Thursday, April 28th: In the morning we went straight back to the Naschmarket for a nibble. The weather had cleared up a bit and the sun was even beginning to peek out. Along the way we saw more of the same smug models in the video billboards, mocking us. It was still quite early and some of the stalls were still in the process of setting up, but we took our time and we both found warm and fashionable scarves to add to our growing collection. We shared a borek, spinach and cheese wrapped in a light pastry dough, and picked up a couple of fresh pears for our breakfast. What I really wanted was a Vienna sausage, but none of the sausage stands were ready for business yet.
Having accomplished our main goal for the day we headed back to the room to lock down some plans for the next leg of our journey. We needed to book a train to Bratislava, then a bus to Budapest, figure out how long we were staying in Budapest, and then reserve rooms. I think it was then that we realized it was going to be too expensive and time consuming to try to work our way back to Warsaw and Krakow after Budapest and changed our plans to go to Ljubljana instead. I hadn't had any troubles with my credit cards up until this point, since I had learned my lessons from before and let my banks know I would be traveling during this time and what countries I would be visiting. However, something about Vienna's train ticket site was off and it wouldn't accept payment for our tickets to Bratislava which triggered some sort of fraud alert and my main credit card stopped working. That proceeded to take up an exorbitant about of time as I tried to contact Bank of America to straighten out the issue. Emailing them through the website wasn't getting any response and since neither of us had needed to make any calls until now we didn't have a SIM card that worked in Europe and didn't really want to buy one now. I bothered Katriana for the use of her phone to make a toll free call, but as you would expect I was placed on hold for a long period of time and eventually hung-up on. Katriana had an appointment and apologized but had to run and take her phone with her. I returned to the room and hit upon the idea of using Skype to make a call via the internet. To my amazement it worked and I was finally able to get hold of a real person. She fixed it soon enough and I was back in business. Being a dummy I immediately tried to book that same train trip again using the same site, which failed again. I was too frustrated at this point to try and figure out if my card had been relocked and since it was getting toward lunch time we packed up and headed out again for more site-seeing. Besides, we'd managed to book the bus from Bratislava to Budapest, reserve a hotel room in Budapest for the next few nights, and booked train tickets to Ljubljana so we were pretty well covered. All we had to do was go to the train station and buy our Bratislava tickets in person when we were ready, since there was a train headed that way scheduled just about every hour.
Our first priority was lunch so we headed into the town center. None of our recommended top choices were open so we settled on a place that advertised multiple kinds of schnitzels. I had the veal and Kat had the pork. Both were good and went well with our light beers. Feeling a bit rejuvenated and full of schnitzel we had the strength to carry on. There were a couple of sites I want to go into, the first being the Kaisergruft (Imperial Crypt) where the ruling Habsburg family kept their massive and intricate pewter coffins. It was an interesting counterpoint to Sedlec Ossuary where there were the bones of thousands of nameless simple people on display, while here the remains of the rich and famous of one of the most powerful families in history were hidden under lock and key of these elaborately sculpted pewter tombs.
After the Kaisergruft I dragged Kat along to see the Hafburg Treasury. As expected it was filled with rare and wonderful artifacts from throughout the period of time the Habsburgs ruled, but overall we found it a bit staid and underwhelming. We just seem to enjoy ourselves more when we're strolling along outdoor markets, exploring city streets, and people-watching while sipping drinks at corner cafes.
Having had our fill of crypts and museums for the day we headed back outside. The only thing left on our list was to go explore the Danube Canal area and hit another cafe for a quick rest. We decided to take the long way around, following the great ring roads around the city center, to catch sight of a few of the grand buildings we had yet to see. It was a longer walk than I think either of us really expected though and soon my feet started to get sore as I could feel a blister forming on the ball of my right foot. It took awhile to find the walkway along the Danube and then we managed to walk right past the cafe we were headed for, having been distracted by seeing a group of policemen arresting a pair of street artists who had been caught in the act with a bag full of spray paint cans.
Backtracking a bit on sore feet we finally found the cafe overlooking the Danube and grabbed a table for a much needed break. I got a coffee and a piece of carrot cake and Kat, having learned that chai lattes in Europe often came with coffee, ordered a hot chocolate, which came out as a warm cup of milk with a chocolate bar and a stirring stick, and a very rich brownie. We sat for a bit sipping our drinks and eating our treats and just enjoyed the moment. All too soon it was time to move on.
Further into our continued walking circuit around the city center Kat began to feel not so great. She thought it might have been all the rich and creamy food and drink and needed to find a bathroom quickly. We happened upon a large green space which seemed likely to have a pay-to-poop somewhere nearby, but it took us awhile to find one. We finally did and Kat seemed much better after the visit.
By the time we made it all the way around the ring we were both ready for a break. We trudged back down the boulevard to our room, passing the smug-looking models along the way as usual. When we got back we locked ourselves in the room and settled in for another long nap.
We woke up late and a bit hungry, but not really feeling up to a fancy sit down dinner so I offered to go wander the boulevard looking for some late night take out that I could bring back to the room for us. Kat said that sounded great, but she didn't want a sausage, which was just about the only thing I had on my mind. I locked her into the room and went out in search of food. Many of the eateries we had scoped out during our previous walks were closing up or already closed. I found a late night sausage stand that was still open and was sorely tempted to get one in spite of Kat's express instructions to the contrary, but I gave up and moved on. Next I found a KFC that was open and busy looking, but it just didn't quite appeal to me. Finally I settled on another pan-Asian place with a street-side window and ordered some vegetable stir-fry and some cashew chicken with rice. Loaded up with more food than we could possibly eat or want I headed triumphantly back to the room, having managed to resist sausagey temptation.
When I got back Kat mentioned that our hosts had tried to get into the room again, but since I had locked the door and taken the only keys with me Kat couldn't even open the door. I'm glad the place didn't catch on fire while I was away. We sat at the tiny table and ate about half of the food before putting the rest in the community fridge down the hall. We never did end up getting rid of it so it's probably still in there just smelling up the place. Sorry, Katriana.
We needed to pack up once again and head on to Bratislava in the morning so we brushed our teeth and went back to bed.
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