Planes, trains & automobiles

Car, plane, train, bus, tram....name a form of transport and we probably used it !! And that is even before you include the ol reliable feet into the equation. Usually day one of any trip is a travel day and by god did we have a travel day! It is only when we arrived at the apartment and thought about it did we realise just how much we had done. We all left home around the 6am mark and didn't reach our final destination until 6pm.

A crash on the M7 put us under time pressure for the airport. It wasn't a blockbuster worthy dash across a packed airport terminal but it was a shorter timeframe than we felt comfortable with given all the dramatics on the news about delays in security. And dramatics it turned out to be as I have never had a smoother journey through security than today. In fact my passport wasn't even looked at until I arrived in Vienna. Gate number on hand we were on a frantic search for tea as there wasn't enough time for a snoop through duty free but tea was essential given our early rise. While the girls went off on a tea expedition I made a quick pitstop to buy an adaptor plug. When the cashier made a throwaway reference to the fact I was flying from T2 I thought he was joking for some reason and answered with a very drawn out 'yeah'. Then with a sudden realisation and a rapid increase in heartbeat I realised that we had somehow made our way to T1!! How was that even possible???? We had followed the signs!! Typical that the one day we had no leeway in regards time we make a mistake that we may not be able to rectify. After two frantic phonecalls to my tea obsessed travel companions who were too busy looking for lids to know that I was having a complete meltdown I managed to find a info screen. In typical Irish organisation we had T2 on our printed boarding passes but for some reason they had decided to fly us out of a gate in T1. Thanks for that stress Dublin airport! It certainly got my heardbeating as my fitbit can attest to. My oblivious companions returned in a tea induced sense of bliss to find me recovering from my ordeal! It was some start to the morning and one way to guarantee that I was awake!!ha

An uneventful flight and extended sleep later we arrived in Vienna. It is one of the most modern airports I have even been in and visually very appealing. I am disappointed to have not taken any photos of it but with bag and baggage there just wasn't much time. Once we arrived in Vienna Ais took complete charge. As the German teacher in the group she is in her element here and we appreciate her language skills. She is adamant that she will teach me German on this trip, we will just have to wait and see!ha

Off we went onto our third mode of transport of the day...the train. We ooohed and aaahed over the flashy trains coming and going on the platform until ours arrived. In typical fashion we got one straight out of the 60s with the only air con the open window. From train to bus we went (all on the same €4 ticket may I add).

The bus left us off near the hotel when we were to collect our key for the apartment. It was suppose to be a 2min walk but with the aid of Google maps we managed to make it 20. We went on a full tour of the four road junction and then decided that we needed to go to the end of one particular street and of course 10mins later we realised we were wrong. Thankfully due to Aislinn's language skills and a good samaratian we realised it was the other end of the street where we should be. Off we went on our merry way and collected our key.

The apartment was a short tram ride away but we decided to have a quick ice cream stop first to recover from all the walking and dragging of suitcases in 30degree heat! The apartment was just around the corner from the tram stop. We had finally reaches our destination!! The final hurdle we had to face was the climb up to the apartment. The claustropia inducing elevator was NOT an option so a million flights of steps it was!!

After some chill time and recovery we headed off out to explore our neighbourhood. We are right on the Danuabe river and around the corner are many restaurants and cafes. A quick first night dinner/delayed celebration of Aislinn's birthday ensued before back home. 10,000 steps later, despite three hours stationary on a plane, means the rest was well deserved!!!Read more