I went to/ through Vienna again on the way to the shows in Switzerland. It was somehow cheaper than flying to Zurich...
Got to give the ice cream salon that I missed in June/ July a try too.
And then immediately promised myself I'm never ever having ice cream on the street where people can see me again after an idiotic comment said just loud enough so I could hear it.
Went to Stadtpark, which was still lovely. I'm a brokeass and parks are an attraction that costs no money, you know...
There were zinnias.
And some kind of yellow iris flowers.
Lots of pigeons, some inquisitive, some preferring to just laze in the sun.
And these kind of yellow-bellied sparrow-sized-but-perhaps-slightly-smaller tiny birds (tits?), eating some kind of red fruit. They're so tiny and light they look like leaves falling when they drop from the trees down on the ground. Tiny and fast also means impossible to get a single decent photo of for me...
Edit: yes, they are called "great tits" - a lot of the search results when looking that up tend to be... um... rather unfortunate, but
these are the birds!
Stayed at the same hotel with a Danube view where I also stayed after the Kreator tour in 2018. It was a lot warmer this time and there were so, so many people with boats on the river!
The next day, I left my backpack at the hotel and went to the Schönbrunn gardens. The
palace looks kinda meh from the outside and I didn't have money to spend on visiting the inside, so I just walked through the huge park/ gardens around it. Btw, the red with white in the middle flower beds are meant to represent the
Austrian flag.
There are so many squirrels! Black ones, red ones... many! The fuckers are also tiny and fast and I only have a camera I got second hand over a decade ago, no optical zoom, so good luck getting any decent photo. But there's so many of them! And they seem to be all set for winter.
If you have any kind of nuts, they're not shy, they'll come, inspect you...
Dart, grab, run away with the loot and bury it...
Apparently, they fail to retrieve a lot of what they bury, so they always hoard more than what they need. On the bright side, trees may come out of what they bury...
They're so fluffy and light...
There's a Japanese garden
And a rose garden. Best days this year behind, but there are still quite a few beautiful flowers.
Retrieved my backpack from the hotel and took the train, same train I took last year. Only this time I went all the way to the end in Zurich, didn't get off in Innsbruck. There are lots of mountains on the way through Austria and Switzerland. Lots of lovely views. It's just that I had ran out of space on my card, out of camera battery and for some reason, recharging it on the train didn't work. So you'll have to trust me I passed through
some very pretty places.
ÖBB (Austrian rail) had spammed me with about a dozen emails about how due to construction work, the train would have to be deviated through
Zell am See and delays of up to 92 minutes were possible.
Not 90, 92!
Well... I had no direct train to Pratteln. My best option involved 2 changes because there's no direct option from Zurich to Pratteln either. Pratteln is a small satellite town next to Basel, which borders both France (to the north-west) and Germany (to the north-east). Parts of the Basel metropolitan area (if you can call it so) are in France and Germany, so they basically have a three country local transport system.
Anyway, when I booked my trip, I saw the option of getting a point-to-point ticket from Zurich to Pratteln, which would be valid for 24 hours, until the next morning. Since I didn't trust a train on such a long distance to be very punctual even before it started raining emails from ÖBB, I went for the point-to-point ticket. Some 7 euro more expensive than the option tied to a specific train, which made it more expensive in total than the ticket from Vienna to Zurich (covering a distance 10 times longer)... but it turned out to be the right choice.
The train wasn't delayed by 92 minutes. Or by 90. It arrived in Zurich with a delay that was exactly 4 minutes. I like how they threw the worst case scenario at me only to pleasantly surprise me later. It was even funnier how the Italian-Swiss dude sitting across from me was grumpy about this unacceptable delay of 4 minutes.
If only he had been on the train I took from Vienna back to Romania a couple of months ago. You know, the one that left with the carriages in the wrong order, ran over a drunk dude, left with the border guards and had to return them (this has to be the most Benny Hill moment I have ever lived... their expressions when it hit them the train was moving) and then needed three hours for the final 100 km...
If I had been familiar with the train station in Zurich, I could have just dashed through to catch the train leaving in 6 minutes. But I wasn't. It took me a few minutes to find the info office, then even more waiting in line to get to the desk. At least the old guy there was very sweet and helpful, looked at my route and found me the best route. And also told me something I didn't know: I cannot "overshoot" my destination with a point-to-point ticket. You see, if I look online for how to get from Zurich to Pratteln, it also gives me options that look like this: intercity train to Basel, then a suburban train to Pratteln. Buuut... Basel is to the west of Pratteln, Zurich is to the east. A point-to-point ticket from Zurich to Pratteln does not cover going west of Pratteln, even if there's no way to stop in Pratteln on that route. Good to know!
Anyway, I got to Pratteln. With nothing to do for a couple of hours, I went to the Media Markt I had seen on the map in between the train station and the hotel. Leaving aside that when entering, Vodafone would send me the first of the many confused and annoying messages welcoming me to either Germany or Switzerland (the street the hotel is on goes along the Rhine, which forms the natural border with Germany and I guess phone operators get confused about what country you're really in, even when you never cross the border), it was a disappointing visit. The music selection was... very slim and expensive compared to Germany.
Buuut... going there, I happened to notice a shopping complex next to it. With free toilets and free wifi. And functional power outlets! And comfortable couches for your ass to sit on while you surf the internet and charge your devices. Not tied to buying anything!
And a supermarket, though this country is fucking expensive. It's true that if you take income into account, it is cheaper than Romania, but fucking Hell... for me it's really expensive. Especially stuff like fruit. I've never bought fruit in Switzerland or Scandinavia, just couldn't bring myself to spend that much.
One thing that's not expensive, not even in absolute terms... is chocolate! And there's a chocolate factory nearby, with
a store with a cute cow at the entrance. You can find ridiculously good deals there. Like organic 100g bars, one Swiss franc each, not tied to buying more or anything. That's cheaper than a Heidi bar in Romania and Heidi bars aren't as nice!
(
Heidi are a Swiss-religious-kookoo-owned Romanian brand with a factory located in one of the most dubious parts of the Bucharest area. The one Romanian brand I've seen in all countries I've been to. Including half way around the world in the southern hemisphere.)
Anyway, I got stuff...
(I had been wanting to try that Lindt bar for about three years and now I finally found it for under two Swiss francs!
)
The chocolate factory is in between the hotel and Media Markt/ the venue/ the shopping complex/ the train station, so I would pass by quite a few times on the way to/ from the hotel. It was the first time in my life walking on the street and air just smelling like chocolate. On the first occasion I was all "kill me, don't torture me like this", but by the end of my stay, I found that chocolate smell quite relaxing...
Since the venue was really close to the shopping complex/ Media Markt, I went there before going to check in. Battle Beast were already there. They had done laundry - washed their clothes and hanged them out to dry on the venue fence while they were sunbathing... ah, glamorous tour life! While the weather in Vienna was just very pleasant, Pratteln was pretty hot, some 30°C and very sunny throughout my entire stay. And I had arrived there with a jacket, which I was going to need for the last part of my trip (Ireland), so I was all sweaty and stinky by the time I got to the hotel.
I had picked the hotel strictly because it was the only place in Pratteln at under 100 per night, but it turned out to be absolutely lovely. They had lovely, thick geraniums at the windows. It was just as nice, tastefully decorated and cozy on the inside. Room with mini fridge, laptop safe, cosmetic mirror (if only I could be bothered to ever do makeup). The lady at the reception was lovely. Apparently lots of people who stay there choose the place because it's close to the Z7 venue because she had to look a bit through all the tickets they had at the reception before she found the envelope with my name. I wanted the pretty printed tickets, but ticketcorner ask for 35 Swiss francs to delver them to Romania... that's the price of a ticket, ffs! So I had them delivered there.