january 02 1997 - day seven - vienna, austria

last night, we decided to take our chances and not get a couchette on the night train. geoff and brian had it good 2 nights ago, so we figured "why spend the money?" 3 giant italian armed guardsmen, that's why. dave and sara and i ended up crammed into this car with these 3 huge guys. sleep was sporatic.
we woke up in vienna, austria anyway. and after the usual confusion and melee of figuring our bearings out, we got out of the station and to the staatsoper to meet up with laura again. we walked around through the piled snow to find food, only to turn around and head back to the u-bahn station for pastries. that's when the adventure began. we walked forever to a hostel that the map said was "just a little ways" from the station. we finally got there and found it to be full. ha ha. so we waited for an angry austrian woman to make here 3 angry phone calls and we called another hostel. we met a girl named bromwyn who was in the same boat. she joined us. she's australian and very nice. so the 8 of us made the journey northward to the other place, having no idea where we were going.
we made it here to our "big green" hostel, and got our rooms. once again, we have our own showers. at least, geoff and dave and i do. it's a nice, big place. seems pretty clean and quiet. and there are not too many people here. a couple of us took power naps and around 5 or 6, we went out for dinner. we found the most amazing place called toni's. good service, great atmosphere, fantastic food. and pretty cheap, too. i only paid 160 S for my meal.
anyway, it was a pretty uneventful day. tomorrow will be different; we're seeing the whole city. we may even see an opera. i hope it's "the magic flute." we'll see. guten nacht.
p.s. it's snowing again.