Vienna day 2: an adventure in languages

I set out to start my day with the goal of being a productive and efficient tourist. I walked around a lot, got lost a lot and it rained a lot. Getting lost actually has its advantages while travelling, somehow I usually stumble onto something exciting and unknown. That day it was a HUGE farmers/flea market. I ate beautiful dried papaya (not exactly very Austrian…) bought locally made soaps and got hollered at in Italian. On the subject of languages, during my walks a man urgently yelled at me in Japanese warning me about the oncoming train that I was standing in the way of. I thanked him in English. Not too much sightseeing, apart from some things I saw the day before, BUT I was able to find the much sought after (by me) Lomo Shop. It is the original store for Lomography cameras and the birthplace of my dear Diana (http://microsites.lomography.com/diana/). An amazing falafel sandwich and an espresso later the sun was setting and I needed to figure out my sleeping arrangements! I have a friend from Austria that I met a couple years ago while travelling in South Africa and he had set me up to spend the night at a commune where a few of his friends live, he was doing research in some forest and would only return the next day. To my disappointment the phone number I had didn’t work so I went off to hostel search.

There was a space at the first place I went to, ‘The Wombat.’ I slept in a unisex dorm style room with 8 beds, one of which was occupied by Daniel, a Polish street performer working his way across Europe and two of which were occupied by unnamed Koreans who’s PSPs never left their hands. I began a mini-trek for dinner, and ended up eating pizza at an Italian restaurant with 3 professional badminton players from Spain, Portugal and Czech Republic, who full of woe because of their losses. Going back to the hostel I spent some time reading an American novel in the common area, while a girl was talking on the phone in Japanese on my left side, and a German couple were skyping on my right. I called it a night, had a restful sleep and woke up the next morning to the surprise that males occupied 7 of the beds in my room.