A wrong turn at Romaticquerque

(Tim) Well, here we sit back in Vienna. We rolled in on Sunday night, crashed, and headed for Hallstatt in the morning. We decided to rent a car for our countryside tour down to Hallstatt, Austria and Bled, Slovenia. That's right kids, another unplanned destination was added to the Journey. So we rented our Eurocar and hopped in ready for whatever the Austrians and Slovenians had in store for these seasoned travelers. Upon entering said auto, we noticed that it was a manual transmission, of which only one of us is capable of driving with any degree of safety. So, instead of "us" driving to these exotic locales, it would be Tom driving and Tim pretty much doing whatever the hell he wants. So, after Tom dropped the obligatory comparison to himself and Mario Andretti, we were off.
Hallstatt was recommended by some of Tom's family as well as travel guru Rick Steves. It was also in another travel book, so we arrived with several activities planned. One was to go into the salt mines that Hallstatt is famous for, and another was to take a day trip to the world's largest chain of ice caves. The views pulling into Hallstatt were quite amazing with the mountains and the little town right on the edge of an awesome lake. So we checked in to our B&B ready to conquer Hallstatt. By the way, our B&B owner wears lederhosen. After I got a good look at them, I had to have them. Except that they cost about $350. Though I'm not sure one can put a price on the experience of wearing lederhosen and knee-high socks on the plane back to Chicago, I took my chances hoping to find some reasonably priced pairs in Vienna. Anyway, on to the salt mines. Or not. Sorry, guys, the salt mines open for the seaon on Friday. No worries, we'll just head straight for the ice caves (which my travel manual points out are "near freezing temps, so dress warm." Wow, thanks for that invaluable piece of info, all-knowing travel experts.) and spend the day exploring. Uh, yeah, about those caves. They open in May. Hmm, no mines, no caves. At the risk of beating the proverbial dead horse on the romance references, I was now stuck on a beautiful lakefront B&B in a quaint little town. With Tom. But with our determination to bodaciousness fully intact, we made the adjusment and decided to go to the grocery store and cook ourselves some Austrian dinner. We bought sausages (one roughly the size of a baseball bat), some cheese, bacon, saukraut, and dumplings, and 10 single bottles of different beer for sampling. We cooked it all up, enjoyed a few new beers, and were summarily hit by a colossal food coma about ten minutes afterward. We were out for two hours like a kid slammed after 25 screaming laps around the living room on a sugar high. When we awoke around 8pm, we decided it was time for dessert, so Tom sought out to find us some ice cream, because obviously, everyone in town was walking around with the stuff. Tom returned empty-handed, as there were no stores in the town open for business at such a ridiculous hour. Hallstatt was proving indeed to be a tough nut to crack. We made the most of it by watching Desperate Housewives. In German. Almost every station had American shows with German voice-overs. I concluded the following: 1) There must be an entire society of voice-over actors because each American actor had a German counterpart who sounded just like them, and 2) German TV is like a never ending Kung Fu stream.
The next morning we agreed to head out of Hallstatt with hopes of maintaining some degree of masculinity. We took a trip up a mountain in The Little Eurocar That Could, and encountered some spectacular views. It was rather off the beaten path, which prompted Tom to proudly announce that "I bet Rick Steves has never been here." Which of course provided me with the opportunity once again to shout "I'm Rick Steves, bitch!" We pulled over to walk across a pipeline bridge high up over a ravine. It was narrow, so that one could easily put a hand on each rail. I know this because Tom accomplished this while he slowly crept out over the highway and utter fear cowered him into a crouch. There was a far better chance of me losing my footing and falling over the bridge as I was doubled over with laughter than us falling through the wood planks. So, this combined with some great pictures, Hallstatt totally redeemed itself.
After the mountain expedition, it was off to Slovenia. One of the highlights of this whole road journey was passing through towns like Bad Ischl and Bad Grossien, so from the passenger seat I could say "Bad Ischl! You're bad! You're naughty!" We did enjoy trying to figure out if the posted speeds were maximums or minimums. After driving 60 kms over the posted speed and be blown past like we were standing still several times, we decided that the A2 we were on stood for Autobahn 2, and Tom spent the entire trip with his foot to the floor. Besides, if we got pulled over we could just say we didn't know. Isn't ignorance always an excuse for the law?
In addition to American TV, we noticed Austrians love American music. As we pulled in to Bled, Slovenia, we were treated to a Culture Club mini-marathon. The locals were in turn treated to a Tim and Tom rendition of Karma Chameleon. Bled is known primarily for its views, so we climbed up to the castle (aptly dubbed Bled Castle) and looked over the turqoise colored lake and the tiny island with a church built into it. Tom added a sprinkle of interest to our navigational efforts by constantly referring to the church as the caslte. For a guy who's really into seeing churches, he sure could use a lesson on them. When we were in Budapest trying to find the caslte there, he thought the basillica was the caslte. Mind you, this church couldn't look anything more like a church. Picture a church; good, now you don't need to visit the one in Budapest. But Tom wasn't convinced until he read the sign in front. Then we tried to find the world's second biggest mosque, also located in Budapest. When I mentioned that it was in Buda, Tom looked down the street and said "is that it?" After I pointed out the many crosses and haloed statues on it, Tom, ever sharp as a marble: "Oh. Yeah, not a mosque."
On our way out of Austria and into Slovenia, we took a bit of a detour into Italy. As the mapmiester, I knew we weren't far off course, but Tom saw the sign reading "Italia" and flipped. "Tim! What the hell are you doing over there? We're in Italy! AHHHHHHH!" After I talked him off the ledge, we found our way to Slovenia. We stayed in Bled just long enough to take it all in and decided that it would be in our best interest to head back to Vienna for the night. More American music ensued, and the trip culminated as we pulled in to the city while belting out what I can only describe as the world's finest falsetto duet to "Like a Virgin."
Which brings us to today in Vienna. I am now the proud owner of a pea green tee shirt and grey dress shorts. Apparently in Vienna, when you put a bright yellow shirt and khaki shorts into the washer, out come pea green and grey. But it's a perfectly even color change, so it's kind of nice to feel like I got a new wardrobe. Look out, Austrians.