Lones in Europe: Did we invade Austria, I didn't get the memo.....

Hi All

Well we are still having a great time, we have noticed that Vienna is crawling with Aussies, I have no idea why. We are everywhere, last night there were only 5 people in the restaurant we picked and 4 of them were Aussie's, it's freaky!! I don't know what the group you mention is She, but I am sure if they are Aussie's, they are conning someone. lol.. I shall endeavour to find out.

We went to Baden yesterday by train, at the station we saw the tallest person we have ever seen in our lives, he must have been 8 feet tall. No joke Kearie is about 5'5" and she came to his elbow!! It was amazing, he was more than head and shoulders above everyone, he was massive. He was a Rastafarian and had a normal build, but because of his height he looked pretty skinny. We couldn't believe it, the poor man would have to have everything specially made, no off the rack for him. I didn't look at his feet, I was trying not to stare, but Kearie sneaked a peek and said they looked like watermelons, so he would have his shoes made too. I felt very sorry for him, he stood out so much. As we waited on the platform this young man rides up and starts yabbering away to me, I said "Nien sproken de Deutsh" (or however you spell it) So he straight away changes to English and says "Well I was behind this 100 year old woman, and I was trying to buy my bread and it was ridiculous.." he went on for a few minutes and then asked where we were from, I said Australia and then I thought he said Australians should have stayed at school, but Kearie thought he said Australia was cool, so there you go.... I am not sure if he was a little inebriated or just mental, but he made us laugh.

Baden was really nice, it wasn't the small village I was expecting, but it was a small town, we walked around checking out the houses etc. There were some lovely parks and we visited the Memorial they had built to Beethoven, it was like a lookout thingo, but they call it a theatre. It was a long climb up but the view was worth it. We spent the morning there then returned to Vienna to do some souvenirs shopping, Mozart memorabilia is everywhere, they are very proud of him.... We had lunch at the Aussie pub and it was packed, heaps of Aussies there, but I expected them to be there, it is just that they are everywhere else too, most people in front of you at shops are Australia, it's mind blowing as before Vienna I had hardly seen any Aussies on my trip, apparently they were all here.

We had dinner at a local restaurant near our hotel and not realising the size of the pizzas (they were really cheap) we ordered one each... OOps... They were enormous, we managed to eat one full one and the little owner gave us a box for the other ne, he was really nice and we had a laugh when we saw the size of what we had ordered. As I have already said the other couple that arrived later were Aussie too, it really is bizarre how man Australians come to Vienna. I need to do some research on that.

Today we are going to do a hop on hop off bus tour of a different part of the city to what we have already seen. It should be good, it includes 2 palaces and Kearie wants to see both, so we will be doing some hopping on and off.. We have booked our flights to Greece as we got them quite cheap and will leave for there on Wednesday. We did think of heading to Romania for a few days, but decided that our tour starts and finishes in Athens, but we don't get long there so we are going to do some of the city before the tour starts.

I will leave you with some picks of Baden and Vienna. I have not heard from Learra since she got home, so have sent her an email. She will be back at work now and I am sure she is talking up a storm and not getting any work done, but she better email her Mum soon or she will be in trouble....

Cheers guys, til later

Lones