Tallinn-Vienna
Evening connecting flight from Tallinn to Frankfurt and right away to Vienna. Almost everything went smoothly except that my Lufthansa’s flight was delayed during the departure of and not because the airline would have been guilty, but that … in Tallinn there was a “very strong wind” (?!) announced by a stewardess on board of the plane.

 

It had not been windy it in Tallinn at all, at least passengers from our plane were rather confused after the notice. In a half an hour’s time Lufthansa’s airplane captain finally added that that due to the strong wind, some arriving planes are “ahead of us” and that they had taken over our runway. The real provincial town with provincial airport – the other airlines could not land. The “last” and “lost” place of residence in the whole world! Otherwise the flight went well.

Vienna

I drove from the Vienna international airport to the West Station (at one end of Mariahilfer Strasse or otherwise also written as one world Mariahilferstrasse ). My hotel was on Esterhazy Street – which was unknown to the bus driver. Thus I reaches a certain bus stop somewhere in the center of Vienna and took a taxi for further reach of my hotel. The taxi driver also made it clear that such a street as Esterhazy does not exist in Vienna and finally he took me as if somewhere  – probably – closer to the desired hotel “Fürst Metternich”. The trip was 10 Euros, however, the next day during the daylight I did understand that had been cheated – it was only some  eight minutes walks from the bus to the hotel and without any 10-euros-taxes. To make myself good – I sill persuaded that in the darkness perhaps I could not have found the hotel by myself anyway.

The usual room rate for one room was 196 EUR and now 50 EUR at the time of recession, thus the prices were down. Nice hotel. The location was just ideal – in the middle of Mariahilfe Strasse. It literally took 20 meters, some seconds from the hotel to that street. They also had internet access at the hotel “Fürst Metternich. Anyway – a perfect solution and all arranged via internet.

It was simply fabulous in Vienna. Sometimes you need to get away from your city of residence, and quickly. It takes down your stress level or you become to feel too boring in one and the same place. I walked and walked and walked. I saw the architecture of the town, grand old buildings. Shops and so inexpensive goods. Almost all the food was considerably cheaper than in Tallinn – cheeses, Italian salami, fantastic Austrian yoghurts  and so on. Yes, life in the European periphery is expensive.

 

Vienna in the evening

I also walked in Vienna in the evening. Imperial buildings were unlit and quite rightly so. In this way, there is a tremendously exciting emotion. If there were not cars going around, then it would have seemed like I was in the 19th century Vienna. Somehow I would recall the second half of the 19th century; the emperors and Sissy; and the famous films from the 1950s with Romy Schneider starring. It would be quite exciting to have a ball with numerous candles, crystal chandeliers somewhere in these palaces; royal horse carriages outside …

At the same time, there was also a Mozart monument in a closed area with a fence in the late evening darkness, but unlike imperial buildings – illuminated below.

In the vicinity of the Mozart Monument, there was a restaurant called “Samarkand”. The name is related to the old city of Samarkand in Uzbekistan in Central Asia and used to be one of the focal points in old times, centuries ago when trade caravans of camels  moved from the East to the West and vice versa. I looked through the window of the restaurant and it seemed to have with a very beautiful interior (with quite Uzbek national stripes). Also the restaurant was full of people, perhaps local Central Asian inhabitants of Vienna. Interestingly, when I looked into the menu and saw the price-list I was taken aback as Tashkent rice. Tashkent of course is the capital city of Uzbekistan. But only rice cost 15 Euros. What was so special about that Tashkent rice remained unknown. You even had to add everything to that basics and in the end the normal food would have come to something like 40 Euros. There were also manti, dumpling foods available. Knowing the food pretty well and as being comparatively poor lecturer I decided to take some other options for evening cuisine in Vienna.

Finally, I decided to eat in an African-Austrian restaurant, where the tomato soup was served with coconut milk and coriander, only that the coconut milk was forgotten to put in. I got a sour tomato soup with salt and pepper, and I gave it up. That happened to be extremely unpleasant food experience. The money for this soup was not finally asked. Perhaps I would have stayed in Viennese “Tashkent”.

Train to Steyr

A few days later I started my way to the place of lecturing to the students  – to city of Steyr in Upper Austria. Earlier in the morning I went to buy the railway ticket. I was heavily snowing and the temperature was around zero degrees of Celsius. A few hours later, when I was on my way to the railway station, the sun was shining, all plus temperatures and some fresh breath of warm wind was blowing. It was a fantastic Vienna feeling while leaving for Steyr.

On the train I took out my computer and started to work on lecture materials (texts, presentations). So I lost my sense of time and reality; and when I looked out of the window I saw something completely different from the sunny Vienna. It was snow and heavy snow everywhere.  Beautiful Austrian country houses with roofs covered with snow, the same could be said about the trees. No sunshine. Ok. I returned to my computer and relapsing the time  later noticed that landscape had changed. There were mountains and no snow, no sun but the weather was misty.

St. Valentin was my connecting station to Steyr. It took me some eight minutes to change the trains in an unknown place with the help of a Vienna student with local origin.

Steyr-Linz-Steyr

Everything went smoothly and in Steyr the weather conditions were like at home in Tallinn, however, the landscape itself was completely different. The city (ca. 40,000 people) was a nice provincial city somewhere on the border of the Alps. It is famous for its historical arms production and some people of Steyr consider that the world famous Soviet rifle AK-47 (Kalashnikov) was actually invented by engineers in this town but the sketches were taken over by the Soviet military during the Second World War.

Something unusually beautiful is in this city. Two rivers that get together in one place etc. etc. Something like our Catherine’s Passage (Katariina käik) in Tallinn. Of course, Salzburg is still the most beautiful city of Austria for me.

One of free of lectures day I decided to go to Linz. Also a nice Austrian town, beautiful architecture, at least in some parts of it. Over the river, it seemed to dominate by industrial buildings. Well, that city was not something special, however, it was the former European Capital of Culture. In the middle of the city there was a square (like in Steyr, only bigger) and there was a Tourist Information Desk or Center (special halls) were all the information was in German! Very good …

 The “Incident”

Back from Linz to Steyr by train. I had some unusual for Austria incident. In our wagon (there were a total of three) was one traveler of African origin. Some stations after Linz came in a ticket controller. These were usually kind and smiling young or middle-aged men. So, I read the book, the controller checked the tickets, and after that ….  the African traveler was heavily beating the controller and threw something in the direction of the controller’s head. The latter was hit several times. Then the controller disappeared from the wagon and the African traveler was quietly sitting as if nothing had happened. But in the next station (‘Enns’) the local police (“Politzei”) arrived and took the man off the train.  Our train was still standing and I could clearly see as the search was conducted: one policeman (in woolen gloves) searched the man. There was probably all the regional police unit present – eight (!) of them, including one woman and a dog (most likely German Shepherd) was also there.  Yes, it happened to be a big “incident” in the region.  The African origin traveler was most likely a drug addict who had lost his self-control and behaved so unexpectedly.

Next morning, I was on my way to Vienna Airport, where I made these records. I still had to reach Copenhagen flight and later to transfer to Tallinn-plane.