Today, we are to drive to Vienna, Austria. I woke up to find Mrs. Poljanec reading in the kitchen. We started to talk and I gave her a few insights on what I was doing and what I intend to do with my life, professionally. She advised me that it was best to be financially independent as a woman without having to rely too much on others for support. She told me she was happy with her life but she knew how challenging it can get to be a stay at home wife and mother. I concurred with her but also reminded her that being a housewife could potentially be the toughest job in the world and she was doing an excellent job taking such good care of her family. She then wanted to learn how to make tea the Indian way so I decided to demonstrate for her. Curiously enough, the Hindi word for tea, “chai” is pronounced exactly the same as Slovenian “čaj”, which suggests that the two languages have the same roots, namely Sanskrit. For some reason, the milk powder/creamer was not complementary to the Assam tea leaves and the tea did not turn out as good as it should. After Andrej woke up, we did some last minute packing and were ready to leave Ljubljana for our vacation. Andrej’s Mom asked me if she could take a few pictures of me so she could show it to her parents who apparently had appreciation for India, I humbly obliged. I felt sad saying goodbye to her as I had come to grow very fond of her in just four days. Andrej obviously failed to understand why I was feeling that way as he is more or less devoid of emotions and claims to never miss anything or anyone. I thought it unimaginable for a person to be so lacking in sentiment. To me, it was a curious case of contradiction because he does appear to be passionate about certain things such as Math and pole vault but seems nonplussed when it comes to expressing himself or treading on the finer fibers of human emotions.
After loading our bags in the car, we waved goodbye to Mrs. Poljanec and made our journey towards Vienna. One of my biggest apprehensions was motion sickness. Taking into account the amount of driving we were going to do throughout the trip, I must admit I became a bit disheartened fearing I may fall sick in the car and cause undue inconvenience to Andrej. Thankfully, the roads and highways in Europe are in excellent condition, no speed bumps and no pot holes. Such well-maintained roads brought back memories of one of the longest road trips some friends and I took from Iowa to California via Las Vegas and Arizona and how I did not feel an inkling of queasiness despite my doubts of falling sick on the way. Besides the air is free of pollution and dirt, that makes a lot of difference! Also, I quickly got to learn what an experienced driver Andrej is; I never felt uneasiness throughout the trip. We stopped for gas at the Slovenian-Austrian border. The man at the gas station had a very different accent which I detected despite my zero knowledge of the Slovenian language. Such a curious thing, only two million Slovenes and each city has a language of their own due to heavy accents. The journey took about four hours with the distance between Ljubljana and Vienna being 400 KM.
We got stranded in a long traffic jam as we entered Austria. The roads were under construction or so it seemed therefore my first impression of Austria was not a very positive one. When we arrived at the city, we first went to check out Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace. We did not go into the cultural monument but toured its surroundings. It was a bright and sunny day and the place was full of tourists. The garden was not very impressive for a place that appeared to be a popular tourist attraction. We walked a bit ahead toward an uphill location, got to see a panoramic view of the city of Vienna, clicked some photos and headed towards the Schönbrunn Zoo. The Zoo is touted as the world’s oldest and houses some fascinating animals such as hippos, panda, tiger, jaguar and giraffe among many others. We also spotted an ant-eater which Andrej thought resembled a vacuum cleaner! That comparison was one of the most unusual but funniest thing I had ever heard. The last famous zoo I went to was at the Bronx in New York. The differences between Bronx and Schönbrunn were that the animals here barely had tall protective cages around their territory and seemed unassumingly at home, unconcerned with the hoards of children and adult visitors; and this zoo was much more compact in size but more crowded. The most memorable sight for me was a panda looking very much like a stuffed toy and chewing away on bamboo leaves. There were also penguins, Himalayan tahr and monkeys. After the tour, I told Andrej it was hard for me to decide which one of them were more adorable—the cute animals at the park or him. After Schönbrunn, it was time to look around the city center. Vienna was extremely clean and I soon forgot about the relatively bad roads and traffic jam that greeted us earlier as we entered into the Austrian territory. I picked up some souvenirs, walked around a bit more in the city center and the magnificent cathedral, ate our lunch in a fine Viennese McDonald’s, picked up Mozart Kugeln chocolates for my Dad and headed back to the car to drive to Prague.
The journey to Prague took another 4 hours. I felt sleepy every now and then in the car but tried my best to not doze off so I could give company to Andrej. Soon after we entered into Czech Republic, I could see billboards plastered with pictures of semi-naked females and come-hither poses. Andrej informed me that prostitution was legal here and therefore the country had regular visits from men from the neighboring countries. I wondered to myself how he knew so much about these things unless he also frequented these sleazy places as a customer at some point! He told me it’s famous for it in Europe just the way Bangkok is on a larger scale. It took us quite a while to get to Prague but as we got closer and closer to the city, I became more and more overwhelmed with excitement. All I could think to myself was that I would soon be in the city of Franz Kafka and Milan Kundera! We made it to our hotel and were glad to know that the city center in the old town was a few blocks away. We checked into our room that looked cozy and warm. Without further wasting time, we got ready and went downtown. We crossed over a bridge and from a distance the castle and Charles Bridge over the Vltava River were visible. However the lights were not lit so our cameras could not capture a decent shot of the view. We walked through the streets and the place at first seemed quiet and empty. Soon, we were greeted with many revelers and tourists in the wake of the night. Andrej wanted to take me to a beer café to sample some of Prague’s finest brew. Since he always emphasized on how amazing Czech beers were and being a beer lover myself, I was pumped up by the idea. We walked a few more blocks as Andrej had been to the place just once before and had a slight problem recalling the correct direction to the café. He managed to locate the place without taking any wrong turns and soon we were enjoying some delicious sausages and sampling beers. There were so many brews to choose from that I almost went mad from indecisiveness. Finally, we settled for tasting of six different Czech beers. The menu for one of the dark lager read, “dark as sin and tempting as all the good sins out there…” I could tell they were certified good beers but being so used to drinking lighter ones such as Belgian whites and “crappy” American light beers, I had trouble finishing them all. The waiter, Jorge, was extremely friendly and energetic and spoke to us about his intentions to go to America like us, make some money and open a bar such as the one he worked for here in Prague. He became extremely chummy after a while and asked Andrej candidly whether he had a sausage like the humongous ones that were on our plates! We burst out into a thunderous laughter!
We came back to our hotel after a wonderful first evening in Prague. I felt happier than I had ever been in years and looked forward to more awesome times with Andrej in this stunningly beautiful city.
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