DAY 19 – Thursday, July 11, 2019 – Vienna, Austria

Silvio was gone to work by the time I woke.

Before I left the U.S., I had asked Anna if we could visit Purbach (where my Brunner ancestors are from) and Zwettl, Austria.  She let me know before I arrived that we could go to Zwettl, but we wouldn’t be able to go to Purbach because it was too far for a daytrip – I think it’s probably within a half hour from Zwettler Brewery.  Oh, well.  Unfortunately, when I arrived on Tuesday, she told me we wouldn’t be able to go to the Zwettler Brewery either, but she assured me that she had spoke with a number of people and they all told her it wasn’t very pretty.  She wanted to take me to the most beautiful places. 

I tried to hide my disappointment.  I didn’t realize when she mentioned that to me on Tuesday that we’d be traveling to Vienna via train.  It makes more sense now.

After breakfast, we packed up our stuff and headed to the train station.  We had to change trains halfway between Passau and Vienna.  I wasn’t able to sit next to Anna and Susanna on the second train.  I had so much luggage and it didn’t fit on the rack like it was supposed to, so it was partly blocking the aisle and it kept tipping over – very stressful!

I was so happy to get off that packed train.  We still had to take a couple of trolleys and a bus to get to Anna’s apartment.  Her roommates were not in town – so I was able to sleep in one of their rooms.

After dumping our stuff off at Anna’s apartment, we went back into the city, and Anna and Susanna gave me another amazing tour.  Stephanplatz was the most memorable. 

Anna’s dad, Stefan, was working in Vienna for a few weeks, so we met him for dinner at an Italian restaurant.  Afterwards, we walked to get gelato.  Again, lots of laughs – everyone is so funny!

After gelato, Anna, Susanna, and I went back to Anna’s apartment.  We had just laid down to sleep when there was moaning, wailing, and lots of yelling across the street – which is really scary in a foreign language. Shortly afterwards, Anna knocked on my bedroom door and told me that someone across the street had died.  Her mom recognized the coroner’s vehicle.  She said we would probably hear about it in the news tomorrow.  It was much quieter after that and I ended up sleeping fine.

Do you have any tips or tricks for using the rail system?