Back to the beginning

Don't think for a moment that my reflections are going to be chronological. I'm starting here just because I came across a couple of video clips today. So we're looking at departure day Friday 02 June 2017, arrival in Vienna Saturday 03 June 2017, and the following day, Sunday 04 June 2017.

I had a cold or flu (ran a temperature) the week before leaving. This meant taking days off work and dosing on vitamins in an effort to get well enough to travel. By Friday, I wasn't too bad, but far from 100 per cent. Everything went normally for leaving home, getting to Auckland, and the first leg in an Air New Zealand 787-9 to Shanghai. Had a reasonable sleep.

According to the plan, I had 2 hr 55 min at Shanghai while transiting, so I was considering paying for entry to a lounge. How wrong I was. To transit, I had to go to a counter and queue. I went to the one with the Austrian Airline sign on it, and it took say 20 min to get to the counter to be told I should have been in the other queue, which had American Airlines logo on it. There were a lot of people, two staff working, one on each queue, and one just standing in the background doing nothing (supervising?).

So I join the other queue. Another 30 min at least to get to the counter to be told to wait "over there" where there were another 20 or so people. The rumors were that we had to go for quarantine screening, and that made me uneasy, given my 'condition'. We waited there ages. Some tried to break away from the huddle but were quickly bought back in line by shouting officials.

After an age, someone came to escort us down miles of corridor, and steps, to a counter that indeed, did seem set up for temperature screening. Three uniformed officers lounged behind the counter doing nothing. Eventually, they stamped a piece of paper for each of us. At this point we are on the perimeter of a vast area that I think is the arrivals area - size of a football stadium - no one there.

The logical thing now is for us to do a 180 degree turn back through the channel we came through and up the stairs. Nosiree. Official made us follow them in a loop around the perimeter in a wide circle before we could go back up the same stairs. Then back to our starting point where we had to wait.

My mind's a bit blurry about how many bits of paper there were and at what point we surrendered them, but after some time, something like that happened and we went through a set of doors. Here we entered the departure area after the immigration counters, but before the screening counters, and went through screening. It was the usual pfaff and I had to remove my belt. Pat down was done by a woman so I thought it would be interesting if my jeans fell down again.

After that, we walked some more miles and eventually pop out at a normal departure gate area with shops and everything. No time for a shower, just a quick toilet stop and it's time to board for the next leg.

I will never transit through China again.

Arrival at Vienna was straightforward, as was catching the City Airport Train. I then got a Metro to my hotel, emerging from the underground to see the hotel sign directly ahead of me. Hotel very cool and funky (will share some pics later).

Went for my usual orientation walk, in search of a cool beer, and focused on the Naschmarkt. While enjoying my arrival, there was a torrential downpour (I have no protection with me at this point).

Had weiner schnitzel for dinner.

Up early next morning for the Vienna Boys' Choir. This was actually a full Catholic mass, including a sermon in German. It was in a small chapel in the Hapsburg complex. And a bit like the emperor's new clothes. All we could see down below (I was on one of 3 tiny balconies) was the priests who sing badly, and 11 older choristers who provide the counter-something or other. Allegedly on the 4th balcony, there was an organ, an orchestra, and the VBC.

Well, forgive me for being cynical, but this place was as wide as my lounge! Of course, recording and photos are forbidden. But at the end, when all the priestly dudes have left, they wheel the VBC on to sing a number on ground level. It seems to be a given that you can now photograph and video this - it was a sea of cellphones. I had seen this on Youtube so wasn't surprised. But I only had my small Nikon with me.

It was an amazing experience, recorded or not.  But it raises a number of questions. I paid money to go to a mass and this seems improper. But being good Dolans, they still took a collection round, and because it was so cramped, they'd made little collection bags suspended from the end of poles that they poked around the audience. I was highly amused. But couldn't stop thinking that Jesus supposedly drove the traders out of the house of god.

I bought a couple of recordings and once outside, 3 lucky choristers get to pose for photos with the tourists. That was a bit tacky, I thought, but the Americans loved it.

Spent the rest of the day getting lost, looking around, and picked up my pass for the week.