Same But Different

The world never ceases to amaze me. International technology designers have come together to agree on the shape and size of USB ports. The computer companies agree the manufacturers of external gadgetry agree, everyone agrees. They are all the same.

Their also appears to an international agreement about the size and shape of batteries. Whilst the agreement is inclusive of a wide range of battery sizes and differences in the amount of power they contain, there is still universal acceptance of these differences.

Airlines have also managed to agree on the size and shape of boarding passes and the basic information they must contain. A Qantas boarding pass fits into the scanning system for FinAir.

Visa, I would never leave home without it because again amazingly it works in every country, even countries that have a GDP lower than my personal credit limit.

Coke can get its brand, packaging and flavour the same all around the world. The consistency of MacDonalds although slightly alarming is also reassuring. When in a country where it is important to learn the word “testicle” just in case it appears on a menu it is comforting to know that $10 of fat and sugar is in the shape of a burger and fries. Supersized of course.

What amazes me most though is that despite all of this consistency we cannot agree on electrical sockets. I carried three different adaptors on my recent holiday, only to discover I was one short. How hard can it be to agree on the number and shape of a few holes in the wall.

While I am on the subject it was most disconcerting to discover “Vienna” is really spelt “Wien”. When did the English speaking world decide that Austrians were not clever enough to either spell or pronounce the name of their capital correctly? Who are we to decide that what the name really needed was an extra n and a? And who is to say that we have these letters spare that we can be giving them away so freely?

Surely if it is “Wien” then that is what the whole world should call it? There are plenty of other cities that suffer this same challenge. I do not mean mispronunciations like Americanised “MelbORne” or “UStralia” I mean changing the name to something similar but completely different.

Also why do Europeans change their computer keyboards, swapping the positions of the “z” and the “y”? Perhaps they are just getting us back for the whole Vienna/Wien debarcle.

Oh the humaitz!

A Right Royal Pain

My grandmother describes cold weather movement similes; most frequently nippy or brisk. If that is the case then Austrian winters are like an Olympic sprinter. Gloves designed for Australian winters are only suitable for indoors when visiting the Continent. Australian beanies are no better.

It is so cold in Austrian winters, and as I will discover later on my journeys in other areas of Europe, that I would not be at all surprised if maternity wards at the end of each summer/beginning Autumns were closed.

The weather causes a lot of shrinkage, even inside thermals. Getting ready for a shower I scared myself when catching a glimpse of my mangina in the mirror. Most alarming was that I had not tucked anything between my legs! How a man stays “upright” in such chilled conditions is unimaginable – even having seen the beauty of their women?

It could be argued that sex is of course a great way to keep warm in such extreme conditions. Exercise and sharing body warmth are both proven ways of staving off the cold. Emperor Joseph proved this to be true siring eleven children.

Making this reproductive feat all the more impressive his wife was originally his cousin and she did not love him. Throughout the duration of their marriage his wife acquired her own apartment within the palace, earned her own income and spent her life travelling abroad leaving the Emperor to hear of her whereabouts through the press.

Despite his own intestinal marriage - traditionally the way of English royalty and Tasmanians the Austrian Empire expanded its territories through marriages not war. Maria Antionette, wife of Napolean was the favourite daughter of Joseph. Of course she did not enjoy the same favour in France where she was ultimately beheaded. This marriage did not acquire new land for Austria it did however prevent losing some land.

Other marriages expanded the Austrian borders into Hungary and Bulgaria and saw it gain favour with the British Empire. Whilst Joseph was busy earning the favours with the marriages of his children the Empress was gaining favour of her own, mainly with Bulgarian aristocracy and royals. The death of one Bulgarian prince reportedly caused her much personal grief. Now if only New Idea was in existence then to record the lurid details and saucy photographs of their affair.

The Austrian Imperial family, in its history also played a part in bringing down the Roman Empire, a marriage here a divorce there. Either way you know the Romans blamed it on the in-laws.

Mozart played for the Empress in her private suite, her court, within Schloss Schönbrunn. A grand palace which once housed over 1600 people with opulent interior design and extensive grounds including Europe’s first zoo and a guard tower from which one can see all of Vienna.

Mozart first performed to the royal court at the age of six. At the age of six I had not yet mastered the building of a Lego car good enough to show my own mother let alone compose and perform arias to royal houses.

Embarrassingly I injured my foot within the palace. The balls of the big and little toes on both feet, nothing specific just general soreness and tenderness. Just from walking around the palace and its grounds. Not even extreme power walking, more of a meandering wander. In the last four years I have trekked the Namibian desert and South African savannah and climbed the Inca trail in Peru. I do not own a car so travel everywhere within my home city on foot, all without incident. I spend a lazy afternoon strolling through a palace and am left lame for days.

Roommates

Throughout my holiday I had more than one moment of concern about my own levels of personal hygiene. In the first 48 hours of arriving in Austria I had five different roommates. One of those only shared the room for six hours.

Is there something people are not telling me? Do I have spinach in between my teeth? Do I have BO?

Talking of which I did share with one Iranian man who did suffer from the worst BO I have ever experienced. It hung in the air like ash from an Icelandic volcano and caused just as much disruption.

This man’s BO you could tell when he was in the room from the moment you walked through the front door of the hostel. Despite the fact our room was on the second floor right at the end of the corridor, it was easily detectable. Over the aromas emanating fro the kitchen. Over the stench of stale cigarette smoke from the smokers pit in the foyer. Over the combination of sweat, hormones and cheap deodorant worn by the teenagers on school based ski camps. This man’s offensive perfume was detectable throughout the three storey four winged hostel.

His perfume was a mix of four ingredients; sweat, feet, halitosis and faeces.

I should not complain too much as his BO did have two positive effects. Firstly it successfully replaced my with a feeling of constant nausea, so although not pleasant it was effective in helping me lose a little weight. Secondly as a long time insomniac the gaseous emissions did knock me out. Cold.

I wonder if this is what the coalition of the willing meant when they talked about WMDs? Whiffs of mass destruction.

The other recurring problem I had throughout my vacation was snoring. The antidote to the slumbering affect of BO snoring can keep one awake for hours.

The worst snorer I came a cross was in St Moritz. It was a noise that sounded as though he had inhaled some of his bedding and piece of linen was still stuck in his throat. Ironic considering my head was full of thoughts of forcing the entire duna/quilt/duvet down his throat. I tried making loud noises. I tried lobbing items at his person I even resorted to yelling, all in a vain attempt to wake him up slightly to break the snoring pattern.

It worked to a point. He did wake up slightly and he did roll over. Unfortunately he snored equally loudly whether he be on his back, side or stomach.

I barely survived one night with the one man freight train, asking to swap rooms for the following night. The hostel staff obliged, without telling me the jack-hammer was departing that day. I readily changed room leaving my one snoring companion forever behind me only to move into a room with three snorers.

Interestingly they operated like a gang of schoolyard bullies. The leader snored, and as if in an attempt to intimidate their victim, (me) the other two echoed the snore of their captain. Bullies get their sense of power from the cowering of their chosen victim. Research has shown that if people stand up to the bully there may be an initial elevation in the violence but it soon subsides and the bullying ceases as the leader loses their sense of power.
I did yell and raise the ire of the lead snorer as I woke him. After a few cross words and what I can only assume were profanities – it is very hard to maintain a verbal argument whilst laying horizontal in bunk beds on opposite sides of a darkened room when the two protagonists speak different languages. It worked though. He stopped snoring and very soon after the exhaling rumblings of his stooges also ceased.

Stories and Silliness from the Snow - Back to the future

Travelling from Australia is unusual in as much that to get to most destinations a traveller must travel back in time. Travel west and the time travel is incremental usually in one hour blocks. Even Perth finds itself up to three hours in the past compared to the cities on the east coast. Travel east and not soon after New Zealand and suddenly a traveller loses an entire day as the international dateline is crossed.

On a previous holiday time stood still when I had three flights from three different countries and they all departed at 3pm on the same day. Don’t worry about jetlag, this sort of experience does your head in. Coming back to Australia from the east is no better as a 24hour flight takes up to 48hours by the clock. Coming back across the dateline and a n entire day just completely disappears.

In both examples I am left with the worrying philosophical dilemma “did I actually exist”. If I completely missed a day am I really one day younger. If I take off at 3pm arrive at 1pm on the same day did I have a “Groundhog Day” moment? Did I get a do-over? If a plane lands before it takes off did it ever fly at all?

I suggest this problem of the time-space continuum should be investigated more thoroughly, particularly as part of any carbon emissions debate. If the plane never really flew then it never really emitted any carbon.

On the upside, for business people with poor time management taking a flight to Perth every once in a while is a creative way of getting an extra few hours into your dairy to finish a task or two.

If travel was a classroom, then travelling west is like a teacher who gives you a few extra minutes to finish the page of maths, only to take the time away again (travelling back east) by keeping you in at lunchtime.

Travelling east is more like when the whole class does not understand the concept as so the teacher decides to start over from the very beginning – just before surprising the class with a surprise Saturday detention. Your weekend inexplicably disappears.

Stories and Silliness from the Snow - Lost!

I do not have good sense of direction at the best of times. Put me in a region where all of the signs are in German, in cities I have never seen before where the traffic is all on the wrong side of the road and I am hopeless. Agreed if the language on the signs is the same as the language on the map then it should not matter. It does.

I spent weeks going the opposite direction than intended. Every time.

In Vienna I visited Zentral Friedhof (Central Cemetery). It has a lot of Jewish graves and a lot of graves in general. It is a dauntingly large cemetery. Big enough that graves are themed, by religion, profession, birthplace. It is big enough to warrant three tram stops all on the same route to cover the distance between the different sections.

On the same day having visited the cemetery I planned to have lunch at Schilzelwirt Schmidt, home of the worlds best schnitzel, before visiting Mozarthaus.

Due to my poor sense of direction on this particular day I also had unscheduled viewings of
• St Stephen’s Cathedral
• Imperial Palace
• Spanish Riding School (twice)
• Museum of Fine Arts
• Folks Garden
• Austrian and European Union government offices

Having accidentally seen these places whilst in transit did not do anything to increase my ability to find them again when it came time to tour these places of interest.

For the record

Schilzelwirt Schmidt: truly delectable schnitzels. Mammoth portions, my meal included three full sized schnitzels, 7 full potatoes, layers of ham and cheese and enough cheese sauce to drown a small child. My heart and stomach hated it but my taste buds were in Bavarian heaven. Yes that was all one serve. This meal also commenced my stomachs preparation for the portion sizes of America, which were yet to come.

Mozarthaus: this building was definitely owned by and lived in by Mozart and his family for two and a half years. After this fact the rest of the museum and tour is based on conjecture, rumour and hearsay. The “facts” presented in Mozarthaus is based on out-of-context quotes from letters and journals. Any furnishings in the house were replicas, merely representing the furniture of the era. Not even the furniture Mozart actually owned but merely representative of the type of furniture he might have owned. The museum could not even say with certainty which room was which. “This room is likely to have been used as a bedroom.” In reality this museum is simply an inner city apartment with Mozart’s name on the sign hanging on the front door and a CD of his music playing in what may have been the room he wrote his music. This experience cost Euro4.50. I tried paying with replica money, representative on the money a tourist might actually use.

Europe - people are dying to get in

Living in backpackers is a great way to meet interesting people. Interesting because of their countries of origins, interesting because of their holiday plans – past, present and future, interesting because of their smell (more about this in later blogs) and interesting because of their jobs – past present and future.

Staying at Hotel Hütteldorf in Vienna Austria I shared with an Austrian male who was currently unemployed and homeless – and yes unfortunately the later is as a result of the former condition.
He was travelling throughout Europe searching for gainful employment in his field of speciality.

Cemetery design. In his words “he brings energy to the holes”. Ignoring the obvious and disturbing connections to German defecation porn or the more disturbing possibility of necrophilia I think it means he designed crypts and mausoleums.

I was surprised he was unemployed as despite all of the advances in medical science and downturns in economies people continue to die. In Europe where there are so many people squashed into every decreasing amount of spaces I would have thought the need for effective and space efficient disposal of corpses would be at a premium.

Apparently the global financial crisis means that although the people are still dying leaving their relatives in need for appropriate holes, they can no longer afford holes that are energetic.

Stories and Silliness from the Snow - Time To Go

My holiday almost started with a bang, literally. At Southern Cross Station to board the airport shuttle for my 11.30pm flight a 77 year old American was threatening to shoot out the tyres of the bus.

He had arrived just as the previous bus was pulling out and obviously could not wait the ten minutes till the next one and having seen episodes of Airline thought it imperative that he make a scene.

What was more surprising than his outburst was his surprise that the staff at a major transport hub serving Australia’s second biggest international airport would become quite anxious and aggressive toward a passenger threatening to shoot live ammunition. He could not believe they would even consider calling the police and banning him from travelling on the next bus.

If anyone should know about how over-the-top airport security can get it should be an American.

They did not ban him and I had the dubious honour of sitting next to him to the airport where he retold his story, proudly though still dumbfounded at the staff reaction. Thankfully our shared journey would end at Melbourne airport as he was on route to Hobart, Tasmania. Not that he had purchased a ticket. This late at night his chances of there being a flight to Hobart was slim at best, let alone there still being tickets available. I can only wonder what his reaction would have been if ticketing staff told him he had to wait until the next flight which would be not in 10 minutes time but the following morning.

I enjoy flying. As a former insomniac I have used long-haul flights to catch up on new and recently released movies. However I am over the worst of this debilitating condition, which meant I got to see the first 20-30 minutes of the new and recently released movies. Or maybe I am just getting old. Dad has only ever seen the first 20-30 minutes of every movie he has seen for more than 30 years. My Dad has never struggled from lack of sleep. He can dose off standing up or mid conversation – when he is the one talking!

When an aeroplane serves cereal, juice and fresh cubed fruit for breakfast why do they give you salt, pepper, knife and fork.

Arriving in Hong Kong I was confronted by numerous Honk Kongians/Hong Kongansese/Honk Kongisians/Hong Kongish with face-masks that have been shown to not only not reduce the risk of infection but actually increase the chance of infection as they create a warm moist environment for viruses to breed close to the nose and mouth. I was also confronted by urinals that either prove the rumours are false – Asian men are in reality very well endowed – or that the rumours are true – Asians are short.

The urinals were so low to the ground I had to check I had actually walked into the adult amenities. As it turns out the urinals were the perfect height for me, and I am 182cm tall!

Two more things about the Hong Kong Airport. The warnings about keeping bags in view are authorised by the Hong Kong Police Crime Prevention Authority. This only raises concerns about how serious police corruption in this country is if they have had to create an authority of police crime.

The other thing was I wanted to buy a fridge magnet just to prove I had been in the country. Such tacky items are not available from the international airport though. There was no room for a souvenir stand in amongst Versace, Armani, Hugo Boss and Prada. Ironic really that a province of China – home of the tacky souvenirs sold in every other country – does not have souvenirs of its own.

Boarding my flight to Finland I was concerned about the three children under the age of 5 sitting in the row in front of me and two others in the row behind me. I need not have worried though. The drunk guy who fought loudly with his girlfriend throughout the entire 10hour flight, broken only by him calling out to his equally drunk mates eight rows back made the perfect distraction from the gurgling and chatter of the children..

Helsinki airport offers overpriced souvenirs and regular height urinals to its travellers.

Thirtyfour hours, three flights, 4 lunches, 2 dinners, 1 breakfast, 2 buses, 1 train 3km of walking, a gun wielding American 3 kids and a drunken domestic later I arrived in my first destination