The Wachau Valley

We took a day trip on Saturday to the Wachau Valley, Austria's wine region, visiting the cities of Melk, Spitz, Durnstein, and Krems. The day started very early, but not early enough. I hoped to catch the end of World Series game 7, but I was too late. It didn't last into the early morning US time like game 6. Unfortunately, I didn't have Micah to call me to wake me up to watch as he did for game 6. I did catch some of the celebration though on ESPN's coverage, which was cool.

We met Caitlin and Mackenzie (who also works for Dell and just moved to Bratislava) at the tram stop a little after 7 and headed to the train station, where we set off for Vienna. The Wachau is not so simple to get to without a car, so we had to switch train stations in Vienna, take a train to St Polten, and then switch again for the train to Melk. The whole journey took about 3 hours.


Caitlin had promised "mostly sunny" weather and though she tried to convince us all day that the sun was coming, it never really made it through the clouds. It wasn't bad at all though. It was a little chilly, in the low 50's probably, but overall, it was a perfect autumn day for a bike ride. We used this service that has bike racks throughout the region and all you have to do is call and they give you the lock combination. When we were finished at the end of the day, we dropped it off at a different bike rack (in a different city) and called to let them know. At 1 EUR per bike, I have no idea how they make money (or if they make money), but I love the idea.

We got a quick glimpse of the Melk Abbey before we got going on our bicycles for the 17km ride to Spitz. The ride along the Danube with the backdrop of hills and trees filled with leaves of all colors was beautiful. I say this every time we ride bikes, but I like the idea of riding bikes so much more than the reality of it. It turns out a kilometer on a bike takes much longer than I would have expected. We eventually made it to Durnstein where we did some wine tastings and walked through the small town. We bagged the bikes there, after roughly 30km and took the bus to Krems where we boarded the train to Vienna. We were exhausted by the time we got there, but thought a Mexican dinner at Los Mexikas sounded good. We hadn't eaten anything all day besides a few snacks. The Yeagers happened to be in Vienna also, so they met us there.


The food at Los Mexikas is good, but not great. It's enough to satisfy Mexican food cravings, but not to make one forget about the Tex-Mex food back in Austin.

We definitely want to try and go back to the Wachau. It was a great day trip for the Fall, but would probably be excellent in the Springtime.

Belated Airplane Reviews

During our travels in the past couple of months, we watched several movies on airplane trips, and I would be remiss if I didn't share my thoughts on them.

From Hong Kong back to the US, we took Cathay Pacific, which was a nice change from American Airlines, our usual carrier. I am loyal to American, frankly, because that's where all my frequent flyer miles are, and for no other reason. I'm happy when I get to fly British Airways, Cathay, or another One World Partner because when it comes to comfort, service, and all around experience, American is really lacking.

We began the trip with... The Trip, a British film starring Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. We had heard really good things about it and from the reviews, we anticipated something absolutely hilarious. In reality, it was pretty slow, but had its moments. There was a lot of humor in there that we didn't get that I'm sure others would appreciate more. Not knowing the background of the two actors worked against us as that seemed to play a lot into the story and the comedy. It was also a lot more serious and introspective at points, which we did not expect. If you like Michael Caine impressions, you will love this movie. The camera shots of the food were oustandting.

We followed it up with Super 8, which we had wanted to see in the theater, but never got around to it. This movie had so much potential, but it didn't quite do it for me. The train accident at the beginning was pretty awesome, but unless it was carrying a bomb, it made no sense why there were explosions and train cars going all over the place. The movie continued to not make sense for the next hour or so and after a while, I just got bored. It seemed like it was trying to appeal to viewers who were nostalgic for ET and Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, but JJ Abrams seemed to concentrate all of his time on the visuals instead of putting together a decent script.
 
By the time we flew back to Europe, it was October, which meant the new slate of movies was out on the plane. We watched the Hangover 2, which was a big mistake. One may ask, was it a mistake to have watched the movie or to have made the movie, and the answer to both questions, is yes. The stuff that monkey could do was amazing, but besides that, the movie was an absolute waste of time. They caught lighting in a bottle once. Why can't Hollywood just leave well enough alone?

As a bonus, we have also watched Horrible Bosses and Contagion since we've been back. We enjoyed Horrible Bosses. It was funny. Jenifer Aniston should take more roles like this where she isn't trying to be sweet and do cute Jennifer Aniston type things. It's much more enjoyable to watch her like this. It didn't hurt that she wore very little clothing. Contagion played like a documentary and was believable in that it's exactly what I think would happen if there was a deadly virus outbreak today and captured how people more than likely would react. In that respect, it scared the shit out of me. I already am overly aware of germs when I travel, so this didn't help. It was cool seeing Gwyneth Paltrow get de-scalped. The most horrifying parts of the movie though are the close-ups of Jude Law's teeth, which I had no idea were that bad.