Vienna, 19-20 September 2008
On the way to Tehran we had to spend the night in Vienna, thanks to the lack of direct flights between Athens and Tehran. Athens had just started cooling down (meaning that the highest temperature was 31C), but Vienna was already wintry (8-13C with rain the day we were there), which was a bit of a shock. I had anticipated something like that and had packed three hoodie jackets for Hossein and the children, but I was literally left out in the cold.
As soon as we got out the airport train station in Vienna, I popped into a small supermarket and bought a pashmina shawl, an unlikely but necessary souvenir.
In fact, the overnight was not much use: we had woken up at 3.30 am that morning in order to catch the 7.15 flight to Vienna. We left our suitcases at the airport so that we could hang around a little and have lunch before checking into our hotel room just after lunchtime. The plan was that we would rest for a bit after lunch and then go out in the evening, but we were so tired, that we slept until after 6 pm when it was already dark. To be fair, we prepared to go out and we did walk along the street where our hostel was. A supermarket was still open. We went in to have a look and ended up buying snacks and a bite for supper. Coming from Athens, the streets looked deserted, even though it was Friday evening, and Hossein had a cold, so we went back to our room: we were simply too tired to go anywhere.
The following morning we had just two hours to look around the historic centre of Vienna, so we got off at Museums Quartier, walked through towards the Hofburg and St Michaelsplatz and caught the underground again back to the hostel to retrieve our bags and get to the airport.
Last time I was in Vienna (1986, half my life ago) I was twenty-two. I was travelling on an Interrail student ticket with my then classmate and now good friend Anastasia, who was in love with the city. We had stayed for a whole week then, but I now find I can’t remember much of the city as it was then. This is the mystery of the human mind. I wonder what Anastasia remembers of our stay.