Adventures in Transatlantic Travel
I guess the more frequently you fly, the more opportunities there are for weird shit to happen. On the flight from Vienna to London, our plane "hit several birds" according to the cap'n. All I know is that shortly after takeoff, there was a loud thump after which proceeded a fairly noxious smell and the flight attendant getting up and looking at both engines, then getting on the horn to the cockpit. The cap'n's little speech also included the comforting "these engines are built to withstand such events, so we're proceeding as normal to our destination". I thought the whole flight after that point felt wonky...just kind of off. Then again I had basically only had a nap the previous night, instead of being a normal person and getting a full six or even seven hours of sleep before undertaking a marathon of taxis (1), airports (4) and planes (3) in the span of 15 or so hours.
Right. Looking back, it seems like that was a recurring theme to this trip: getting very little sleep and spending too many nights drinking. London started off on the no I haven't had dinner but sure I'll have another pint tip the very first night and culminated in a Friday night my liver won't soon forget. If the English are complimenting me on keeping up, I know something is horribly horribly wrong with my alcohol intake levels.
The work part of the Vienna trip is surprisingly similar in that there was a lot of beer consumption on all three nights. And thus, sleep was in short supply again. Beer consumption + People that are really into their work and often speak English as a second language (or fourth or fifth) = some very interesting conversations. This is a big factor in why I try to remember to challenge my assumptions all the time, not just when traveling. If there's one thing I've learned, mostly by hanging out with the Englishfolk, is that language - even if speaking one where you understand the words - is not always what it seems. There's been more occasions than I'll admit where I've been completely lost as to what the fuck someone is talking about and they're speaking English. Slang, idioms, figures of speech, whatever - I know the words they're saying, but I can tell that the meaning when in that order does not mean what I think it means. The only one I can think of right now is "taking the piss". It basically means what I do on a daily basis, especially with my family and friends: fucking with them.
The final day of the twelve day festival of fucked up was spent walking around Vienna. Took lots of pictures of statues because there's just a glut of statues there. If any city was ever robbed of every one of their statues, Vienna could easily supply them with a whole new batch and no one would ever know they were missing some. Well, maybe they would notice if you took some of the really famous ones. Like Mozart. Or Maria Theresa (Marie Antoinette's mum and a shrewd monarch). Or Goethe (pronounced gerta). I'm sayin.
That night, you'll never guess what I did. I had a couple of beers in the hotel lobby with a coworker. She, we'll call her Devil on the Left Shoulder (DLS), convinced me to have one more drink with her and a guy she had just met for the first time at the conference the day before. Then I could go back to my hotel and pack and get some sleep before a long day of traveling like I've done at every single event I've ever gone to - seriously, the thought of traveling hungover is a worthy deterrent. But things didn't work out as planned and I somehow heard myself saying "Ok, we'll go watch the football game at a pub and THEN I'm going to pack and go to bed.". Yeah. Why doesn't that ever work? Two bars later I was able to abandon DLS and finally get to packing and about two hours of sleep. Gotta love those flights at 7:40 am.
I regrettably did not get a picture of the travel dogs in Vienna. But here are some other photos that'll have to do.
Right. Looking back, it seems like that was a recurring theme to this trip: getting very little sleep and spending too many nights drinking. London started off on the no I haven't had dinner but sure I'll have another pint tip the very first night and culminated in a Friday night my liver won't soon forget. If the English are complimenting me on keeping up, I know something is horribly horribly wrong with my alcohol intake levels.
The work part of the Vienna trip is surprisingly similar in that there was a lot of beer consumption on all three nights. And thus, sleep was in short supply again. Beer consumption + People that are really into their work and often speak English as a second language (or fourth or fifth) = some very interesting conversations. This is a big factor in why I try to remember to challenge my assumptions all the time, not just when traveling. If there's one thing I've learned, mostly by hanging out with the Englishfolk, is that language - even if speaking one where you understand the words - is not always what it seems. There's been more occasions than I'll admit where I've been completely lost as to what the fuck someone is talking about and they're speaking English. Slang, idioms, figures of speech, whatever - I know the words they're saying, but I can tell that the meaning when in that order does not mean what I think it means. The only one I can think of right now is "taking the piss". It basically means what I do on a daily basis, especially with my family and friends: fucking with them.
The final day of the twelve day festival of fucked up was spent walking around Vienna. Took lots of pictures of statues because there's just a glut of statues there. If any city was ever robbed of every one of their statues, Vienna could easily supply them with a whole new batch and no one would ever know they were missing some. Well, maybe they would notice if you took some of the really famous ones. Like Mozart. Or Maria Theresa (Marie Antoinette's mum and a shrewd monarch). Or Goethe (pronounced gerta). I'm sayin.
That night, you'll never guess what I did. I had a couple of beers in the hotel lobby with a coworker. She, we'll call her Devil on the Left Shoulder (DLS), convinced me to have one more drink with her and a guy she had just met for the first time at the conference the day before. Then I could go back to my hotel and pack and get some sleep before a long day of traveling like I've done at every single event I've ever gone to - seriously, the thought of traveling hungover is a worthy deterrent. But things didn't work out as planned and I somehow heard myself saying "Ok, we'll go watch the football game at a pub and THEN I'm going to pack and go to bed.". Yeah. Why doesn't that ever work? Two bars later I was able to abandon DLS and finally get to packing and about two hours of sleep. Gotta love those flights at 7:40 am.
I regrettably did not get a picture of the travel dogs in Vienna. But here are some other photos that'll have to do.
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