Travelling Hopefully

If there are two visuals I will take away from both Prague and Berlin they will be crutches and dogs.  Every second person seems to be hobbling around with the aid of at least one and sometimes two crutches.  One can't help wondering if central Europe has a terrible outbreak of foot disease.  In between the cripples dogs wander in and out.  Lots of people have dogs and they take them everywhere; trains, restaurants, supermarkets, you name it.  The only place I saw dogshit on the streets however was Luxembourg where the canine presence was much less ubiquitous.

Prague has no end of cafes, restaurants and nightspots.  Sheer curiosity almost tempted me to enter one place which offered something called "Techno House Jungle Rap".  However they severely damaged their techno house jungle rap credentials in my eyes by naming the place "Disco Duck".  I went elsewhere.

At the entrance to Prague railway station I was accosted by three Slovakians all of whom tried to sell me aftershave and one of whom also tried to sell me women (in his defence I'm pretty sure he was only offering to rent the women).  I can only assume the women he had access to liked a man who smelled nice.  Deeply offended by the implication that these women (who were nowhere in evidence) would reject me on the basis of my odour I refused their kind offer twenty or thirty times and fought my way inside.

Leaving Prague I shared my compartment with a young honeymoon couple from Mexico and an elderly couple from Argentina who proceeded to barricade us into the compartment with their luggage.  Fortunately we didn't have to evacuate the train in a hurry.  The other two couples chatted happily away in Spanish, occasionally breaking into English for my benefit.  Once again I felt like an ill educated slob for being monolingual.  Even the panhandling perfume pimps at the station had spoken English.

Prague is behind me now and Vienna beckons.  Much thanks to Nigel who was my host and a damned good one.  Rolling through the beautiful Czech countryside we slid into Brno which appeared shabby, gritty and industrial although I will confess that the window of a train carriage probably isn't the best vantage point for a fair description.  All I really know about Brno is that it is the birthplace of the eponymous bren gun.  The Czech role in the Second World War seems to have involved designing a lot of high quality military equipment which was used by other people after Czechoslovakia itself was occupied.

Late Sunday afternoon is not the best time to arrive in Vienna.  Much of it appeared closed.  On the plus side I only got a little bit lost on my way to my accomodation and only had to make one panic stricken phone call to my hosts asking where on earth they were.  Eventually I arrived and climbed the 105 steps to my cosy little room.  In fairness my hosts did warn me about the steps in their airbnb guide so I have no reason to complain.  I do wonder what my host Stefan was thinking as he attempted to explain about the room while I lay on the floor gasping like a landed fish with black dots dancing before my eyes.  Eventually I decided not to have a heart attack and prepared to take on Vienna the next day.