Allie in Eastern Europe: Part 1, Vienna (a.k.a. defining the douche impulse)

My neighbor who is basically part of my family has been telling me during my time here that she wants to be me because of all my opportunites to travel. Some people (including Jose's mom) are under the assumption that in order to travel, one must spend a lot of money. This however, is not true, especially when you are living in Europe and have a jumping off point or home base in order to get to other places. Of course, there are money saving tricks and ways to cut costs which explains why Jose and I were able to spend 5 days in Vienna and then Budapest this last week. First you have to find a cheap flight. This generally involves a company like Ryanair (which is Irish) that flys around Europe and sells their tickets for scandalously low prices. Cheap flights definitely have their downfalls. For example, you end up leaving at the ass-crack of dawn, or really late at night. Plus you can basically only bring a brown paper bag sized carry-on and nothing else (no purse, lunchbox, magazine, camera case, nothing). Ryanair does not assign seats so it is first come, first seated in the exit rows. This can get stressful but more on that later. They make their money charging you an arm and a leg when you can't cram your suitcase into the metal bin that supposedly is the same size as their restrictions. Plus they don't stop trying to hawk their wares which include smokeless cigs, scratch-off lottery tickets and phone cards. Once you have your cheap flight, you book yourself a hostel and try to eat on the cheap. Since your bag is too small to fit anything else without having to pay to check it, you don't end up buying anything on your trip. This is how I have traveled so much. Of course Jose and I flew Ryanair to get to Eastern Europe.
We left Sevilla at 10:00p.m. and arrived late in Barcelona where we proceeded to spend the night at the airport. Now, anyone who has experience with Ryanair or Vueling or other such companies has probably had this experience. This special kind of travel brings out what I like to call the douche impulse in people. What is the douche impulse you might ask? Well, it is the lack of the little voice in your head that tells you to be considerate of other people. For example, it is 3:00a.m. in an airport and everyone around is attempting to sleep. You decide to carry on a conversation with your friend which involves the funniest story you have heard in your life, one so funny you can't seem to stop laughing or shouting. You suffer from the douche impulse. Normal people, when on vacation often have this problem. It becomes all about me, me, me. I am on vacation therefore I am going to go what I want and to hell with everyone else. Here is another example: your airline does not assign seats. People are waiting patiently in line to board the aircraft. You wait until they open the door to access the plane and cut in line in front of everyone. Douche. I have seen all different shapes, sizes, ages, colors, etc. suffer from the douche impulse. Needless to say, actually arriving in Budapest before catching a train to Vienna gave us many examples.

The Cathedral in Vienna

The Opera 

When we did finally get to Vienna via Budapest and the NICEST train (Austrian) we checked into our hostel and did some sightseeing. We visited the cathedral, the opera, the Schonbrunn palace, the Imperial Rooms in the Hofburg Palace (where my favorite part of the tour besides the complete oppulence was the fact that only 2 people in the world know how to fold the imperial napkin in its correct form for gala dinners). We ate bratwurst and drank beer. Though Vienna is expensive, I would recommend it for the day and a half that we were there before catching another train back to Budapest for more adventures. Stay tuned...