Corinne:
Today dawned sunny through our skylight, which was good since I forgot to set an alarm yesterday. After a wakeup song of Hannah Montana, I left to “cash out” at the “szupermarket” down the street while the other two finished getting ready. My 280 forint (about $2.60) got me yogurt, some little packs of Nutella, and some Kinder chocolate. The best part was when I got back, Rosie was ready for breakfast with our bag of milk.
So yesterday there was a slightly heated conversation within five minutes of the other two waking up that discussed whether or not we had enough milk for our cereal. From this conversation we determined that a) there would have been enough milk had Sarah and I not had cereal for a mid-afternoon snack the day before, b) we had to go to the store before noon when it closed, and c) all conversations that happen within five minutes of wakeup have an edge to them that isn’t so pleasant.
Anyway, the only milk (“tej”) left was either the boiled kind that didn’t have to be refridgerated or the bag. Which we didn’t end up using yesterday. But today, our cornflakes and coco krispies were accompanied with bagged milk.
We also made our sandwiches with cheese that hadn’t been refridgerated. Living on the edge. But Sarah assures me that food poisoning only takes three hours. It’s been more and we are still alive, so no problem.
Our attempted train schedule was hectic, as given to us by the internet. It involved four trains and three connections of less than twenty minutes. We managed to make the first two, getting us to Celldomolk before the train ran 25 minutes late. If you can’t do math, I’ll help.
We missed our train.
Not a problem. Our train pass allowes us unlimited travel in one day, so we just hopped on another train headed in the right direction (actually, to the same city). However, it took the woman in the ticket window 5 minutes to flip through her train schedule book. Rosie wondered why she didn’t just use the computer. Pretty sure that station was as low tech as they come.
On all our trains, we just sat and rattled along. Rosie has almost finished Dune, and Sarah and I are salivating over it, since that is the only reading material we have. I did pick up a book in Prague. And finished it in Prague.
Yesterday, while we were freezing, we solved some Sudoku that I have along. Today on the train, there were multiple times we were sitting in silence counting to 9 in our heads. CMU all the way.
(And, Dad, your trick with the dots to represent the numbers has been duly passed on.)
So we got to Vienna, a little later than the original plan, but a little earlier than our second thanks to a train going to the other Vienna train station.
From there, it was a clean, sleek train station navigation to an ATM. Then to the buses. Where we realized with didn’t know how they worked. We found machines that dispensed tickets. While we were standing there confused, a worker approached us, giving us a map and pointing us to the right ticket. Thank goodness for EuroCup.
We walked on to the bus as it pulled up, but then were chased off. The bus we were trying to board was out of service. The bus we did take was ridiculously crowded with a group of pre-teens and some woman who was trying to converse with Rosie in German.
Our hostel is a cute, meticulate apartment with about 10 beds totally, but there are other people. (What, actually sharing a room with other people? We haven’t done that since night 3.) And they seem to all be American. Save the German guy who had Rosie paint his head.
We got to the hostel, Rosie got sucked into the internet, and Sarah got antsy. We were given a map to the nearest grocery store. Sarah was holding the map. A minute later, when we ask where the store is, she finally looks at it, and points the direction we came. Two minutes later, when we ask where the store it, she looks at it, turns it 180 degrees, points back the way we came again, and forces it on Rosie.
So after walking back and forth passed the same cafe three times, we get to the store for tomorrow, and got something to eat at a sidewalk restaurant. Wienerschniztel and “gostz” (?), which was hash browns, pork bits, and an egg. During dinner, which crowds of red and white bedazzled fans walking by, we decide to go to the fan zone (we were going to dress up before realizing we didn’t have the right colors for either team). It was a crowd of people, with a couple big screens and not enough standing room. And that was about it. But people were hanging off everything, from the statue, to the trees, to the roofs of a bank of ATMs. After five minutes of wandering (and nearly getting run over by a tram), we gave up and watched it in the hostel. With a couple other Americans guys. We aren’t as invested as the crazy people passing us on the street hooting and hollering. We were warned that sleep tonight might be interesting. We’ll see how the game ends.
2 Comments
June 17, 2008 at 10:29 am
Sadly, Austria lost and is out of the running and there’s not going to be another game in Vienna until Friday, after you’ll be gone. However, you can go to the FanZone to watch any of the games, which is pretty fun, and they’re not as crowded when the game isn’t taking place in Vienna itself.
Also, the sudoku dot trick was my invention. Just for the record.
Let me know when you’re planning on taking the train to Klagenfurt so I can come meet you!
June 17, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Maria is totally correct, I stole the dot trick from her. I find it superior to the numbers.
Now, for those of you not in the know, I will try to explain the dot trick without the use of pictures.
Imagine if you will a domino. On the domino there are a number of dots which represent the value of the domino. The position of the dots move when the value changes.
The Suduko dot trick differs in that it is not the number of dots that identify a value, but the position of the dot. So a dot in the upper left hand corner signifies a possible value of 1, upper middle 2, upper right hand corner 3, middle left 4, middle 5, middle right 6, lower left hand corner 7, lower middle 8, and lower right 9.
The key to the MDM (Maria’s Dot Method) is to put a dot into position if the number could be used in that square. If you know the number for a square, you write the number in, but if there are two or more possibilities, you put dots in the square.
So a square with a dot in the upper right hand corner and in the middle could have a value of 3 or 5.
The cool thing is that if there is only one dot in the box, you know what the number is. If there are only two dots, you know you have a choice of 2 numbers.
I find it superior to writing little numbers in the boxes because it’s a bit cleaner, and it speaks to the visual pattern matching crowd. When you get to a point in the puzzle where you’ve got all the alternatives filled out, you can scan rows, columns and boxes for similar patterns. I can evaluate those much faster than I can evaluate numbers in the boxes.
That may be a feeble explanation, but without pictures, it’s about as well as I can do.