Return To Europe: Vienna Waits For You

Passenger Service
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1 at 21.07.11 SAN JOSE (COSTA RICA) - SANTO DOMINGO
M DE 3235 09:30 - 14:20 (2:50h)
Economy Class
SANTO DOMINGO - FRANKFURT INT.
M DE 3235 15:20 - 06:40 (9:20h)
Economy Class
baggage incl.: 20 kg

They forgot to mention the 4 FUCKING HOUR delay in Santo Domingo.  I do not blame this on Condor Airlines, but rather on the Dominican Republic.  Their idea of efficiency makes Costa Rica look like Switzerland..

Generally flight delays do not bother me, since it gives me more time to drink beer in the airport bars.  German beer of course comes highly recommended worldwide.  For this particular reason a long wait in a German airport is quite exciting after 5 months of crappy, watery Costa Rican beer.

Unfortunately, this time the delay caused me to miss my morning German Rideshare from Frankfurt to Vienna, Austria.  I would have paid 35 Euros for the trip, but had to pay 100 plus Euros for a train trip.  This was already proving to be a horrible "budget backpacker" trip.  I finally arrived in at my Bulgarian friend Kosta Tonev's art studio sometime around 11pm.  Yes, he's a real artist who has had exhibitions all around the world.  I contemplated some of his recent works then passed out...

   

The next day I felt completely refreshed with the knowledge that I was back in Vienna after a year, and I would spend the day with Laura and Kosta, two of my friends from Romania and Bulgaria, respectively.  We meet in the weekend flea market around 4pm right before it closed on Saturday afternoon.  You can find many useful and useless things here for a fine price.  For example, here is a pimping fur coat for under 10 Euros:

Thank you fat guy in the back for making me look more attractive

After fooling around in the market, we got down to catching up on old times.  This was done in true Balkan style.  True Balkan conversation means sitting for hours at a cafe drinking coffee and smoking way too many cigarettes.  Since I was heading to Romania and Bulgaria, they were both very happy to share travel information with me about their countries.  Kosta also tried (unsuccessfully) to teach me how to roll a cigarette properly.  As you can see by his face, he was less than pleased with my final results...

Step 1.

Step 2.

Step...ah, dammit.

Der Wiener Deewan

After smoking a poorly rolled cigarette and sipping strong, black coffee, we strolled through the underground Metro on our way to find a place to eat.  Laura suggested Der Wiener Deewan Restaurant, a small, funky Pakistani buffet on the Liechtenstienstrasse.  Their eating concept was so crazy, Kosta and I did a double-take:

1. Eat as much as you want.

2. Pay as much as you want.

 WHAT? A customer can eat, eat, eat at the buffet and only pay 1 Euro cent.  This would seem like an easy way to make your restaurant go broke, but fortunately most Austrians aren't complete assholes and pay for good food and service when they have it (this would never work in Latin America.)  I settled on 5 Euros for 4 plates of food and still felt guilty.  Deewan also supports itself by charging for the drinks and merchandise.  This is why they've stayed open for almost 10 years now while serving up great Indian buffet-style food...plus you can eat laying down.

 After eating our fill we finished the night with a few beers across the street at Charlie P's Irish Pub.  I had a decent Munich beer and tried in vain again to roll a cigarette.  This one came out as good (or worse) than the first, but who cares when your with good friends.