Getting Back to the Basics

So before I write this blog I just want to say thank you to a few people:

Gil - You are awesome. Your extensive list of shit to do in Vienna was extremely helpful and detailed. Andreas doesn't know a lot outside of food and booze, which isnt a complaint, but the information on places to see and cafes to sit at was delightful. More importantly, I want to thank you for introducing us to Lukas, Andreas, and Tobias. You all are beautiful people.

Tobias - You are a very generous guy. I know its your job to deal with guys like Jay and myself but you went out of your way to make sure that we had the best time possible and we did. You gave the best directions and the cell phone was clutch. Lastly, the futbol match was unreal. Tons of fun, great beer, and great team spririt. People may say Austrian Futbol sucks but I had a great time and the game was really exciting. Thanks for everything.

Andreas & Lukas - You guys know how to live it up. When it comes to eating and drinking there is no one better to know. All your friends were very generous and there is not a better group of guys to drink with. Andreas, taking us to Linz was something you didnt have to do but it allowed us to experience an authentic Austrian expereience. You are the host with the most (get it?) and Ill never forget out time in Austria. The country expereience would have been shit without and thanks for spoiling us.

So now that, that is out of the way let me tell you why I thanked this people. So (I use that word a lot) Andreas decided that we needed to have an authentic Austrian experience. Austrians love to eat. Austrians love to drink. Austrians love to somke cigs. Austrians most love to eat, drink, and smoke at the same time and thats what we did for two days straight minus the smoking although our clothes smell like we did. Andreas took us around Vienna for a day and was an excellent tour guide, of course he had some help from Gil's dissertation on Vienna. We saw almost everything on her list which included some old cafes, the castle, the palace, and all the other must sees in Vienna. Of course Jay took tons of pictures (he forgot his connecting cable so thats why we cant upload any plus its expensive) regardless it was fun. We all woke up drunk this morning which was great cuz Andreas was driving us around. He first took us the massive castle right outside of the downtown. This place is gorgeous and probably has a lot of history but neither Rick Steves nor Andreas knew much about it. Regardless it was beautiful and massive. We made the climb to the Glorrietta which was nice and thats when the hangover hit. Luckily there was a nice bench for us to all sit down on and admire the view of all of Vienna. Andreas pointed out the important large buildings, most of which were churches and then we toured around the rest of the day. We had Gil's list handy and so we put a dent into that and then decided to rest up that night cuz the next day we were going to Linz.

Linz - what a great town. Andreas grew up here and so he knew the ropes. We went to the hightest point and saw a great view of Upper Austria. We rode the Gottenbaug (sp, sorry Gil) and toured around the town. Unfortunetly the town was under massive construction because next year its going to be the Cultural Capital of Europe. We headed back to his house where his brother was already wasted. The whole day we were drinking beer and eating different types of sausage. These Austrians know their meats and how to prepare them. I couldn't pronounce any of their names but it was all good. We get back to his house and continue the booze fest. BTW Andreas has a beautiful house, very modern and very cool. Great energy flwoing through that place which his mom is in charge of. Has a nice pool and it was fun to get some lay outs in.

Then we headed out for some Most. There is probably some of kind of accent mark on the O but whatever. So its basically this vineyard where they serve only food that they prepare on their farm. They raise their own meet and produce their own wine, the Most. The meal was probably 2 hours longs and we had about 10 pitchers of this stuff along with about 5 different kinds of meat. So we got a good buzz going and then headed out to their favorite bar / club.

We show up and its looking pretty average. Its got some people and the DJ sounds good. The whole night the DJ was stellar. Mixing phat beats and making the girls crazy. So we order a round of drinks which Jay paid for, so thanks. But that pissed off Andreas. He said if either of us paid for another drink we wouldn't be allowed to stay in house. He was dead serious too. Andreas then orders champagne, magnum style. And from that point on the champagne never stopped flowing. Andreas says its makes you crazy in the head and boy did it. We got housed and were dancing all over the place, although never with a girl. In this club the dudes dance with dudes and the girls dance with girls. Andreas says you have to make eye contact and then go from there. Our American cock rubbing techniques dont work out here. We still had a great time and were at the club till at least 4 am. Great thing having bars never close, Blinky's should take note. Then we ate some authentic Austrian drunk munchies, liver cheese. Sounds weird but it was awesome. Then we headed back to Andreas place around 5 and continued drinking. Jay and I both passed out before 6. We woke up at 11 to find the dudes still drinking, so we had to join them. Andreas then had us try another 4 different sausages for breakfast which was jsut what the doctor ordered. We then got a ride back to Vienna and headed straight to the Futbol match with Tobias.

This blog is getting long, but our hostel has free internet. So we picked up some more beer and headed out to the Hutteldorf to drink with Tobias' friends and get ready for the match. There we tried yet another type of sasauge and drank more beer. We headed to the game and it was awesome. The game had everything you would expect in a game. It was a rivarly game and it was huge. We got lucky to see such a big match and it lived up to the bill. These fans have a cheer for each player and every part of the game. Tobias thanks again for the game. He knew about every player and translated all the cheers and really made it an authentic experience for us.

We then headed back to our hostel to get ready to go out for our last night in Austria. Running on about 5 hours of wasted sleep requires a lot of motivation but we had it. Lukas and his sister were going to take us to Flex. This is the quintessencial Jordan club. Amazing music and tons of people. This club would let anyone bring in anything into the club. People had bottles of booze and people had backpacks on which Im sure were filled with drugs some these people were definitely on drugs. I was not and did not have any desire to do any. But the music was awesome. We left the club at 5 and headed home for a quick nap before our train ride. The whole night was awesome and what not. Again no dancing with girls still havent figured that whole thing out yet. It was still fun.

Now we are in Bratislava recovering. Im out. Hopefully everyone is having fun wherever they are and keep telling me funny stories and whats up in the Western Hemisphere.

Livin Large,

alex