Sitting on the viewing deck of Vienna International, I can see planes landing and taking off in snow and very low clouds.
The weather is mild though or I’ve got a cold (?) and I fell warm with a T-shirt while all the others here wear heavy gear. I can see seven snow ploughs working to keep the runway and the taxi lanes clear. It’s supposed to be snowing with gusts of wind in a few hours. Now I can see twelve machines parading on the tarmac, or is it a drill? I can’t take a proper photo in this light and they are far, they look like yellow ants.
Now I understand their ballet: gently creating an island of snow, they clear around it. How do they not bump into each other? Surely they are radio connected and maybe gps linked somehow. Every time a plane lands, they hide in numbers but put the number in expressed in one disciplined line.
I couldn’t find wireless free or not. I see a few networks and two are free, but one gives info on the airport, the other is for HP users. So my posts will be delayed. I’ve still got three hours but no much chances. I should indeed talk about what I found here. It’s my first time in Vienna. I found two frustrating hours looking for the elusive Internet and rousing to pay at the hotel next door nearly 10 Euros for 30 seconds usage. There are also charges for small issues, like the luggage trolley, but nice people and beer. I had Edelweis before but never in Austria. I’ll try to write again but I have to sort out my winter clothing. I did find my luggage!
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Still in Vienna, minutes before passing through the last gate: I found it surprisingly easy to deal with the new Romanian airline Blue Air. I had an e-ticket bought month ago for something like ten bucks because it’s a budget airline and occasionally almost gives away the last seats. But their approach face to face was better than expected. What I actually did expect were sure extra charges for luggage or for wearing blue contact lens or anything like that. Instead I got virtually no cue and two young people, basically boy and girl, knowing what they had to do and doing it politely and efficiently. I mention this positive incident before actually flying in their craft and I don’t wish to be wrong. I am used from many years ago with bad and even rude or aggressive customer ‘services’ by Romanians and I so much want to be wrong in this trip.
Now, since I spent nearly five hours in this cosmopolitan corner of Austria – I must say it’s not at all culturally representing them, really, though the pub I’m now sitting in at s table with fake musical stuff is called John Strauss. By the way: can you imagine that Nokia’s predictive text, which is supposed to be the best and the dictionary it uses generate ‘Strauss’ straight away but won’t generate ‘Liszt’ and will consider him a ‘list’?! fORTUNATELY for Nokia, next time I combine the same letters to begin with, not only my E71 comes up with Mr Liszt as well among the moderate number of 8 options I want it to normally do, but puts Liszt ahead of ‘list’ and starting with capital. Just the order I have in my mind when it involves the horror of my youth, the waltz in which Mr Strauss had a bit of a say… It would have been better the other way around: start with Cafe-Bristo John Strauss, Vienna Airport and then, after you’re well off, dedicate some time to bloody fun like dancing in complicated patterns! Some of us, blokes with football boots in our had, siimply can’t do it and your new sweetly runs away from the dance floor with her ex who only brought her a rose because he felt like having a non-consequential impulse of heterosexuality. … Boarding now, after ruining my comments on Vienna. I shall return!