Near the end

Today is our last day in Vienna and our last day in Austria. We have only a night time cruise to Budapest for the finale of the river cruising portion of the trip. Surprisingly we have only spent a couple of afternoons on the sun deck. The first couple of days were chilly and overcast and a few days in the middle were over a section of the Main River and the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal when it was closed because of the low bridges.

Thankfully the portions the Rhine River and then later the Danube River that were most photogenic and dotted with castles and vineyards and quaint villages were passed in good weather and perfect conditions.

Austrian people like to think of themselves as unlike Germans. And that may be true for some things but not for all things. For instance I am used to numbering those infrastructure items like telephone poles and electrical transformers but Austrians also number the trees and the garbage cans.

The Viennese City Council met with a group of taggers and worked out an agreement that the taggers could do what they wanted on the miles of concrete walls beside the Danube Canal if they wouldn't tag elsewhere. It is infinitely humorous to me that they could be so naive as to believe that taggers could actually enter into an agreement and that they would respect it. The taggers have spray painted all the walls along the canal and everywhere else too.

When the ship was heading upstream it was easy to dock as we just pulled up beside the berth and tied off. Now that we are heading with the current, the ship does a little dance to swing around prior to tying off facing into the flow. Then we do the same dance in reverse before sailing away.

I am shocked at the percentage of Europeans that smoke. I don't know if the cigarette packages don't carry a warning or if those warnings aren't believed or what but there are lots of smokers.