It first confused me looking at my ticket. Even way back when I booked it, although the name didn’t make sense to me, I assumed the ticket lady gave me the right one. Apparently, if you book a train to Vienna, the main station was named Wien Meidling. That was something I’ve never understood why. And usually, I’d think Meidling would be the middle station and HBF would be the main. However, I later found out that it was treated as the main train station in Vienna. Go figure.
I arrived in Vienna around 8:30 pm. I rushed off to the Metro and got on the metro to my hostel. Jack’s Hostel was conveniently located right beside the train station, so that was a good thing. The hostel itself though wasn’t impressive, but it was cheapest I could find in Vienna, so I didn’t complain. I was booked in room 1 which was right beside the reception, i.e. right beside the main street too, so imagine the noise. I quickly changed, checked my email to make sure I had the right instructions from Lieven, then head off for the 20-minute walk to Ratahaus.
I first met Lieven back in 2011, when I joined a group for the ultimate outback experience. He was there for the shortest duration of the trip enroute to his ultimate destination >> Mongolia. Photography has been one of his passions, thus the trips to places and capturing different events. He didn’t get join us for camping, but the quick discussions we shared was enough to keep us in contact even after the trip. I guess technology has a big thing to do with it due to the fact that facebook was the main means of communication. I did make a short video of my outback trip and sent it to everyone I met on that trip.
It so happened that when I posted a farewell note when I left Brussels that I got a message from Lieven that he just arrived in Belgium. By the time I had it on facebook, I was well on my way to Germany. But we were able to exchange schedules and realized that we could work out an overlap in Vienna, before he flew back to the US.
We agreed to meet at the Ratahaus around 9-ish pm coz I wasn’t really sure how my train travel was. Good thing everything worked out fine, so I was able to rush off to meet him up within the specified time frame. He already checked out the place a day before, and described to me the place where we could meet. I found it fitting that we met at the Australian food stall, which was his option coz apparently he hasn’t tried eating Kangaroo. It was the big Film Festival in Vienna, so it was very busy with people around and food stalls to quench their thirst and feed the hungry tummies.
Lieven was already there waiting when I got to the food stall. I hugged him and asked if he was waiting too long. He said it was okay, he rushed off from the hotel as soon as he got my email that I’ve arrived in Vienna. He bought me dinner and also tried the Kangaroo meat. We were lucky enough to find a table coz it was really packed when we arrived. I’d say besides the fact that it was a film festival, it was also a Friday night.
It was really nice to meetup and catchup with Lieven, different from just chatting on facebook and exchanging ideas on photography or even travels. He gave me some photography tips too and showed me his heavy duty camera. Whoa! Time just passed by so quick as we chatted through the night. We noticed that almost everyone was gone and some of the stalls were closing for the night. By the time we left the place it was past midnight.
We walked the streets of Vienna and I already observed that it was clean and quiet, no drunk people around at all. Lieven walked with me till the closest station to my place. I realized earlier that my hostel was located 2 doors away from a strip/whore house. It made me wonder if it was actually the red district area. Lieven wasn’t really sure how safe the place was either, but, yeah, he was really security conscious too.
I said goodbye to him and made sure he knew which station he had to get off. Some guys were staring at me when we passed by a bar, I gave them a bad look … I hated it when men stared. But that didn’t scare me at all, I confidently walked back to my hostel on my own.
By the time I got back to the hostel, it was around half past 1 in the morning. Majority of the people in the room were back. But around 3 am, someone just noisily arrived, groaned, opened the window, changed, then got into bed. He didn’t smell like alcohol so I was feeling okay. I was the only girl in the room so my first instinct is to check if my roomies were okay. Else, I’d request a transfer.
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