The Sprint for Vienna - The Unorthodox Route

Sitting here on a train through the alps which might be tied with the Southern France Mediterranean coast ride for Coolest Train Ride I’ve Ever Taken Award. 2^nd place is the Boston T from Reservoir to Gov’t Center while standing sandwiched between Asian tourists and homeless men that smell like mushrooms and cheap wine. But the real story is the fact that we are even on the train. It was the trip that almost wasn’t.

Here’s how it went down:
7 a.m. - Wake up, 4.5 hours of sleep again. Great.
7:58 - Missed the boat (Literally. Missed the 8:57 boat we wanted to take), which is quite necessary in Venice. Decided to get breakfast in Hostel. Out of food. Good start!
8:07 - Caught a slow boat. Marveled at the audacious cruise ship strolling through the main canal. A-holes.

8:45 – Train station arrival. Needed food badly. Ate cheap train station food, which tasted like…cheap train station food.

9:10 – Decided to take our time getting to the bus station which was “out the door and to the right”…about a mile. This would turn out to be one of the worst decisions in travel history.

9:18 – Arrived at said bus station. This was not the correct bus station, unless they have buses that travel 3 hours to an Austrian train station while everyone stands. But we didn’t sign up for that.

9:20 – Panic setting in. Goose left with a face depicting disgust, panic, and confusion simultaneously. Coincidentally, I wore this same face when the French waiter in Narbonne plopped a pile of raw steak down in front of me. Tartarre le Beuoouf (sp?) – never again.

9:22 – Someone probably crying at this point

9:25 – Walked the mile back to the station in defeat. Thoughts of what we were going to do in Venice for another day were creeping in. (Wouldn’t have been all that bad).

9:35 – Reach an info desk and ask how the hell we can get to Vienna now. Saintly woman whipped out her cell phone, called a nearby conductor, hung up and just pointed at a train and screamed something like “RUN YOU STUPID AMERICANS!”

9:35:15 – Dead sprint leaves us sitting on the stairwell of the closest train heading to the next train station where the goal was to catch the bus we were originally intending to catch. The lapse between train arrival and our original bus’s arrival was two minutes – BRING IT.

9:40 – The gameplan was set. Our roles:
Will – the bunny. Left his bag with Tom in order to take off on a frantic sprint to hold the bus.
Andrew – the director, motivational speaker, unnecessary misplaced joke-maker, and Becca’s personal bellboy.

Becca – just run.

Goose – The depressed explorer. The man who had led us from point A to point Z was downtrodden and defeated, yet proceeded on.

Tom – The pack animal. Carrying both Will and his own backpacks at a wild pace was an incredible feat of human strength.

9:42 – Train running late. Bus supposed to leave at 9:40. Will disappears into the crowds, Becca’s D-1 soccer shape still crushes all of us and paved the way, Goose still downtrodden yet remaining hopeful, Andrew barking “S’go, s’go, s’go, s’go!” and Tom just powering through crowds with Will’s body bag on his shoulder.

9:45 – Andrew, cramping, starts picking the knees up, thank you Ultimate Frisbee leftover conditioning shape. Runs into some sort of Eurail prophet helping a clueless Asian lady by the street where the buses should have been. Ripped him away – “Bus 830, WHERE?!” He proceeded to give the most precise directions ever.

9:45:05 – Andrew decides he’s getting to Vienna whether the rest of the group does or not. SEE YAAAA! Proceeded to run at an absolute blistering backpacker pace (probably just looked like a typical out of shape American)

9:45:50 – Target secured

9:45:54 – “VILLACH?!?! IS THIS VILLACH BUS?!” Andrew yells with excessive hand gestures, thinking the lady outside it would not speak English. She did. “Uh, yea. Right here.” Triumphant fists in air.

9:50 – Bus seats secured. All of us completely drenched in sweat which was really comfortable and lovely for those around us.

1:07 – arrival. Next needed to catch a train which, conveniently, was leaving in 5 minutes.
1:11 – Bag retrieval

1:11:10 – sprint for the train track to complete the bus-to-train transfer and reach Vienna when expected.

1:13 - Reached the track we thought the train was arriving at. Tom’s new strategy to just shove a ticket in a Eurail employee’s face and demand “Where?!” proved extremely effective. Wrong track. “NO! Track 5 – two minute! Run!” the employee instructed. And run we did. Again.

1:15 – Reached the train as the conductor blew his whistle and we piled in the doors. Faint setting in. We did it. On to Vienna.


Soon to come: the triple entente of Florence, Venice, and Vienna's Power Rankings.