In Vienna Again

Well, I’Äôm in Vienna now. I guess I got to write about the past few days, so’Ķ

Saturday I went to Six Flags Great Adventure with Sergey. The rides were pretty good, but we had no luck whatsoever. First of all I had forgotten that it was a Saturday and had thought there would be no line because kids are still in school. The park was crowded beyond belief.

The first rollercoaster we got in line for, the Batman Chiller had a sign that said ’Äú45 minute wait.’Äù When we finally got to about fourth or so in line we were told the ride was having some technical difficulties and that we could wait or ’Äúleave the way [we] came in.’Äù We’Äôd hear that line a lot that day. After about twenty minutes we decided to try something else. It turns out that it never reopened that day. Some park guy told me later that that ride ’Äúhas been acting up lately.’Äù

We tried another Batman ride, which also shut down for a short bit but then reopened. Afterwards we rode some in-the-dark ride, which wasn’Äôt worth the wait at all. We then rode the cable car system to the other end of the park where we got in line for some modern coaster.

This was the worst experience yet. We waited for at least an hour, if not longer. The ride itself was probably the best of the day. It was actually a whole minute, unlike the earlier ones, which had only been about thirty seconds. Only problem was the ride turned out to be nearly thirty minutes for us!

This ride basically ’Äúshoots’Äù the next cart out while the previous cart is about to enter. Sounds great, but there was a slight problem’Ķ The car before us didn’Äôt leave. Reason: Someone decided they didn’Äôt want to ride after all. Despite designing a rollercoaster that can go upside down at 90 miles per hour, the designers didn’Äôt work a feature in for this kind of situations. Technicians were called and after another twenty minutes or so they figured out a solution. My back hurt like hell when we finally got out.

We were given a coupon that allowed us to access any ride we wanted from the exit side, which meant no line. We used it on a small side-spinning, looping, coaster that gave me whiplash. Then we quickly made it to the park’Äôs wooden coaster and rode that before the park closed.

I spent all of Sunday ’Äúpacking,’Äù the quotes being there because I keep putting off the actual act and ended up wasting the day. So I ended up doing most of the packing on Monday morning before my flight.

My flight to Vienna was a free one, so they put me on some strange Binghamton-Dulles-Amsterdam-Vienna journey. When I got to Dulles I was pretty tired and actually confused Amsterdam with Brussels. (I know, I should know better) I took the shuttle to the ’ÄúC’Äù terminal where the Brussels flight would leave. I figured it out pretty quickly and walked down the endless terminal until it eventually became the ’ÄúD’Äù terminal, where the Amsterdam flight would leave.
I ate something and then got on the flight. I got stuck with a middle seat because I was unable to reserve a seat the day before because they decided to change the aircraft type. At least I was sitting in Economy Plus, so I had enough legroom. All the movies they were showing I had either already seen before or wasn’Äôt interested in. I ended up watching ’ÄúLove Actually’Äù again, as well as part of ’ÄúAlong Came Polly.’Äù I listened to some music and tried to sleep a bit, but wasn’Äôt too successful.

The flight was late so in Amsterdam they put me on one of those cart things and drove me across the entire airport so I would make my flight. The Dutch are known for their masterpiece-gone-wrong airport in Amsterdam. The carts have no horn or beeping noise so the driver had to keep yelling, ’Äúexcuse me,’Äù which people often didn’Äôt hear the first time. He then picked up a ’Äúhitchhiker’Äù who was looking for the exit to the Hilton Hotel. He drove him there since it was on the way. When we finally got to the gate I ran down the jet way thinking I had barely made it. After sitting down in the half-empty plane the captain came out of the cockpit and said on the PA system, ’ÄúI know I should be in there flying this thing but we can’Äôt fly out for another thirty minutes because of air traffic.’Äù

When we finally left the gate we had to taxi for miles because Amsterdam has six runways for some reason. We crossed two highways on the way until we finally made it to the one we were flying off of.

When I got home to my apartment I slept a bit. Then I nearly short-circuited some power transformer of mine, which began to melt and release deadly chemicals in the air. So, after dinner I used another one. For some reason I wasn’Äôt able to dial up to the Internet and the body of my laptop felt like it was discharging insane amounts of electricity into my body when I touched it. Turns out this transformer was also heating up like crazy and sending bad power to my laptop, and somehow disrupting the phone signal.

I finally found a normal American-to-European plug, seeing that my power cable can already accept both voltages, that was all I needed.

So yeah, that was my last few days. I’Äôm going to get some sleep now and then see how I can kill time. I might visit my former high school again or something. The upcoming night should be fun because Thursday’Äôs a holiday (Ascension) so a lot of people should be out.