7/3/15
Kraków, Poland → Vienna, Austria

We had heard so many great things about Paris and Amsterdam that we’d had an idea of what to expect before we arrived. Kraków, on the other hand, was a surprise for us. The price of happiness here was cheap. We ate amazing food, spent ample time in a vibrant city square, splurged on espresso and desserts, and witnessed a piece of history that lives in infamy at Auschwitz. We would miss this hidden gem of Eastern Europe, but we considered ourselves equal-opportunity travelers, as it was Vienna’s turn to impress us next.

We had planned to meet our next BlaBlaCar driver, Michael, at a McDonald’s in the Glówny station mall. We arrived at the McDonald’s with ample time to kill. We grabbed some cheap sandwiches from a market in the mall and sat in a Starbucks, eating the sandwiches and drinking large Americanos. These were Kobe Bryant–style Americanos. We took three shots in a matter of seconds. Then we met Michael and set off for Vienna.

Four hours later, Michael pulled into the Austrian capital. We took the metro to the Volkstheater station, and felt the familiar rush of excitement that accompanied each emergence into a new city. My first impression of Vienna was that it felt like we were in Washington, DC. This city was encompassed by a picture-perfect architectural grid; there was a museum, palace, theater, or stunning government building in every direction. (My sister Emily would love this place. She is a sucker for big, beautiful government buildings, which is why she lives in Washington, DC.)

Our host, Valentia, buzzed us into our building. We walked through a construction zone to get to our home base for the next few days. It looked like the inside of the building had just been demolished. But despite the hard-hat debacle outside, it was a nice one-bedroom flat, and we were in the heart of the city.

There was another strange thing about this place: the Wi-Fi account was named “We can hear you not having sex.” I couldn’t tell if that was a subtle way of asking guests not to have sex, or telling us that they indeed had the place bugged and were listening to us.

We left the flat, ready to take on the city. As we walked through the promenade streets, sharing the space with horse carriages, Ash and I recapped our drive here. Apparently, our minds were now in sync, because we had had the same epiphany during our transit: we were listening to upbeat, feel-good music and road-tripping through the hilly Polish, Czech, and Austrian countryside on a Friday afternoon with complete strangers in a Mercedes. Life was good. There was no other way to put it. I couldn’t think of anything I would rather have been doing than sweating and writing, cramped in the back of that car. It wasn’t that there weren’t better things; there were always better things. I think part of my problem in Denver was that I was continuously thinking about the grass on the other side when I should have been living in the moment. Besides, we all know Denver’s grass is the best.

In the heart of Stephansplatz, the city center of Vienna, a local café caught our hungry eyes. We wanted to eat authentic Austrian wiener schnitzel. My dad had been using the term wiener schnitzel my entire life in every way but the right way. He is the funniest person on (my) earth, and I could barely keep it together when ordering. I chuckled through the entire meal and took every chance I could find to tell Ash how good my wiener schnitzel was, or how well my wiener schnitzel paired with my potatoes. Vienna had briefly taken me home, and it felt damn good.