Random tidbits

- I'm running out of vacation time, at least relative to the number of cities I want to visit. I might have to choose between Prague and Hamburg. Any thoughts, flist?

- Hayfever is in full swing; an American trying to say 'Guten Morgen' with a stuffed-up nose is so comical it belongs in a skit or something. And for the first time in years, hayfever comes with respiratory problems--shortness of breath this morning, chronic coughing throughout the day. I imagine I looked quite tragically romantic at dinner tonight, sitting there in my lacy black skirt and coughing consumptively into my sleeve in a dim candlelit restaurant. Of course, the delicate consumptive image was ruined when I ordered an enormous wiener schnitzel with fries and devoured the whole thing like a starving dog.

- Forgot to mention the funniest thing about Krakow, which is that it's full of nuns. You can't sit in the park people-watching for five minutes without seeing a pair of nuns walk past, usually chatting very animatedly about something or another. I swear to god I saw one pass with a guitar case strapped to her back.

- Vienna and I keep missing each other. I wandered all over the old town this morning, wondering where the part of the city that's actually alive is, finding only luxury shops and chain stores and the occasional antique shop. Finally, exhausted because I hadn't slept and I'd been walking all day, I got on a bus to go back to my hostel... and it passed through the main drag of bustling shops and restaurants. So I went back to the main drag at dinnertime and found it deserted and most of the stores closed. Tomorrow I will do this in the right order. (Tomorrow the museums will also be open, yay!)

- The reduced-price student ticket to see the Imperial apartments and the Sisi museum costs more than the full price ticket to the Louvre. And, I'm pretty sure, more than the admission to the Kunsthistorisches Museum. WTF, Vienna, those are some screwed up priorities.

Random tidbits

- I'm running out of vacation time, at least relative to the number of cities I want to visit. I might have to choose between Prague and Hamburg. Any thoughts, flist?

- Hayfever is in full swing; an American trying to say 'Guten Morgen' with a stuffed-up nose is so comical it belongs in a skit or something. And for the first time in years, hayfever comes with respiratory problems--shortness of breath this morning, chronic coughing throughout the day. I imagine I looked quite tragically romantic at dinner tonight, sitting there in my lacy black skirt and coughing consumptively into my sleeve in a dim candlelit restaurant. Of course, the delicate consumptive image was ruined when I ordered an enormous wiener schnitzel with fries and devoured the whole thing like a starving dog.

- Forgot to mention the funniest thing about Krakow, which is that it's full of nuns. You can't sit in the park people-watching for five minutes without seeing a pair of nuns walk past, usually chatting very animatedly about something or another. I swear to god I saw one pass with a guitar case strapped to her back.

- Vienna and I keep missing each other. I wandered all over the old town this morning, wondering where the part of the city that's actually alive is, finding only luxury shops and chain stores and the occasional antique shop. Finally, exhausted because I hadn't slept and I'd been walking all day, I got on a bus to go back to my hostel... and it passed through the main drag of bustling shops and restaurants. So I went back to the main drag at dinnertime and found it deserted and most of the stores closed. Tomorrow I will do this in the right order. (Tomorrow the museums will also be open, yay!)

- The reduced-price student ticket to see the Imperial apartments and the Sisi museum costs more than the full price ticket to the Louvre. And, I'm pretty sure, more than the admission to the Kunsthistorisches Museum. WTF, Vienna, those are some screwed up priorities.