It felt good to be back by the window looking out at the silent train complex at 4 am in the morning. I seemed to have acquired the habit of rising at 4. Tossing and turning did not make me any sleepier. My eyes were wide awake. My mind was ready for the challenges of the new day. What could have been the matter with me? I used to have at least 10 hours sleep everyday. I could not recall when this change came about.
Vienna gave me a sense of security. The Star Inn Hotel was a great deal like the hotels I was used to. The people seemed to have an air of propriety about them. Most of all, there weren't any cemeteries outside my window.
It was getting brighter outside and life began to stir opposite me. I looked into the distance and could make out the spires which had at first intrigued me.
At about 8 am or thereabout, we crossed the streets to the Hauptbahnhof Complex, hoping to dig into Vienna's famous Sachertorte. The closest we got to was this slice of Schoko-Mousse Torte. If Sachertorte is anything like this, I'm not going to like it because it's too sweet.
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The family of five were late risers so it was 10 am before we finally met them at the lobby. Collectively, we walked towards the Hauptbahnhof, Ms Walk-Faster as always, leading the way.
It had been 7 days or thereabout into my 11 days with Ms Walk-Faster. I should tell you about the monkey bag.
I first knew about Kipling bags way back when, at a time when they did not have that special appeal. Right from Day 1 of this trip, my eyes fell consistently on these two. The first was a pastel green monkey dangling from Ms Walk-Faster's pastel green backpack. The second was a maroon coloured monkey attached to Ms Tweedle-Dum's maroon backpack. Matching colours, I thought as I watched them swing hither thither before me. They were always in front and if they weren't, they soon were. For seven days I watched the furry monkeys beckoned me to keep up as they became smaller when the distance between us grew.
Something unprecedented happened. I fell in love with the cute little monkeys. There was something appealing about the two monkeys swinging before me, urging me to keep up and not be left behind. I resolved to get my own monkey bag, which I did one month later. Kipling bags were inspired by Rudyard Kipling, author of Jungle Book. Most of their bags were sold with the monkey key chain. Some were sold with plastic monkey tags, with matching colours. Every bag had a Kipling staff's name sewn into it. Mine was "Andy".
Seeing that the monkeys were too small to be seen, we picked up our paces. Getting off at one of the stations, we walked the remaining distance to the Vienna State Opera. Ms Walk-Faster looked worried because Ms Tweedle-Dee had had a nose-bleed.
I remembered my old school teacher telling us how important it was to lie down with our feet higher than our head during a nose bleed. It was one of those snippets of memory which carried you to adulthood.
"What if I don't do that?" I once asked my teacher.
"Oh, you'll bleed yourself to death. The nose will empty out all the blood from your body!"
She had to be kidding, right?
Consequently, that was one lesson I never forgot so I kept up the nose-bleed ritual right into adulthood.
"Did she have to lie down?" I asked Ms Walk-Faster as I looked around for a bench - anything!
"No. That's not necessary," she answered.
Ms Tweedle-Dee held a bunch of tissue paper beneath her nostril and walked on. She did not "paint the city red." (Pun intended)
VIENNA STATE OPERA
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| The tickets were sold out so we could not attend any concert as we had first intended.
It being a Saturday, we decided to explore the flea market at Naschmarkt. The flea market closed at 3 pm so we had to hurry if we intended to see what treasures were in store. Unfortunately, the family of five were not keen to go that way. Once again, we split up, we heading towards Stephanplatz, (I'm not sure why) and they heading that a way too because Ms Walk-Faster wanted to go shopping at Graben Vienna (near St Stephen's Cathedral.)
It was noon. The sun was up and it was incredibly hot. We stopped at a cafe at Graben Vienna and ordered a tuna sandwich with green milk tea. The green milk tea is brown and the tuna sandwich was, for want of a better word - bluarggghy!
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Now that we were on our own, it was our turn to whip out the map. Making sense of this map was incredibly hard but between the map and the passersby we found out that we had to take the U1 subway to Karlsplatz.
I could not outrun my runny nose so I rested on the stone steps on the outer parameter of Karlsplatz while my Significant Other studied his map. We had no idea where we were on the map.
"We can always take a cab back to the hotel if we're lost," said my husband, seeing the worried look on my face.
Just as we were considering whether or not to abandon this fool's errand, we bumped into an Asian Viennese. It was about 1.30 pm at the time and really hot. Resting under the shady trees on the stone steps sounded better than gallivanting under the hot sun towards an unknown destination. The stranger graciously offered to take us part of the way because she was heading in that general direction too. Twenty minute's walk, she said as she started walking. She took us right up to Naschmarkt where we parted ways.
"The flea market is at the furthest end of this road," she said before leaving.
While waiting to cross this street (picture below, left), a Palestinian by the name of Ibrahim, struck up a conversation with me. He told me he was born in Jerusalem. I thought he looked like a nice man but my husband, wary of strangers ushered me away.
NASCHMARKT
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It was about 2 pm when we reached Naschmarkt. The flea market was way back at the other end of this street. We had no idea how long a walk it was going to take us. Shopkeepers arched their hands and pointed at the other end of the market, the arched hand indicating that it is quite a distance. We decided to abandon the journey and hung around in this market instead.
Fresh coconuts were selling at EUR4.00 each. I thought that was exorbitant.
I have a habit of picking up cashmere shawls so I picked a pink piece (made in India) for EUR5.00, which seemed like a fair price. The cherries were more expensive than the ones sold at Graz and I would have bought some of those as well as the white asparagus if we were leaving immediately for home. Since we were traveling to Budapest on the morrow, picking up perishables did not seem like a good idea.
The croissants and cheese sticks looked delicious so we bought some. Passion and mixed fruit juice sounded like an idea, so we got a large cup with a huge straw and went off to find some place to savor those.
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At Karlsplatz, we took the U1 train to Hauptbahnhof.
I had planned to go for an evening stroll along the Favoritenstraße but what do you know? It began to drizzle. Not wanting my flu to worsen, once again I remained in my room while my husband explored Favoritenstraße alone.
He found an Asian restaurant Reis Nudle operated by a China woman and took away some noodles fried with bean sprouts and served with deep fried crispy duck.
It was good.
It was good.
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