13.08.2007

Neda’s birthday, Yippee!

We started the day with a breakfast that Ivana prepared for us before she had to go to work. We packed up and headed into town to meet Ivana at the Art Gallery where she is a curator. She took us on a private tour (it is closed on Mondays). We said our farewell and picked up a couple of things from some shops in town before starting the drive to Vienna.

The drive took about 5 hours, one of which was spent in a bottleneck before the Croatia Slovenia border. It was really cool to watch the changes in both the landscape and the styles of houses as we drove from Zagreb, into the hills of Zargorje and then over the border to Slovenia and then Austria. It is hard to describe but this is one of the reasons we chose to drive ourselves through Europe. Both Slovenian and Austrian countrysides look very “cute” with perfectly arranged hills and fields and cute houses surrounded with flowers. Like a children’s storybook.

Anyway, by the time we reached our hotel room, it was already 8pm. We headed out for a walk and dinner. As we strolled through a restaurant and bar area we happened upon a place that looked to us to be what we thought is typically Viennese. After spotting the number 1447 on the menu amongst some German text, I asked our waiter and we found that that was the year the restaurant opened and that Griechenbeisl is the oldest restaurant in Vienna. Fluke. Previous patrons included Beethoven, Schubert, Wagner and more. The service and food were great and we enjoyed a particularly nice bottle of Brut to mark the occasion.