We did have our only real travel screw up in Dubrovnik which, at least to begin with, put a bit of a damper on our
moods. After spending about six hours at the airport on an apparently sunny day, it was announced that our flight to
Vienna had been cancelled due to poor weather, meaning we wouldn’t be able to leave Croatia until the next
morning. That wouldn’t have been too bad if we hadn’t already paid for accommodation in Vienna and had plans to
meet some friends from Sydney for dinner. That said we found the whole situation almost funny, watching the rest
of the flight freaking out and yelling at people who clearly had nothing to do with the decision, nor the power to do
anything about it. Eventually we made our way to the information desks and got our flight fixed for the next
morning, albeit via Zagreb instead of directly, and got put up for accommodation in a hotel for the night. We then
jumped on the bus to our hotel expecting some run of the mill standard motel style thing, only to be amazed to find
ourselves standing outside a four star hotel resting on the edge of the coast! Our room itself was amazing, and it was
great after having spent so much time cramped in hostels actually being able to stretch out and relax. The best part
was definitely the dinner though, a complementary buffet, which we more than took advantage of. The waiters all
found it entertaining that in a room filled with hundreds of people in fancy dresses and button up shirts, we both
showed up in track pants and soccer jerseys – I’d say we were up there with the first backpackers they’d had at their
hotel!
Vienna & Prague
The next day we finally made it to Vienna and met up with our friends for a great dinner, even if it was a day late.
The flight delay meant that we had a day less in the city than we intended which was sad, so we only really got a
chance to have a walk around the city and couldn’t visit any of the museums we had planned on seeing.
We then travelled north from Austria and into the Czech Republic and the ancient city of Prague. My expectations
for Prague had slowly been raised higher and higher over the course of the trip as we met more and more people
who had travelled there, and it really was amazing. The whole city was absolutely beautiful, something I think is
largely due to that where other cities had had old buildings scattered around town, almost all of Prague gives the
appearance of being untouched in hundreds of years. Again most of our time was spent exploring the city, checking
out the castle and its surrounding views, the old town square with its famous astronomical clock, and on one night, a
ridiculously big six storied nightclub. Our choice to head back into eastern Europe this late in the trip proved
unintentionally to be a good one, with the average cost of a full meal being about 4 euros opposed to almost double
that more towards the west, and I was definitely at a point where the majority of my spending money was coming to
me via mum and dad’s bank account.
Edinburgh
On that same note, we were lucky again with our next destination, Edinburgh, where we stayed with a friend of ours
from Sydney who lived in a nice apartment with his girlfriend only a kilometre or two away from Edinburgh castle.
Although our friend was working fulltime while we were there, he did take a day off to take us out to St Andrews golf
course, which even though I'm not the biggest golf fanatic, was really cool. Apart from that day and a few dinners
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