dorm, when I spotted Wes and his goofy "onesie" outfit....so we grabbed some lunch and chilled out, and had a few beers, then made our way down towards the festival grounds. I was going to buy Lederhosen this day, but Wes convinced me to wear our "onesies" to the festival grounds, and they were a hit. Many German girls and other girls were having a good laugh at our outfits and enjoying seeing us being goofy. We ended up going to several tents throughout the afternoon, and met some pretty cool people. At one point, we met a guy who worked for 10 years with the Colorado Avalanche as their strength coach, so I was quite interested in speaking about hockey with him, including working with Joe Sakic (one of the greatest Canadian hockey players of all time). Unfortunately, the guy and his friend were older and married, so they were more interested in hearing our stories about hooking up with Europeans and what not on our trip instead ha ha...So after chilling with those guys for a beer, we went to find this revolving bar (the only ride we went on at the fair grounds ha ha) and hung out there for quite awhile. It revolves really slowly, but it was good fun, as the people sitting at the tables on the outside quite enjoyed the sight of us two goofballs in our Onesies passing by every 15 minutes or so.

After hanging at the rotating bar, we then went tent hopping a bit more, receiving loads of laughs over our costumes. At one point, we stopped at the Paulaner Tent, and found a spot with a group of alright German guys, but there was a few groups of girls that couldn't help admiring our outfits. Eventually, they started talking to us a bit more and invited us over to sit at their table and chat some more.....Well they had a group of German guys with them, and I'm not entirely sure if they were their bfs or if they were just jealous friends, as eventually they said we had to leave their table. Now, we were just talking with these girls, there wasn't any real flirting or anything going on, so it was kind of frustrating. I asked if we could sit at the next table where there was a space, and those Germans also said no....at this point, I was thinking back to 2007 where Germans were so friendly, and now all of a sudden they were kind of being dicks. We didn't want to leave the table that we were at, but I could tell things were going to get out of hand with the two German guys who were being dicks, so we just decided to take the high road and leave.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdeZUyASE7o


So after this near encounter, we get outside, and then things get real interesting. There was this group of cute Spanish girls who started laughing at our outfits and asking us for photos , so I had my arm around two of them for a photo, and was starting to chat with them. They were with some German guy, and after chatting with them a bit, he told me to get away from his girls and leave....so I told him that I wasn't looking for trouble, I was just chatting with them. At this point he told me to "fuck off and leave" and then pushed me....so I came back towards him and said look man, there's no problem here, we're just chatting....so he then pushes me again and says to leave....now I'm not a fighter so I was just thinking, you know what, whatever, he's not worth it....but Wes saw him pushing me, and decided enough was enough, so he went and popped the guy in the nose, and apparently broke it....the guy was laying on the ground, and the tough guy suddenly disappeared. Well of course, there happened to be Police officers nearby, and they came running over, and then said they were taking Wes into custody for assault....and upon seeing this, I told them that the German guy threatened me first, and that Wes was defending me, so they told me to come with them to leave a statement.

So off we go to the polizei station....and we get in there, and of course it's a bit of mayhem....Wes had told me to not worry about him, but if I was with a mate, and being thrown in jail in a foreign country, I would probably hope someone worried about me....so anyways, we get passed off to the one police officer who speaks great English, and then we have to start giving our sides of the story....the Spanish girls tried to claim that Wes started kicking the guy in the face while he was down, but that was definitely the case. When the police officer asked them for the information of their "friend" they didn't even know his name or anything....but of course I knew most of the details about Wes....so anyways, the police officer tells me to come back in an hour or so, and then he'll know if Wes will be getting out or not.....so I meet some Aussie guys who are also in the police station, as some German chick threw 3 beer steins at their friend's face, and ended up sending him to the hospital, so they were waiting around to give their statements. So after lingering around for an hour or so, the police officer tells me that the district attorney thinks it will be anywhere from 500 to 800 euro to bail Wes out of jail, and he asks me if I can come up with that amount, so I head off to the cash machine and get the necessary funds!

So after paying bail (and getting to see Wes's hilarious mug shot), he says to come back in an hour and see where they're at, so I head off with the Aussie guys to the Lowenbrau tent to chill out while they are waiting for their one mate to finish up his statement.....so after an hour there, I head back to the jail, and the woman at the front door won't let me in, and says to come back in 15 minutes, so I head off for 15 minutes and come back, and then she again says come back in 1 hour....so at this point, I'm starting to get fairly frustrated, as I don't know what the hell is going on...finally they let me in to talk to the English speaking guy again, and he says yeah in 15 minutes or so, Wes should be out...so I linger around for awhile longer, and finally they let him out. So we chat about what life in German prison was like for a bit, and decide to leave the grounds since the tents are all closed by this point in the night....we end up heading off to some shisha bar in the city centre, but it ends up being closed, so we just grab some McDees and head back to the hostel for the night....quite an adventurous night indeed!

So after getting a few hours of sleep, and waking up, I grab a coffee and some breakfast and share a laugh about the evening with Wes, and we try and figure out how the hell the bail thing works. Fortunately, one of the staff members of the hostel offered to call the police station and try and figure out the situation. Apparently, in Germany, if you injure someone and it affects their work, you can be on the hook for their wages, so if the guy was a model, and now that is nose is broken and he can't work, then Wes would be on the hook for his wages too...shitty! So the hostel guy calls down to the station, and gets an email from one of the police officers to which Wes has to email him a description of what happened, and bank account details in case the German guy doesn't press charges, and the bail could be returned.

So after chilling out in the hostel for awhile, I decided I needed to make some new friends since Wes was leaving that night for Italy. I ended up chatting up this super cute American girl from New York, and meeting a few Aussie gals, who were all pretty chill. We all agreed to head out to the tents together, so we had a few beers and the girls got ready in their Dirndls (so hot)...so we arrived at the central station, and the one girl wanted to buy a new Dirndl, and I decided that I would buy some Lederhosen since I could actually afford them this time around! So once I was able to price them out and find some decent ones, I grabbed some cash, but then I lost the girls....I was able to track them down and get one of their numbers to try and meet up after I had bought my Lederhosen, so I wandered back to the stand. I picked out some ones that I liked, and they told me to go try them on in the change room, but there was a big lineup for it, and I noticed several guys next to the change room stripping down in the streets and trying theirs on, so I figured may as well join them! They ended up being a big group of Norwegians, and were pretty hilarious guys. I decided to hang out with them, while waiting to hear back from the girls, so I went to their hotel and had some beers and left my clothing there.

We ended up hanging out there for awhile, and then heading down to the festival grounds, which were extremely close to their place, which worked out perfectly! We found our way to the Hoffbrau tent, and tried to find a place inside, but there wasn't much available as you can see from this video, so I found us a spot outside in the bier gartens, which were just as good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdeZUyASE7o

We had several beers there, and had some great laughs and shared some awesome stories. Eventually, the Norwegians were so drunk that they started disappearing, and somehow I was left speaking with only one of them and some random German girls...keep in mind that I probably was already about 5 or 6 litres of beer in....so anyways, what I do recall is that some girl or one of the Norwegians stole my hat and ran off with it, and I was talking to some other German girl.....who was with her sister. So I started walking with her and her sister and maybe one of the Norwegian guys (not too sure), and then the girl started kissing me even though she had a b/f....oops! So anyways, after some making out and slowly walking towards the exit, the Norwegian guy or whatever other guy was with her sister was gone, and it was just me and the two sisters...I then spotted some guy with a Canadian hockey hat and complimented him on that, and then of course he sensed an opportunity since he was alone and started walking with me and the girls....so anyways, we get outside the grounds, and are trying to figure out some bar to go to, when this giant party bus pulls up and has all these flashing lights and loud music....I'm instantly enamored, and decide screw it, I'm going on the party bus...I kind of figured it wouldn't go anywhere with the one girl since she had a b/f, but oh well...so I hopped on the bus, and the sisters decided they were too drunk to come on, and the Canadian dude didn't want to leave the girls like I did, so he stayed behind.

So I was off on the party bus to some unknown club, which ended up being really really FAR away from where I was staying ha ha. It was an alright nightclub, met some cool people there, and made out with a few more German girls he he, but no luck otherwise. I ended up staying there until like 5 or 6 am, and then realized I had no clue where I was so I took an extremely long taxi ride to the central station, where I knew I would be able to find my way back ha ha....so I think I got back to the hostel at like 8 am or something ridiculous like that, and proceeded to crash for a few hours.

Arriving at the Oktoberfest Grounds

Chilling with the Norwegians!

The new "Oktoberfest Handshake" 

On the party bus, by myself!

The next day I awoke and found the girls, inquired how their night went, and shared some stories about the evening. We all agreed to go out again for the afternoon, as I told them about the sweet Norwegian guys, and so they were keen to meet up with them. We had a few beers, and the girls got ready for the day. And off we went to the beer tents again, but first stopping for the usual bratwurst mmmmm.

So off we went back to the Hoffbrau Haus, which is basically the Aussie tent, so of course the girls wanted to go there. The Norwegians happened to be there as well, so we found them, and they were already several beers into their day, and were drunk and singing messes....absolutely wild I tell you. At one point, one of the lads was so drunk and slamming his beer that he was splashing people all over the tables around us....so the one beer wench came and scolded him, and told him it was his first and final warning. At another point, one of the lads was so drunk that he fell asleep at the table, so I told him to go have a nap in the park outside the gardens to sober up a bit, so we lost a few soldiers. Of course, seeing their drunken state, the girls weren't so keen on keeping company with the lads, except for one of the Aussies and the cute American girl. So we drank many a beer, had some great food, and shared stories and laughter again for several hours, until the Norwegians started to dwindle. One of the lads took an interest to the one Aussie girl, so they were going to go on some rides and told me to come with them, but I could sense I would be a third wheel so I stuck around and hung out with the American girl and a few random Americans and some super hot Spanish girls.

I had some fun analyzing the American guys and the Spanish girls with the American girl, describing what kind of psychology I was witnessing amongst the group, and apparently she was entertained by my assessments. Eventually I asked her to go out to check out some of the rides, so we went to the fair grounds, played some shooting games, where she somehow tied me (although my targets were moving and hers weren't) ha ha....and then we went for a ride on the bumper cars and she couldn't drive the thing at all, so I took full advantage and picked on her the whole time ha ha, then off to the ferris wheel...it seemed like a kind of romantic moment so I made my move, and all was good ha ha....we ended up heading back to the hostel, and just hanging out for a bit, and then spending the night together, which was good fun, although nothing more than just a little fooling around ha ha.

Enjoying a Wurst on the way to the Festival :)

Jess being a goofball and getting beer foam all over herself :)

Beautiful American Fraulein ;)

So after a nice sleep together, it was time to make up my mind for where to go for the next day since my hostel was booked full and I had to check out. The girl was heading off to Italy, so I decided to look into a train pass and head off to Italy with her if there was room on the train. We wandered down to the train station, and waited forever to try and find a locker to leave our bags in...eventually we found one, and wandered down to the festival grounds to hang out there for awhile, but it was so jam packed that we only wandered around for a few hours and then just decided to head off to the train station again. After buying a train pass, I tried to find a train out of Munich for the night, but being a Saturday, everything was booked solid, so no luck for me....since I didn't have anywhere to sleep that night, I figured I would just crash at the train station. I hung out with Jess for the rest of the evening until her night train at 9 pm, then wandered over towards the Norwegians hotel to see if I could track them down and get my clothing from their room before I left. I couldn't track them down, so I ended up hanging out at a pub near their hotel for awhile, and meeting a rather raucous group of 25 English lads who were there for a stag, and were slapping each other and random patrons with this giant black dildo....yes interesting times indeed. At one point they pissed off a few Dutch guys there, and I thought there might end up being a brawl, but things cooled down. Of course, the stag was kissing some American girl...really behaving well ha ha, oh well.

So anyways, after hanging out at the pub for awhile, I decided to try my luck finding the Norwegian guys again, so I walked past their hotel around 11 pm, and luckily I found one of the guys outside, drunk as hell! So I chatted with him, and asked if he knew were Mikael or Paul were, as my stuff was in their room, so he took me upstairs to one of the other guys rooms for a beer....and I stumbled into the worst cock block experience I have ever witnessed! Ha ha, so I get into the room, and find 3 girls, with 3 of the Norwegians. The one guy is laying on the bed kissing the one girl, and I started speaking to the other girls and find out they are French and Spanish. The one Norwegian guy who is staying in the room with the other guy starts yelling that he has a wife back home (which he doesn't) and how he is going to call her at the moment and get her to come down to the hotel....well his yelling and shouting ended up scaring off the other two girls, but their friend was willing to stay in the room with the other guy.....so his friend continues to try cock blocking him, and calls some number and starts speaking on the phone, telling the "wife" to come down to the hotel and check in on the other guy, meanwhile the guy hooking up with the girl is getting fairly agitated and telling him to leave the room....it was pretty intense! So we all finally leave, and the roommate goes to the front, and tells them that he's in the room next to to the one we were just in, and that he heard some really loud noises and thinks there's a prostitute in there, and that security should go check on the room! Ha ha ha, wow...epic.....so then they wanted to go to some strip club, but then the other Norwegians showed up, and said to just come hang out in their room and have a beer.....so I ended up doing that instead of going with the real drunks ones! So when they asked where I was staying, I told them the train station, so being the kind guys that they were, they let me stay in their hotel room for the night....win for Rye Rye!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe4OP7M0L18

So the sleep wasn't the greatest, cause the A/C was fairly cold, but at least it was under a roof and I didn't have to worry about being robbed or anything in the train station, good times. So after sleeping and grabbing my clothing, we all went out to breakfast, and had a good laugh over the previous night's events. I guess the one guy showed back up in the room and started screaming in Norwegian really loudly, and scared the girl so much that she got her clothing back on and ran out the door ha ha ha...when her friends left, they mentioned that they were catching the last train of the night to get where they had to go, so I was wondering if the girl who stayed was stranded somewhere, scared for her life! So after some funny banter at breakfast, it was time to move on towards Vienna, for some necessary R&R, after a heavy few weeks of parties and drinks.

The Cube hanging with my Oktoberfest friend

Fortunately, I had a friend that I had met in South Africa the previous summer who was living in Vienna, and she said I could come stay with her for a few days, so it was good to have a free place to crash. I arrived in the late evening, and easily found her place, and was very impressed with how beautiful of a flat she was living in. Working for the United Nations has it's perks!! Since it was a Sunday, another bonus was that she had ESPN America, so I was able to watch some NFL for the rest of the evening, and truly relax!

Of course, I ended up staying up way too late, even watching the Sunday late game, so by the time I actually went to bed it was like 6 am oops....so subsequently, I slept until 4:30 pm the next day, but I at least caught up on sleep! I had also made an Austrian couchsurfing friend in Helsinki who was living in Vienna, so I managed to get in contact with him, and agreed to meet up for a late evening  beer at the Museumplatz. It was a lovely Vienna night, and the area was quite lovely. We ended up having some good discussions, and then we moved on to another cool location, that offers a nice view of the city. After having one last beer, I retired for the night since Lukas had to work the next morning. I was meant to meet up with Kaisa (my host) for lunch the next day, but because I had a fantasy hockey draft at like 5 am, I again didn't get to sleep until quite late, and subsequently slept until 2:30 pm ha ha oops....but I made a deal to go and meet up with Kaisa for a coffee and a quick tour of the UN. She showed me around a bit, although it was a bit of a rushed tour, as she was fairly busy with work, but I did get to see a Nobel Peace Prize that her father was a recipient of, as part of a UN team a few years back. I also got to see a space exhibit, including a fairly large piece of space rock...good stuff.

UN Memorial to Drug Abusers

Nobel Peace Prize

Space Rock!

The U.N

So after the quick UN tour, I wandered around Stephenplatz and then eventually made my wayt down to an Australian pub for a dinner and a beer, while waiting for Kaisa to finish work, as we had signed up for an InterNations meet and greet that evening. For those wondering what InterNations is you can check out their website http://www.internations.org/

Wandering around Stephenplatz

Amazing church on Stephanplatz

Hey Horsies....soon I will be eating you in Hamburger form!

Anyone scared of Clowns???

Basically, it's like an adult version of couchsurfing/facebook, where ex-pat professionals working in cities around the world connect with one another. It's a pretty cool idea, if you're a professional that is. So after hanging out at the Aussie pub and sharing a beer and some good laughs with a few Scots there, I made my over to the event....and there was a large amount of suits there....interesting times. I met a few interesting people throughout the course of the evening, although most people were exchanging business cards, so I had to tell people my profession was traveling, which of course elicited some jealousy and questions about how I do it, but no one was giving me their business cards ha ha. Fun times nevertheless, and I was able to meet some interesting French women, and one nice Austrian guy who I might reconnect with in SE Asia in the winter.  Near the end of the evening, there was a nice guy from the US embassy who was chatting up Kaisa for quite awhile, and then they were ready to go, but I couldn't really get a read on them, to figure out if they were planning on leaving together or not *wink wink* ha ha....so I just decided to let them share a cab and walk back on my own. On the walk home, I stopped at a Wurst stand, and tried a Kaisekanner for the first time, on the advice from the Austrian guy I met at the social. Let me tell you, it was love at first bite......wow, so delicious!! This started an ongoing relationship for the rest of my Vienna visit ha ha. A Kaisekanner is a cheese filled sausage, that is stuff into a piece of bread with a circular hole cut through it and then packed with tangy mustard and ketchup...mmm.

So after grabbing that and walking home, I discovered that Kaisa had in fact returned alone, so my hunch that there might be something going on was incorrect ha ha. So anyways, another night in the books, and I had planned to meet up with Lukas in the morning to go check out some vineyards, but then I overslept of course, and when I messaged him, I didn't get a response.  So I just wandered around the city centre for awhile (grabbing another Kaisekanner), took some photos, and then finally heard back from Lukas and went to meet him for a traditional Viennese coffee, which was quite lovely as well. Lukas had a workshop to attend, so after our coffee break, he had to head off so I waited to hear back from Kaisa about having diner that night. I guess she had some other plans, but was meant to get back to me after that was done, but she never did get back to me and I was quite hungry so I just grabbed some Schnitzel (mmmm), and then headed back for the night.

The Cube hanging in Vienna coffeeshop

The next day I decided to do something fun for the day, and wandered down to the Summer Palace (Schönnbrun), which is an extremely beautiful palace and garden in Western Vienna. After touring around for a few hours, I started the walk back to Kaisa's place, and figured out some dinner plans for the evening, so we agreed to Sushi :) We had a nice dinner and caught up a bit, since it had been a few hectic days for her, and we really hadn't had a chance to catch up much. I was giving her a pretty hard time about her cleptomaniac skills with regards to her bathroom, as there must have been a hundred different products in the bathroom. I devised a game where I would pick out 10 random bottles, and she would have to tell me when she last used it and what it was for ha ha....So anyways, after dinner, I went off to check out a couchsurfers meeting that was going on, since it was meant to be my last night in town, and I hadn't really gone out in the evening. 

The Summer Palace

Neat old Tram Station

I wandered down to the meeting, and found it was already 1.5 hours started, and most people were deep in conversations. I wasn't too sure how big the pub was, so I wandered into the back room, and found some guys playing some table soccer, so I joined them for a game and gathered some good tips on taking the train from Moscow to Beijing, as I'm planning on doing this at some point in my trip...it was good to pick the brain of the one guy there, and get some tips from him. After the foosball game, I returned to the main area, and had heard there were two Finnish girls there, so I decided to chat with them a bit. Once I started chatting to them a bit about my Sanomat article, the one girl recognized me, as she had read the article a few weeks earlier, and was interested in my story....great success, I'm slightly famous! The other girl hadn't read it, but I had a copy on my iPod so I let her read it. So I asked her what she did, and as a joke she mentioned prostitution....she later said when we were having a group discussion that when she first saw me, that was the first thing that came to her mind about what she did for a living, so of course I was giving her a hard time about thinking I was so desperate that when a woman met me, she felt that she needed to be a prostitute....so these jokes went on for awhile, when she asked me to walk her towards a taxi to take her home, along with some other American guy.....so I left my other friends I had made and walked her towards her taxi....when the other guy we were walking with, left...and it was just her and I standing there....now I honestly had no idea that anything was going to happen as we just had been having a casual conversation, nothing else was really happening, so I said nice to meet you and was ready to head home, when she told me that she was taking me home, because when she wants something she gets it......I was so shocked by this upfrontness, but also very impressed by it....so we're in a cab back to her place, leading to another and very unexpected Shave Day! At this point, I was supposed to be leaving for Slovenia to meet up with some other friends, but I decided to put it off one more day. 


The place she was staying at was this amazing penthouse suite owned by one famous violinist in Austria, so it was a pretty great pad. Unfortunately, Sanna had to work the next morning at 8 am, and I was meant to be back at Kaisa's to let her friend Vanessa into the place at 9 am, so it was a very early morning! Sanna was even kind enough to feed me breakfast and coffee before we had to leave. So I arrived back at Kaisa's after taking several trams, and was a bit late of course for her friend. Fortunately, when I walked into the building Vanessa had gotten inside and was just taking her bags up the stairs to the apartment, so I showed up at a good time to let her in. So after some brief chit chat, we went out for a breakfast and a coffee, and enjoyed the lovely Vienna weather. I was running on very little sleep, and Vanessa was fairly jet lagged, so we just finished up our breakfast, and went back to Kaisa's to rest....unfortunately I wasn't able to sleep, so I just chilled out for awhile. Eventually, we had to go down and meet Kaisa for some drinks at the UN, and for a night out. 


So we got all ready and walked by this role playing card parlour just down the block from Kaisa's and I told Vanessa how I figured there were some super good catches in there for Kaisa ha ha, so we had a good laugh, and she took a picture of all the nerds in there playing their role playing games, to show Kaisa the potential....ironically enough, there's an erotic condom store just across the street from the card parlour....interesting indeed he he. So anyways, we're on our way, running a bit late, and I kept raving about the Kaisekanners to Vanessa, and I stopped to grab one, and offered her a bit.....now she didn't realize the cheese was inside the sausage, so when she took her bite, it ended up squirting out cheese all over her chest (and she happened to be wearing a white shirt of course) ha ha....so it was back to Kaisa's place  to clean up her shirt, and then finally we were on our way. We arrived a bit late, and Kaisa had sent me a message asking where we were, since we were taking so long, but we finally made our way there. When she came down, we apologized for being late and I told her that "my weiner blew a load all over Vanessa's chest, so she had to clean up" ha ha ha....the look on Kaisa's face was priceless....and she exclaimed that this was the UN and we couldn't talk like this around her coworkers....from that point forward it we would often ask Kaisa if what we could say was UN approved ha ha....fun times. So after hanging out there and meeting some pretty interesting people of course, the girls had made plans to head down to a hookah lounge for dinner and drinks, but they didn't have enough room in the vehicle, so myself and 2 others just agreed to come down via train and meet up with them. 


So we found our way on the train and arrived in the restaurant, which was a cool Middle Eastern restaurant, but there wasn't space at the table for all of us, so myself and the one guy from the Philippines just grabbed another area and ordered a drink...I invited Sanna down as well, and she showed up, while Filipino found a seat at the others table. So eventually they were all leaving to Kaisas for some drinks, but the damn Filipino didn't pay for his drink, and the staff tried to stick it on my tab....so after some fighting over that, explaining to the guys that I was just being friendly and chatting with the Filipino and how I didn't know him, they eventually took the drink off the bill, but I wasn't too impressed. To me, it's the waiter's responsibility to make sure that people are together on a tab, especially if they aren't sitting at the exact same table....so a minor win for me anyways. 


So Sanna and I were both pretty tired, so we just decided to skip going over to Kaisas and just went back to her place to relax for the night. Unfortunately, I realized that I was out of "protection" and thus began a grueling 20 minute run around the area to try and find an open shop (which is very difficult in Vienna during the later evenings). So I ended up running around like a lost dog, and had to stop at some hotel and ask the awkward question about where to go find some, so he pointed me in the rough direction of a petrol station, unfortunately, he didn't specify that I had to make a turn, so I ran the wrong way for a good 10 minutes before realizing that I wasn't finding the place, so then I ran back and eventually found it, but I always feel kind of weird just buying protection from a service station, so of course I bought a drink to make it look less awkward ha ha. Eventually I made it back to Sanna's place, although by this point, she was likely thinking that I ran off into the night and wasn't coming back ha ha. So anyways, we had a nice evening and it was good to catch up on some sleep and spend one more night with the lady friend before making my way off to Slovenia. 


So we said our goodbyes after having a lovely breakfast on the rooftop terrace. I took the trains to get back to Kaisa's and when I was coming out of the station nearest her house, all I could hear was some super loud music, and I began to wonder if there was some sort of concert going on in the streets...well I stumbled upon a Pro-Marijuana parade, which was a completely unexpected sight in such a conservative city as Vienna....anyways it was quite the sight, as seen here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9NM8ITzxck


So after watching the parade for a bit I managed to get back to Kaisa's around 3:40 in the afternoon, and I thought there were several trains running all day to Ljubljana, but upon looking at my time table, I realized the last train left at 4 pm, so I hastily packed my bags and began running to try and make the train. Well I made the first subway train and arrived at the next station with just enough time to spare to make it to the next station to catch my train, but then of course disaster (albeit minor disaster) struck, and the subway was then delayed, so by this point, I had 2 minutes to make it to a station that was about 8 minutes away, so I gave up on making it to Slovenia for the night....ah well! 


So back to Kaisa's for awhile, much to hers and Vanessa's laughter at my inability to make my train.....so  they had planned a fancy night out, so I decided to go pick up some decent new shoes so that I wouldn't be rejected from the nightclub they were going to. After picking up some shoes, we got ready for the night out, and went over to some fancy lounge to meet up with some of Kaisa's other friends.....and this ended up being 3 French women, and then another 2 more girls joined us, so pretty soon I was surrounded by 7 women....not too bad for me! We had a few drinks there, although they were way overpriced. We then stopped by the American Bar (lame I know) and hung out there for awhile, then went to some fancy nightclub, that was basically full of a bunch of stuck up Viennese....so didn't really meet anyone cool there, but oh well, still had a good times with my flock of girls, unfortunately with a group that large, it was kind of tough to isolate one and try anything, so I just resorted to texting my old Finnish friend, and seeing if she was up for some company, which she was of course :) So I was off to her place for one last night together....good times again ha ha...

On my way to Sannas.....definition of a good night out!

Receiving texts from Kaisa asking if I'm ever leaving Vienna ha ha

Fine Specimen ha 

Hi Sanna!

Pimping with the ladies!

So anyways, back to Kaisa's again, and trying to make the train, but then I realized it was Sunday, and I really wanted to watch NFL, and Kaisa and Vanessa were preparing a nice Sunday night dinner, so I figured ah what the hell, may as well spend one more night there ha ha...poor Kaisa at this point was probably thinking I would never leave! So after enjoying an amazing home cooked meal, and some football, my time in Austria came to an end, and it was off to Slovenia the next day!


Of course I slept in a bit, and tried to make the 2:05 train, but then got lost trying to find a metro station near Kaisa's and ended up missing the 2:05 train, but wasn't too worried since I knew there was a 4 pm train as well....but fortunately, there was also a 2:30 pm train that wasn't listed in my time table, so it was off to Slovenia. 


And from that point I will continue with the next blog :)


Auf Wiedersehen,

Rye