So I managed to get a stable internet connection in Vienna for long enough to download a copy of Open Office. The power of formatting and fonts are mine! Mwoo-ha-ha! Using my preferred font (Rockwell, which I had to download separately)just feels so much nicer, even though this is going to get pasted into blogger and formatted into whatever font they use (turns out its Georgia). Oh well.
However, it does mean I can continue writing Koala Police Department. I started writing in Cesky Krumlov, but without being able to format the scripts it became a bit hard to keep track of. I've got the plotting done for around four or five more episodes, so I'll be scripting them as I travel, I'm still keen to make more episodes, at least up to episode 12, which will round out the first 'season'. Beyond that, we'll see. At this rate is will take another 6 years to get that far anyway...
Had a good time in Vienna. Its a nice place, a pretty place and yes, an expensive place. The hostel was pretty good though, a decent room and good facilities, a kitchen, lounges, nice courtyard and good enough internet for me to loose a few hours last night to wikipedia...
We went on a 'grape grazing' tour. You jump on a few trains and head out to the Wachau valley. Once there its straight into a winery for very generous 'tastes' of some wines. Then onto some bikes for a ride through the countryside. Then a stop for an awesome BBQ lunch (sausages! Pork chops! more wine!) and a bit of time for a dip in the freezing Danube river. Then more bike riding and a leisurely boat ride back to a quaint little town. We checked out the castle ruins at the top of this murderous hill climb, It was the prison where King Richard the Lionheart was imprisoned... You know, the one who rocks up at the end of Robin hood... Anyway, then you have to take three trains back get back to the city. Thing is, in most of Europe, its totally fine to drink booze on the trains. So we drank ten bottles of wine between the twenty of us on the tour.
After all that drinking we rocked back to town and decided it was a good idea to do a pub crawl. So far every stop theres been an organised pub crawl you can go on. We'd resisted thus far, but after a day of drinking we thought it might be good to chat a bit more to some of the people who we've been on the buses with for almost a month. We'll it was a good idea, but I remember now that I'm old and don't do late night drinking sessions out and about anymore. Anyway, we had to figure out how to catch a bus home at 2 in the morning, which was difficult as the drivers at that time don't speak english or don't want to make it easy for the drunks, so eventually we made it back in a cab, which turned out to be nice actually. Woke up with a hangover, not a severe one, but enough to take me a few hours to recover.
I'm having a good time right now, I was a bit worried that I'd get sick of travelling by this stage. We've still got two months before we're supposed to leave, and after a few more days we're off the bus and on our own. Kind of looking forward to loosing the 'structure' of the busabout coach. Its been fine, and its a pretty good way to get around, but I wouldn't do it again. Theres enough freedom to do what you want, but the pick up and drop off points being hostels mean that you end up staying at their accommodation for atleast one night, unless theres something else in walking distance. Its been a good introduction to Europe, but next time I'd probably do the rail pass thing. Looking forward to Italy, where we are going to make our own way around for a week or two.
More general thoughts on Europe so far:
Smoking. Lots more people seem to smoke, the smell of the smoke doesn't seem to bother me as much. The last rest stop had ashtrays in the toilet cubicles and by all the urinals. Two birds, one stone. Australia seems more progressive with its smoking restrictions, which seems strange that prohibiting something should be seen as progressive.
I miss television, but probably not as much as I thought I would. I'm keen to know what has happened to Jack Bauer (that is not an invitation for anyone to tell me...), really keen to see the rest of the Dollhouse (It got renewed for a second seaon! Awesome!) and kind of curious to see the end of Prison break (god knows why. That last season sucked). And then I think of new things that I must be missing. At least I got to see the end of Battlestar Galactica, I loved that show so much, and really enjoyed the finale
Have been thinking about work. I miss my job, I hope its still there when I get back. When I get back things will definitely have moved on without we there, so it will be interesting what kind of job I'll have when I return. Sometimes I think I'd like to move back to more of a sales role, I'd like to really get the shop floor sorted a bit better. But I think I'll probably have a lot of programming work to do. I imagine there is a three months worth of fix up work to do. There's also going to new toys to play with. I like new toys...
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