Friday, March 24, 2006

Game On!


Game on!
Vienna - Sopron - Vienna
After my little 36-hour layover in Colorado Springs, I found myself in Vienna. I'm not sure if I had jet lag or I was just tired, but instead of working out or doing work I decided to check out the back of my eyelids. Four hours later I awoke feeling a little better. Carol, Ellis and I ventured across the street to the airport and hopped on a train bound for Vienna. Ellis has never even been to Europe before and Carol spend a semester abroad in Vienna so she gave the quickie walking tour (I've been there several times, but it's always a good place to visit) and I was freezing and hungry. All I wanted, all I had dreamt about for the past week in fact, was Nurenburger bratwurst, kartoffelsalat and a large German beer. While that dream was not to be realized, we did eat underground in a nice little bomb shelter-turned beer hall. Good times.

The team arrived the following day and we were off to Sopron, Hungary (pronounced SHOW-prawn). After a couple of days of practice we took the entire team, minus one person with a sore back, across the border to Vienna. It was snowing so the walking tour was out of the question, but we did drive around the city and saw most of the sights from the comfort of the tour bus. We had to hit a Viennese café and then ended up back in the bomb shelter for dinner before returning to Sopron.

I'm not sure if it was the same night or the next night, but Carol and I walked to a pub a block from our hotel. There were two four-tops, numerous two-tops and the bar, which had a restaurant on the other side. I mention the tables because Carol and I took one of the four-tops, the other one was in use already, and settled in with a large Soproni beer. Enter four Hungarian men. They look around and can't find a place to sit so we give up our seat and take a two-top. Throughout the course of the evening whenever people left the restaurant, walked through the bar on the way outside, they'd stop to talk to one of these four men. The same one. Shake hands, jovial chatter, kiss kiss on the cheeks, the whole nine yards.

So as we're leaving we stop by the table to look for Carol's diamond on the floor (it fell out of her ring and I noticed it while we were there) and we start chatting with "The Mayor," as we've dubbed the guy, and his friends. Turns out they don't speak much English, but we get by with German and this is what we know:
  • They're all friends from waaaaay back
  • One guy lives in Budapest, but his wife (who's back at the house in bed) lives in Sopron and he comes home on the weekends (obviously to see his friends and not her)
  • Another guy has been married four times and will never marry again (but wouldn't mind a girlfriend)
  • The Mayor is actually a photographer for the local paper.
  • Carol's diamond was never found :-(
Here are a few more musings on life on that trip ... people I travel with (team members, etc.) when walking around Vienna had this to say about shops like Swatch (Swiss) and The Body Shop (English), "hey! This is like being in America! They have all these American stores!"

Three of us went out the final night and hung out with the management of the Sopron team. The picture of all of us in the English pub is what you see above.

And so it goes.

2 comments:

SamFelis said...

Nurnberger sausages in...Vienna?!? Surely you were mistaken. What you were really jonesin' for were some of
these.

SamFelis said...

Or these (if the above link won't work):

http://homepage.mac.com/misterbisson/Dumbkins/viennasausage.jpg