The Waiting Game

The final two weeks before a trip are always an odd mix of emotions. On one hand, I want time to speed up since patience is a virtue I was NOT blessed with.

On the other, despite my uncanny planning skills, it always seems like a mad dash to tie up all loose ends at work, at home, and final trip details.

What final trip details, you ask? Oh, you know, things like:

What can I say? I'm a List Girl.

A couple things I want to point out:

• Yes, I did add "hotel confirmations" in handwriting even after I had completed that, just so I could cross off something else.
• "Alert Neighbors" sounds more scary than it is -- we just need to ask someone to keep an eye on things and pick up our newspaper on the off chance it's actually delivered.
• And the "hair straightener" item has actually been one of the more difficult tasks. Hair appliances use a whallop of voltage, and Brendan has refused to let me take my current one because it requires a super-heavy voltage converter that literally broke the sink in Florence on our last European trip.

And in an effort to be more "spontaneous" (I feel like air quotes are needed there), I've decided we'll buy the train tickets on site. (Gasp!) I know. I'm pretty proud of me, too.

As I was making the list and checking it twice, it made sense to rent another Austria-themed movie.

Good thing Brendan was out of town during this one, because I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have made it through the hyper-romantic Before Sunrise. It's an equally good thing that I love cheesy 90s romance movies - because I thoroughly enjoyed it! Before Sunrise is the tale of Jesse the American and Celene the French woman, two strangers who meet on a train and end up spending justonenight in Vienna. They fall in love, but since they live an ocean apart, decide to leave their romance as just one perfect night --- with the promise to meet up again in six months. And it stars a young(er) Ethan Hawke. Sigh.

Anyway, back to planning and tying up all those loose ends....
....oh! A new issue of Conde Nast Traveler came in the mail today. <breaks from planning and reads magazine>

Hey, whadya know? The #1 tip from Traveler's "Wendy Says" feature strikes me as a good omen, donchathink?

Until next time… Auf Wiedersehen!

Planning is My Favorite

It's hard to believe that we're less than 6 weeks away from Austria!

Flights and hotels have been booked and passports have been accounted for. (Those little buggers always manage to vanish in between trips...) While planning always brings its fair share of stresses - which hotel? how to prioritize sights? - I absolutely love the "looking forward to" part of traveling.

In addition to planning the basics like transportation, lodging, and top sights, I also try to do a little "extracurricular" research prior to traveling. From reading up on an area's history to watching movies based in the region, I think a little pre-work leads to a much richer experience. Or maybe it's just my way of managing my excitement. :-)

The first movie we watched in preparation for Austria was The Third Man, a 1940s classic set in post-war Vienna:

As much as I try to enjoy classic films - and this one is considered as one of the greatest films of all time - my attention span just isn't compatible with film noir. But it was interesting seeing the rubble of post-war Vienna, as the movie was filmed on location in the mid-1940s. Apparently, there's even a museum in Vienna based on the movie. (Yeah, that one's probably not making our top sights list...)

So for my next Austrian movie, I moved on to:

Whooot! Now that's more my style. Eastwood. Action. Unrequited love. The biggest scenes were set near Hohenwerfen Castle, which is near(ish) to Salzburg. And it featured a young Clint Eastwood and a young Richard Burton. The things I do for research.

I also just finished reading On Hitler's Mountain, a memoir by a woman who grew up outside Hitler's Eagle's Nest retreat in Berchtesgaden, Germany during WWII. We're planning to visit the Eagle's Nest on a day trip from Salzburg, so I enjoyed learning more about life in that area during the war. My Papa Joe was stationed throughout Bavaria - including Austria - during WWII (more about that in an upcoming post), so I definitely feel a connection to the area's history.

Speaking of books and movies set in Austria during WWII ...man, I really wish there was just one more movie that we could watch in preparation for our trip... maybe one that also has singing and dancing? OH WAIT:

Brendan, I think I found our next movie! :-)

Until next time… Auf Wiedersehen!