The All-New Bunrab

Tomorrow morning at 3:45 a.m. local time we get back on the bus to go to the airport in Wien, so this has been our last day. We did exactlz what we planned to do from the start: found a sidewalk cafe and ate too much pastry. After a couple of hours of that, we went to the Naturhistorichesmuseum for a few hours, then back to the hotel for the group dinner, which was at a cafe called Einstein (www.einstein.at) and we had Wienerschnitzel. I will tell you more about the pastry when we get home and I upload pictures.

It was a scorching hot day for Wien, being all of about 82 F. Everybody sticking to the shady side of the street, and even the locals requesting ice in their drinks.

The price of gas has affected the amount of traffic here - there´s very little, even during what I would think of as rush hour. One can´t say we´re not seeing traffic because we are in a hotel district or tourist district - we are two blocks from city hall, four blocks from Parlaiment and its associated office buildings. Of course there´s public transportation everzwhere, and also CityBike stands everywhere, as well as lockup sites for one´s personal bicycle. And there are more motorczcles and scooters here - though the balance is far more toward motorczcles and less toward scooters than it was in Croatia and Slovenia. And lots of those cute tiny cars, the Smart car and models of Smart that we haven´t seen in the US and other little teeny cars.

We have been pleasantlz surprised at how much Deutsch we remember, and have been using it all day today; generally we have been answered in English, but we were speaking clearlz enough that people understood our questions. Wien is verz handicapped-friendly, with curbcuts everzwhere, lifts everzwhere, cafes quite agreeable about me driving the scoot up to a table. Manz of the curbcuts are for the afore-mentioned omnipresent bicycles, which have their own dedicated bike paths on most streets and through most parks.

I sure will be glad to get back to an English-based keyboard. Though I wish I could stay and see more of this truly beautiful place.

Well, now to pack, and to shower and get dressed and lie down fullz clothed, so that at 3 a.m. I can get up out of bed and need do nothing except stumble me, mz scooter, and suitcase to the elevator, excuse me, the lift. We should arrive at Dulles a little before 1 p.m. Eastern time, and then with our group going through customs and whatnot, and the group bus back to the communitz college and the collection of music there and whatnot, I figure we´ll probablz be home about 5 p.m. Eastern time. Maybe I will be awake, probablz not. So it´ll be Fridaz before you start getting the good posts with lots of pictures.

So, going up to NY (it's up from Baltimore, although where I was going was Long Island, not upstate - which, if one grows up on LI, means anything north of Westchester...) I took the bus, good old Greyhound. Here's how I make such travel decisions:
Normally Amtrak, Penn to Penn, costs $86. But for some reason, all the fares for Friday afternoon were around $114, except for the Acela, which was even worse. So I went looking at bus fares, and the normal fare to NY-Port Authority is $32, and they were having a sale where if one pays for one's ticket online and prints out one's own copy, it was only $20. Plus the $2 subway fare to get from Port Authority to Penn Station to catch the LIRR, which I wouldn't have needed to take the subway if I had used Amtrak. So, $22 vs $114, for a 4.5 hour bus ride vs. a 2.5 hour train trip. $92 difference, 2 hours, that's $46 per hour. Now, the most I have ever earned in my working life is about $26 per hour. So, I count my time as being worth that. If I can save more than $26 by using up an hour of my time, it's worth it; if I can't save that much, then I'll pay money instead of spending time. This kind of calculation, incidentally, works for all sorts of things: deciding whether to pay for a hotel at a conference vs. stay at a relative's or friend's nearby; is it worth spending an hour searching the basement for something I can't find instead of just buying a replacement... If you ever have trouble deciding whether to spend money on having someone do something for you instead of doing it yourself, this is one possible tool. (Pay someone to clean the carpets, vs. renting a steamer from the store and do it yourself? Drive across country, vs. fly?)

So, Greyhound it was. The people on the bus were a couple blind people, some people who mumbled to themselves without a cell phone, and a bunch of college students. No one really obnoxious. The driver had another driver catching a ride with him, but despite their constant chatting, I was able to catch about an hour's nap in there, and spent the rest of the time crocheting. The bus seats are wider and recline more than an airplane seat, but less than the train, and the little light overhead is dimmer than either train or airline lights; I was able to read a magazine with glossy white paper, but I don't think I'd have been able to read a paperback book with smaller typeface and slightly yellowed paper. There was a lot of traffic in the last 10 miles of the trip - horrible backups at the toll booths, what a surprise. Lanes closed, sounds of jackhammers. Nonetheless, we got into Port Authority only a few minutes after scheduled time. Then it was downstairs to the downtown subway, buy a ticket from a vending machine - no more tokens! - and one stop down to Penn Station. The subways are cleaner than they were a decade ago, and this one wasn't crowded, but they are still as noisy as ever. Noise is one of the things I associate with NYC - the aforementioned jackhammers, the subways, the taxicab horns, the sirens, the sheer volume of that many people talking at once. Upstairs to the LIRR, buy a ticket out to Wantagh from the vending machine - I could have caught a 7:45 train out but would have had to pay peak fare, so I waited for the 8:06 and saved $4 or so. The LIRR is still the LIRR. No surprises there.

Coming back, I took the LIRR back to Penn Station, and by waiting for the 6:45 Amtrak back to Balto. instead of the 6:20, got the $86 fare instead of the $114 fare. It was worth paying the extra for train vs. bus for coming back, because I was paying not only for time saved, but for time to recover from exhaustion. The Amtrak seats are larger and recline more, and have seat-back trays, and the train station has decent food, so one can eat a small meal on the train and then recline and sleep quite comfortably, not the slightly neck-cricking nap I had on the bus. Got in at 9:15, where squirrel_magnet was waiting for me. (Cell phones make it SO much easier to take train trips!)

Overall, I think I would be willing to do the same again - take the bus and save money one way, take the train and save time the other. I wouldn't recommend it for the severely overweight nor for those who are especially spooked by mumbling schizophrenics. And at $20 each way, it would be worth going to NYC to a museum and coming back the same night, if I were with my sweetie and we could lean against each other to sleep on the way. Leave Balto. at 8 a.m. (and sleep on the bus), arrive in NYC a bit after noon, spend until 6 or 7 p.m. at a museum, catch a 7:30 or 8:00 bus back to Balto and be home around midnight. That would be tolerable.

Next up: what we did in our spare time on the weekend.

We picked up squirrel_magnet's new bike this afternoon. It was too dark already when we got home to take pictures; those'll have to wait. We shall say nothing about the Embarrassing Incident in the parking lot, since all's well that ends well, but really, John from Service had JUST finished warning me about center stands. One of the odder little falls I've ever taken. I still smell faintly of gasoline. (Blame as to exactly how it came about that the gas cover was not tightly closed has not yet been definitively assigned.) Oh well, they like us there, and they cleaned and detailed my bike. The new helmet box is nifty. (Speaking of nifty, I have been randomly re-reading old Sluggy Freelance, and so what I was singing at the top of my lungs on the way home was "Here he comes, Lord Grater, Lord Grater. He's smarter than a small po-tat-er.")

The new bike is, as I think I previously mentioned, a 1999 R1100RT. With fairing, windshield, and of all things a radio, which they even found a manual for. Not that S ever expects to use the radio. The fairing is handy in this weather. The high today was about 40°F, and it was dropping fast when we headed home. For me, one pair of cotton-nylon blend tights under my jeans works at 40°, but my knees start getting a bit chilly at 35°. (A pair of tights over a pair of pantyhose, and then jeans over them, will work nicely down to at least 20°F (-5°C), possibly even further but I've never tested them lower than that temperature.) I also bought a new windproof balaclava, to replace the one I bought last year and immediately lost. I'm sure that now that I've bought another one, last year's will show up in the next couple of days. Regular socks over the tights and under the boots kept my feet cozy right along.

It occurred to me that my bike is blue and I have a white helmet, and S's bike is green and he has a red helmet, and we wind up looking just a bit like the Chanukah-and-Christmas Bobbsey Twins.

Pictures next week, after I get back from my long weekend in NYC. Train fare seems to jump to $100 on weekends, at which point I decided to take the bus instead - they've got an eSaver fare of $20, and that difference makes it worth the extra 2 hours the bus takes. I'll then have to get from Port Authority to Penn Station, but no biggie, then the Long Island Snailroad out to Sally's, where the staying is cheap, which is how this trip still falls within my depleted budget. I thought about bringing the new horn with me, but no. Travel light. (I'm bringing the soprano recorder, though.) We'll mostly just be catching up on Sally's housework and paperwork. (There's stuff in that kitchen that her mother bought. Her mother passed away 4 years ago. There's 4 years worth of piled-up mail on the kitchen table. My strength is the speed at which I can chop that pile down to sacks full of recycling, and get them out the door, without the emotional turmoil it would cost her.)