vamonos a la playa! or a week in linz

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So this was the unofficial start of our trip as it was our first intended destination, but not the start of the vacationing because Susan was working remotely. Not sure I mentioned it yet, but I fucked my ankle in Oslo and basically could not walk by this point in the trip. I would highly advise you against purchasing Saucony's as they are the shittiest of shit shoes and nothing good will come from wearing them. Anyhoo, we were welcomed on the platform by Carrie after a lovely train ride from Munich. I like trains and include them in our itinerary whenever I can 😊 We weren't really sure what to expect from Linz because we didn't really do any research on what there was to do since the main purpose was to get to hangout with Carrie and catch up for an extended period. We had pretty great weather the whole time we were there and it turns out Linz is a very lovely, walkable place (well if you can walk, it was actually a bit taxing for me, but there was good public transport that was easy to access). Oh! As an aside, if you have T-Mobile, do NOT set your phone to wireless calling online, it completely blocks your ability to connect cellular/data while traveling. I didn't realise this until several days of not being able to use service because I had made a wifi call and hadn't set it back to wireless preferred. Yeah, so Linz wasn't super expensive, but it wasn't super cheap either. We went to the botanical garden which ironically had mostly American plants so it was kinda funny because what was exotic there was everyday to us 😊 Susan and Carrie did a bunch more stuff than me so I'll let her talk about that. I was able to go to the Ars Electronica (sp?) museum though and that was pretty awesome. They have this 3D movie room with educational videos that is just mindblowing! It is what 3D should always be like! SO GOOD. Plus, they have themed exhibits on cutting edge technological issues like around privacy, biogenetics and bioengineering, nanotechnology, 3d printing. Most of the exhibits are educational and interactive, which some technologies that I've only heard about but never been able to see before in person. Like this one where you walk around like you are in startrek, pressing buttons with a wand and popping up video images that layer on top of each other. It is definitely something you have to experience. Got lots of inspiration for future work there.... We also went on a boat ride to nowhere up or down the Danube, have know idea which way that river flows, saw some free fireworks, gleefully partook of the lack of prohibitive open container laws in Europe, ate disgusting spammeatloaftproduct from something Pepe and went up to a viewpoint with an aweomse panoramic view looking out over the city. All in all, this was great start to the trip. Barring the ankle injury, it was relaxing and super wonderful to get to hangout with a good friend over drinks and supper and just chillax, unless you were Susan and you had to work 12 hour days until the weekend.

While I had to work a lot this week, I still had a lot of fun. I had not expected anything from Linz. On a map it looks like it is in the middle of nowhere - equidistant from Prague, Munich, and Vienna. And when we pulled in on the train, it was incredibly industrial. But no matter as we were there to hang out with Carrie. Carrie, though showed us an amazing time, and even learned some new things about Linz herself. I exercised every morning, doing a daily run and 15 flights of stairs. It was a good way to see random parts of the city. And we tried out every grocery store in a two mile radius, of which there are many, only to learn in the last few days that there was a giant organic store around the corner from Carrie. I often walked down the mainstreet, which has the main streetcars and also has beautiful old architecture, one of the largest and trendiest shopping districts, and a lot of great restaurants and bars.

Our first night, Carrie took us to a beer garden. It had great ambiance and I had several sausages. Yummy. We also walked past the art museum and along the sculpture garden by the river, which was lovely. There was an outdoor music concerts at the Ars Electronica museum, and you could hear it outside on the other side of the river.

Another day, Carrie and I went to the arts cinema that every year hosts an outdoor exhibit. This year it was on birds. It was amazing! We walked outside across rooftops and looked at great art that related to birds in some way. On top of one roof they have one of those amusement park circle swings that lift you up 20 feet so you feel like your flying. I did this 15 stories up and it was both scary and exhilerating. On another roof they had a trampoline and they would belt you in and you could do all kinds of professional stunts. Carrie did a full summersault 10 feet in the air *and yes this trampoline was 15 stories up too and you would look down at the street every time you jumped. And all of this was free. Plus you could walk over to the church tower along a two plank pathway. It was like nothing I've ever done before. My fav exhibit by the way was one where they had humans simulate bird calls on video, and speed them up so that they sounded just like the birds. It was weird to see and hear.

The boat ride was a little disappointing. I wish it had gone a bit further. While it is two hours, it only goes to the far visible bridge and most of the time is spend slowly going through an inlet. I would skip the boat tour if I was doing it again. Although the company was great.

I had such a good time in Linz, that I would definitely go back. And of course the best thing was staying up late to have dinner with Carrie and talk about all kinds of things. Including how in Austria when you rent, you have to buy an entire kitchen with cabinets, stove, counter, and frig. And how Carrie built her kitchen and covered the cabinets with a contact paper like substance and put in new flooring. It looked completely professional!

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