Vienna – maybe solitude is a good thing?

After three solid days of not talking in Cesky Krumlov, I headed to Vienna, where I got my own room in some hostel near the train station. Decent place, and by now this hostel thing is becoming surprisingly palatable. Vienna is enormous, and the train station is a solid thirty-minute walk away from the Ring. I’ve got a lot of walking ahead of me.

After a day or so of walking around and taking in the utter brilliance of the architecsture, along with the window-shopping in the first town I’d been in worth doing so, I was desperate for some human interaction. I got some. A lot of it.

I head back to my room on the first night, where in the common kitchen, a 30ish year-old Spanish girl is sitting down. She jumps right in:

“Where you from?”

Understand, this is THE most cliché of all questions amongst travelers. It’s been only two months of this round-the-world (or RTW*) traveling for me, and I already can’t stand the utter gasp of that sentence any longer. I have no idea how I’ll feel six months from now, but I’m guessing I’ll find my inspiration somewhere in Vienna (the Leopold, perhaps – see below).

It turns out, she is a school teacher from…. Washington fucking Heights. Another New Yorker. This would be fine, if she weren’t launching self-gratifying diatribes in my direction at three times the speed of sound. In record time, she covers subjects ranging from her job, to having kids, to why she’s still single, to her relationship with her parents, to why she studied art, and her completely uninformed idea of the mechanics of currency fluctuation. By this point, I am TERRIFIED that I’ll be paired up with this broad for the next two days. I’d been listening to her for twenty minutes, and I’m already doing calculations in my head:

“Ok. It’s 10:30. Tomorrow, if I eat dinner around 6:30, I can be done by around 8, and be back here and out again by about 9.”

I would rather dissolve my genitals in sulfuric acid before I deal with this chick for another ten minutes.

She fires more words at me over the course of about nine minutes fifty-five seconds. Having exhibited far more than any saint’s patience, I turn around and walk towards my door – mid-sentence – offering nothing more than a grunt and a half-hearted hand wave. And she wonders why she’s still single…

Those who know me well, and even many of those who don’t, (I hope, at least by now) realize that I have an overwhelming appreciation for time to myself. Never has that been truer than after having being browbeaten by this random New Yorker in Vienna.

Beyond that, I had the best rack of ribs I’d ever had outside the state of Texas and a few select places in Manhattan (Smoked, you’ll always have a special place in my heart [insert genuflect here]). I was almost as surprised at how good they were, as I was that I ordered it in the first place. Then again, there is only so much schnitzel one man can eat before he finally reaches the conclusion that it all pretty much tastes the same. Which it does, by the way. I get the sense that women probably feel the same way about the penis. In fact, from this point forward, I’m basting my cock daily with a thin layer of Salt Lick sauce.

I also went to a number of museums, one of which (the Leopold) had an entire floor devoted to a guy who I can only assume was the creative consultant for Hostel, if it weren’t for his subtle (invisible?) artistry. For example, there was a delightful video of him sitting in the front of an art lecturer’s classroom; defecating himself and rubbing it all over his body. I gave it a 3 out of 5 wipes. Could have been a 4 wiper, but the director didn’t really have a lot of control over the gagging extras seated in the first few rows. (Actually, I guess a 1-wiper would be a primo flick. But you get the point.)

Next, there was a lovely video of him cutting himself with a knife while tossing his body around on a white sheet. Methinks he could have cut out the middleman (ZING!! Puns!!!!) and instead just stolen the Red Tent linens. I solve problems.

There was another enchanting “exhibit” consisting of a wall full of deformed baby pictures, juxtaposed with pictures of real people making retarded faces. This was one of those moments I have when I think to myself: I could have done that… SOOOO much better.

Like, why stop there? What about putting a picture of a lady during childbirth, right next to a picture of the same lady three hours after she eats a plate of hot wings and a double espresso? Or, what about a picture of Al Reynolds biting into a raw lemon, next to a picture of Al Reynolds five seconds after he goes down on Star Jones? See? I can totally kick ass at modern art.

On the upside, if you want to know some really cool modern artists that I saw there, I’d recommend googling Egon Schiele or Koloman Moser. I know everyone goes cuckoo for Klimt, and his stuff was great and all, but Shiele stole the show for me. Moser’s most impressive work was his furniture designs, though frankly, by that point I was probably a bit predisposed to loving anything that avoided all things self-mutilating.

I understand that I talk about self-mutilation quite a bit. But I assure you… when the day finally comes when I do bludgeon myself to death with the blunt end of a torpedo shell, I’ll have the common decency not to film it.

I'll get pictures for Vienna up soon. But it may take a couple weeks. Hang in there, desk dwellers...

*(backpacker shorthand for Round The World, which I find completely nauseating. I mean, you can take the time to actually go around the fucking world, but you can’t take the time to write it out?? Fuck you; you’re a dick.)