welcome to Vienna!

It is said that you’d be welcomed by the smell of the country you’re visiting the moment you got off the plane. I certainly loved Vienna’s welcoming smell when we got off the plane – it’s that of a good smelling soap. This smell lingered the whole time we stayed in Vienna making Vienna my favorite city among the cities we’ve been to in this trip.

Welcome, travelers!

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The site of a fellow’s advertisement was a welcome for us indeed.

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The luggage carts need euro coins though for them to be usable.

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Vienna’s airport was better than Rome’s albeit it was just simple enough.

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As is the case with most airports, Vienna’s airport is a bit far from the city center. There are a number of ways to get to the city center but we opted to take the City Air Terminal train as it’s the fastest and reasonably priced way; you’re in the city center already in just 16 minutes or so.

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The sight we’ve passed by reminded us of work.

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And like how it was in Italy, there were also quite a lot of graffiti welcoming us.

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Once we got into the city center, we had to transfer to another train (the s-bahn) to get to the station that’s only walking distance from our hotel. as we were transferring to s-bahn, we saw this movie poster of Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood.

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Atsushi purchasing train tickets. One thing amazing with Vienna’s public transportation. It runs on honesty system. There were no station gates checking if you’ve purchased a ticket with the right amount nor were there police waiting in the stations to catch dishonest passengers. No checks whatsoever at all in trains, trams and buses.

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After the complexity of Tokyo’s train system, Vienna’s train system was no sweat at all.

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This hotel’s backyard confronted us when we got off (the wrong side) of our station.

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It looks pretty normal. But the backyard is actually full of nude people sunbathing.

Anyway, we didn’t go to Vienna for the nudists. We went to Vienna for this!

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And you bet we’re excited!

flying Emirates

It’s our first time to fly Emirates and indeed it was a good experience.

Their good entertainment selection (with a hundred movies or so, alone) tested my EQ – I had to get as much sleep as I can so I can be ready for our hectic-scheduled sightseeing.

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Thankfully though, they had their aircraft done in such a way that it’s very conducive for sleeping. Can’t identify a constellation at all though.

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The long-haul flight I had before was with Cathay Pacific economy and our “amenities” were given in a cheap-looking pouch with toothbrush that has threads which can be stuck in between your teeth. No eye mask at all. Albeit Hubs’ long-haul flights with Cathay Pacific had him bringing home Agnes B. cosmetic pouch (sosyal! Business class kasi). For Emirates’ economy though, I’m fully satisfied with the quality of what they gave us.

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The pouch came in very handy. We used it as our coin purse during our trip – one for euro and the other for czech crowns.

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Our travel agent informed the airline they have honeymooners on board hence we were given a cake and a memorabilia with our onboard photo in it. Nice!

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Sadly though, we weren’t able to eat our cake. We are truly thankful with this thoughtfulness especially the photo. But a word of advice to Emirates: maybe it’s best to give the honeymooners some travel sets or even the plush toys you give around to the kids on board (I sooo wanted one!) rather than cakes. Our cake was given to us around a couple of hours before touchdown, with a 14-hour flight, and after a full meal at that so naturally, we weren’t able to eat it on board. We carted it around with us but we were still due to fly to Vienna and right after arrival, we headed out for the Opera hence the cake was left untouched until we had to throw it away. Mottainai, sayang.

Speaking of meals though, meals on board The Emirates were among the most tasteful we’ve had among the flight meals we’ve had.

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Atsushi, fully refreshed after a 14-hour flight and sleep.

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The honeymooners, about to disembark.

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Because we’re flying Emirates, of course we had to have a stopover in the airlines’ home country. Dubai’s Terminal 3 is one big looong hallway with futuristic design and palm trees that’s reminiscent of the desert. It was quite impressive albeit since the design is like that of a hallway and not circular as it is in Hongkong International Airport (which both Hubs and I consider as our favorite airport so far), it can be quite crowded in some areas, with some jostling besides.

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We had coffee at Paul’s where almost all crew members were Filipinos.

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We had to wait for 5 hours for our next flight to Vienna hence it was good chance for us to try as well the local delicacy. Had whole wheat squagel. It tasted really healthy and good albeit it would have had tasted better had it had a bit more salt.

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Time to board the plane for Vienna! 🙂

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Experiencing mass in Vienna’s St. Augustine Church

Everything in Vienna is just beautiful and good. Beautiful place. Beautiful people (inside and out – will tell stories about it later). Good food. Really good smell. Beautiful music – even the clanging of the bells of neighboring churches (St Stephen’s Cathedral, St. Augustine Church, St. Michael Church) is like music, they were all in symphony. And every Sunday mass can be like a concert; which it really is in St. Augustine Church’s 11am Sunday mass.

We wanted to experience mass with the Vienna Boys’ Choir singing the hymns. But we need two months advance booking for it and the ticket is at ~€30 which i find weird, paying a fee to attend mass. We already had our reservation at Vienna State Opera House hence we were having second thoughts on buying another ticket for the Vienna Boys’ Choir. Thankfully though, good ol’ Rick Steves mentioned in his book that the St. Augustine Church holds concert masses, for free! Since we’ve limited time, we can only attend one mass. And albeit I wanted to hear how good the Vienna Boys’ Choir really is, we opted for the free concert mass in St. Augustine instead teehee. And indeed we weren’t disappointed. It was good time again for Atsushi to catch up with his jetlag though haha.

Located on Josefsplatz, next to the Hofburg Palace, the church is a simpler gothic version compared to Stephansdom. It’s still majestic though what with chandeliers hanging from it’s Gothic ceiling.

Will add pictures in this post later. For now, here are snippets of the concert mass. Pardon for the bad angles though. It’s not really forbidden to record the whole mass but then this is still a Holy Mass with all the proper rituals hence it was a bit embarrassing to record overtly. I had to do it covertly, hence the bad angles :p.

Of fairs and flowers

On fairs.
Sharing Hubs’ rendition of Andrew York’s “Fair”. Impromptu guitar playing. Recorded via tumblr app.

https://www.tumblr.com/onchocolatehill/9335106918/atsushis-fair

On flowers.
Up to now, I still don’t know who’s responsible in keeping our office toilet attractive because of them flower arrangements which varies every other day or so. And the flowers come in different vases at that. Or probably they switch the vases they use in the other floors. Today’s flower arrangement can even pass as a centerpiece in a wedding reception. Simple yet elegant and eye-catching.

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On great news.
Was pretty busy but I had to hurry home to wait for my passport to be delivered. Was in tenterhooks while waiting for it; praying as I wait that my passport already contains the visa we’ve been hoping for. And. It was an answered prayer. Thankful.