Americans Abroad

Well, my family (brother and mother) arrived safely at the Vienna International Airport on Thursday morning. I was bad and missed my train out of Eisenstadt, so I arrived a little late. Luckily they were still there, and I recognized Eric by his baggy American clothing. They said they didn’t sleep much on their flight from Washington, but that’s to be expected. I can never sleep on airplanes either. So, we went to the Europcar counter and picked up the keys to our brand new silver Volkswagen Polo. It is so wonderful to be able to drive again! Of course, mom freaked out on the Autobahn with its 130 km/h speed limit. That’s 81 miles an hour. Austrian Autobahnen do have speed limits, unlike their German counterparts. This doesn’t necessarily mean people actually obey the limits though, some people go as fast as 200 km/h (125 mph!!). The enforcement of the limits isn’t done by the police, but rather “speed cameras” that photograph a car with its license plate, and then a ticket is sent in the mail. But, each camera is marked with a sign in advance, so people simply slow down for the cameras and speed back up again. Despite mom’s fatigue, she’s still a fierce backseat driver. Anyway, we made it back to Eisenstadt without any incidents. I did my best to keep them awake until dark by taking them out for lunch and coffee, and then we hung out in the Studentenheim and played scrabble. On Friday they joined me for an English lesson at the HTL, my technical school. They were very interested into looking at all the workshops where they have milling machines, jet engines, a few airplanes, and a helicopter. The school is very unique, and the only one in Austria to offer aviation engineering at the high school level. Afterwards we went to have lunch and dinner with Alexa and Konstantin. The food was great, the conversation even better, and Eric entertained 10 year old Konstantin very much by playing some Playstation games with him. Today was a bit more chaotic. We drove to Vienna, and Stefan was nice enough to show us around all of the important sights (Stephansdom, the Imperial Palace, the Schönbrunn Palace, the International City Center [UN center], and the main shopping streets). It was all a bit overwhelming and tiring, but a lot of fun too. I’m so exhausted, I need to catch up on my sleep to be prepared for the rest of our adventures. We’re going to be going on a road trip starting Tuesday morning and I won’t have internet access. I’ll be sure to keep a good log of everything that happens so I can write a nice long entry when we get back. Hopefully we don’t have too many cultural clashes! Until next time…