Fast Times at High Culture Europe

We left Berlin late on Friday. Tony had physio for his leg and much to my impatient chagrin had not packed his bag. We then had to drive across Berlin to pick up Pat and Dave and after circle back to our end of town to hit up with the autobahn. Berlin is not small; it took us a while.
The drive south through Dresden and into the Czech Republic was fun. It was nice to put some distance on the open road between us and Berlin. We got to Prague in about three and a half hours but then got seriously lost. We had ended up taking sort of a wrong turn and thus entered the city on the other side of town, opposite of the map I had drawn to our hostel. Living without a printer over here, I have drawn a lot of maps and written out a lot of mapquest rights and lefts.
Luckily for us we have a teammate who lives in Prague, happened to be in town to try out for the Czech national team, and was nice enough to swing by and lead us on the right path. His name is Latislav, but he goes by LJ, and he is a pretty cool dude who sometimes sports a bleached blonde Mohawk and goat-tee. Very Eastern Euro and I love it.
Prague was all that it is cracked up to be. It gives off a very medieval vibe, but with a lot of American accents. (It has gotten a name in the U.S. as a pretty cool spot and had the highest rate of Yankee tourists I had yet encountered anywhere in Europe. But that was also kind of nice too. We had a great morning and breakfast with two gals from Texas who shared our eight bed co-ed mixed dorm. They study in Innsbruck, Austria and we exchanged mutual invites to our foreign homes.)
We walked around the beautiful city and took in as many sites as we could. The city glowed at night, and it all felt kind of magical. After an absinthe bar and an impromptu visit to a quaint little strip bar (no entry fee thanks to some Tijuana-honed negotiating skills), and a trip to a very sweet dance club we called it a night and stooped back to the hostel to wake up the next morning and drive to Vienna, Austria. (Side note: Vienna is known as Wien in non English and it brings up a good moment to say that I believe countries and cities should be known only by the term in the indigenous language. Germany should remain Deutschland, Munich Munchen, Los Estados Unidos the United States, etc. Thanks)
The drive through Czech to the Austrian border was kept lively by seeing which road sign or town name was the craziest by English language standards. Words that started Jm, ending with zk, words with four consonants in a row, and words that perplexed the pronunciation programming of my Pacific Grove mind. So that was fun. And the Czech scenery and the hour of Austrian scenery were quite nice. I think we saw about ten castles; and we bought some big beers at a gas station for 12 Czech Crowns each, about $.35, so that was fun too.
We got to Vienna and followed signs to the Centrum. The city immediately impressed as we drove by palaces, churches, concert halls (this is the town of Mozart you know) and grand fountains. We parked on one of the side streets off the main drag and began to walk around taking photos and aimlessly trying to find reasonably priced lodging. As we were in the ‘Times Square’ part of town, we found none, and took a group vote deciding to just go strong tonight and crash in the car. It was actually an exciting moment of ‘road trip induced hysteria’.
We brought out the beers and some vodka we had in the car and sat on the steps of a palace and drank and talked for about two hours, watching local Austrians and tourists do the same on the park lawn in front of us. A bunch of people showed up and put a radio down and started Tango dancing to our immediate left which gave us some music to listen to and some upper thigh to look at.
After we were feeling a little bit jolly we continued to ramble around the city, take in the sights, and talk to passersby. Our big find was two Americans playing Cello and singing on the street. They were quite good, and we hung out with them after the police shut down their illegal performance. One had graduated from Yale with a music degree and somehow ended up in Austria and the other did not like the work she was doing on a certain cruise line, and so jumped ship and landed in Vienna. The night ended in the morning and we got a few hours sleep in the car before starting the day’s drive.
I had wanted to continue our excursion another night and stay up in the Alps or at least drive through the Alps and stay in Munich somewhere. (I really do love mountains.) However, I was outvoted by my tired and broke travel companions and we just drove a really long day home to Berlin. But the day was not lost: as Tony, Pat, and Dave slept like babies in the car I drove across pretty much the entire country of Austria and breathed in the beautiful countryside of rolling hills, fields, lakes and mountains. I saw a particularly beautiful mountain lake and village called Mondsee and pulled off the autobahn for a nice stop. It really was a beautiful setting of deep blue-green water against gray rock with clouds and boats and beautiful women. If I had to live on that lake the rest of my life, I think all would be ok in my book.
When we got back into flat Germany after coming in too far North to see the German Alps I got a little depressed and almost told Tony (who was driving at this point) to let me off in Munich and that I would catch a bus or train home on Monday evening. But I did not, and I am left with just the memories and the hope that after the season I will make it to the great mountains...
But, hot damn!, what a great two and a half day excursion-adventure. I give thanks to my travel buddies and all the cool people we met along the way. And to classic old cities and countries that never cease to amaze. JG out.