9.1.03

Thought you'd like to know how well I travelled from the UK to Bosnia ... it took me 30 hours and a horse and trap could have got me here quicker! I left home half an hour earlier than I did for my previous flight out here and arrived at Heathrow an hour earlier than I did on that trip. The M4/M40/M25 tangle of motorways near Heathrow is a nightmare most times and it is scary how many cars are using it: note, though, that I surveyed those cars this time and the vast majority of them have only the driver in them ... the core of any transport policy in the UK has either to accept or reject the freedom of people to travel alone in their cars. Anyway, checked in within one minute and then immediately found that the flight had been delayed by half an hour (at Heathrow they said it was because of the bad weather there but the Captain said the delay was due to bad weather at Vienna!). We took off an hour and ten minutes late and, unlike last time, arrived at Vienna too late to make the connecting flight. Ended up in a huge queue of flight missers from all over the world and was given the choice of waiting for the Sarajevo flight the following day or taking an earlier flight to Munich and then Sarajevo the following day: I chose the latter as a forward moving person who hates hanging around. I was put up at the Penta Hotel in central Vienna and was reasonably content with the room but the meal voucher entitled me to a meat rich meal with no veggie alternative. I told them that people like me exist who aren't desperate to eat dead cow and pig muscle! I decided that I would take the opportunity for a walk around Vienna and would snap away for all to wonder at. Well, I would have had I not left the hotel and taken a right turn instead of the far more appropriate left turn! There was a strong and bitterly cold wind blowing and after half an hour of seeing almost nothing I turned back. Here endeth anything in the slightest bit interesting about Vienna. I took some photos in spite of everything just to say I was there! DW

No comments: