Signing Off-- Or Am I?

So this will (sniffle, whimper) be my last post from Europe-- at least for a while.

Zak and I are back at the hostel we originally stayed at in Vienna. That gives the trip a nice sense of closure-- we have come full circle and are back to familiar digs. We are old hands at Vienna, barely even tourists anymore.

I think that the length of the trip has been great-- we have both seen a lot and we are both quite tired (my feet are a sort of medical textbook illustration for blistering and his bum hip is really starting to ache him-- what a bunch of old farts we are!) We are seriously ready to vegitate for a little while before going on to the next adventures.

A brief rundown of the past two days-- we had an absurdly long trip from Prague to Vienna which involved a missed train, some really unhelpful Czech ticket agents, and a couple of old ex-Nazis who we were seated next to. I don't know for sure about the last thing-- but they definitely had the feel of a couple who met at a camp guard reunion (do you suppose they have such things?)

Once we got here, we walked downtown and had a nice amble through the main drag of Vienna and the very pretty State Park. Shabbat starts very late in this Northern part of the world-- so we scored dinner right as it started getting twilighty. Zak insisted on a final Sacher torte afterwards-- so he ordered and paid, but I admit that I did help myself to some ample sharing.

Today was slow and nice. We got up quite late and wandered over to National Fine Arts Museum, which is incredible. Especially impressive were their Egytian relics and Greco-Roman sculpture-- but they also had some great paintings and other things. Afterwards we relaxed in the Hofburg Palace rose garden. Zak took a nap under a big tree and I wandered around and literally smelled the roses.

We got very unsatisfying falafel for a late dinner tonight and talked a little bit about how the trip went. Zak and I agree that it was a very good time and that, on the whole, we did very well with each other. We have seen many dysfunctional travel pairs in our hostels and it is nice to know that my brother and I can travel together without too much stress.

My flight leaves tomorrow at 7:20 AM and the airport is a ways out of the city. I am trying to decide now if it is even worth going to sleep-- just to get up in another four hours to leave for the airport. Argh.

While this is an end to this phase in the blog, I fully intend to keep writing. I am really quite amazed that anyone at all is reading this-- but if you poor schmegges have nothing better to do than to read my disjointed thoughts-- who am I to deny you? Seriously, I do hope to keep writing, so please do me the honor of checking in every once in a while.

For those in LA or Long Beach for the next week, I would love to see you. Please give a call.

Much Love,
adam