Europe: Take Two

It was almost three days ago that I arrived in Europe, but I'll try to catch you up on my travels since then.

I got off the plane in Vienna on Sunday morning, thinking I had left the heightened intensity of the Middle East behind. Not so. Just as I was about to hand my passport to the border control agent, I realized that I had no passport to give him. My sweat glands hit overdrive, as I tried to systematically determine where this all-important little blue book had ended up. After a good 15 minutes of stifled panic and phone calls back to the airplane, I found it. Of course, it was in some hidden pocket that I never use, except this one time. It was as if fate was trying to make sure I stayed on my toes for this week-long solo portion of my trip. Well, it worked.

I only stayed in Vienna long enough for a baguette at a sidewalk cafe and a short walk through some familiar neighborhoods from my previous fling in this city. Then, it was back to the Sudbahnhof where I met my train for Praha.

It really is a shame that I can only stay for such a short time in these cities, but I look at this trip like a sampler plate. Someday, I keep repeating, I will return to my favorite places along this route and stay long enough to do the city justice with an apartment and maybe a proper companion. Someday.

I could see myself living in Prague, except there is no way I'm learning Czech. My hostel was a little off the beaten track, which meant that a trip into the city center was 10 or 15 minutes, but it's always nice to see what a real residential neighborhood looks like instead of just the shops and the hotels of downtown. It seems to me that, unlike Vienna, Prague has a bit of a working class edge that probably comes from its Communist past. However, the grandeur of its finest buildings can stand with the best of them.

I met a good number of people, passing through at the hostel. Most seemed to be on a much larger trip, 6 months or so, and heading east from there, Krakow, Riga, etc. For these veterans, the first tier cities like Paris and Rome are far behind, constantly searching out the new up and coming city on the horizon. Yesterday I saw a sprinkling of Prague's sights: the castle, the national museum, its main boulevard. Not nearly enough, but I'm trying not to think in those terms, as I said, and I did enjoy myself, finding time to stop into an English bookstore, or chill in a park to read my book.

Today, I made a stop through the city of Dresden (more on this later) and arrived in Berlin this evening, which is a city large enough that even 6 months couldn't cover, so we'll see what I can do with a couple of nights and a day.