Vienna

We tried to catch some Z's on the train, but something happened along the way. ...
The Austrian Alps as seen from our train. We watched mountains roll past us for 3/4 of our 7 hour train ride. Many of the peaks were still covered in snow.
Some random Austrian town we blew by at 70 mph. B-E-A-utiful.
Statue of Neptune outside an art museum on the way to Hofburg Palace.

One of many entrances to Palace Hofburg. A good deal of the complex was destroyed by Churchill and the Allies because of Vienna's pro-Nazi sentiments. Still, it's an amazing place to see and a brilliant juxtaposition to Italian architecture and sculpture. The statues depict Hercules in four different feats.
In this shot Hercules is battling Cerberus, the three-headed hound of Hades, and he has the beast by the tail. In the statue to the left, Hercules has freed Prometheus of his bonds and a dead vulture lies at his feet.
Fountains outside the palace depict a battle between the Olympian gods and the Titans.

Rathausplatz, an enormous and very old square in Vienna. I have no idea what the significance of the building is, but such is the price you pay when you wander a city on your own.
Statues on the outside of the building's main tower. The entire exterior is decorated in a similar fashion.
Continuing with our amazing, unplanned timing, we showed up in Vienna during the Euro 2008 soccer cup, which Austira and Switzerland are hosting. A huge portion of the old city was blocked off and large TVs, speakers, food and beer stands were set up within these designated "fan zones."
We came across this mock pitch of the actual 2008 playing fields. Above the lights are 16 cameras used to track every player's movements. They record top speed, overall distance covered, place of possession on the field - enough stats to make the NFL stat nerds jealous. Aside from being a modern marvel of sports technology, this pitch was also our trip's greatest folly.
While looking at the pitch, the British fellow wearing white talked Spencer, Alex, Elon, Tony and a very drunk German man named Otto into playing. He promised we would be matched up against other Joes off the street. He lied.


The boys taking the pitch. They lent them boots and jerseys, but no shorts. For the next ten minutes these were the last smiles seen on their faces.

Otto. He spoke no English, and we spoke no German. But, it didn't really matter. When we tallied up the stats on the cameras, Otto ran about 30 meters more than Tony. Tony played keeper. We didn't realize how drunk he was until he got on the field. Aside from wondering how drunk he was, we also questioned if he had ever seen soccer played before.

Tony Time, making a big save. Enlarge the picture and focus on his face. You will not be dissapointed.
Getting ugly at the half, 9-0.

Easily the greatest action shot I have ever taken. Time was ticking down, the boys still had a goose egg on the score board, and I think Spence just couldn't take any more.
The scoreboard tells it all. Had the boys not had Otto, I feel confident they could have cut the score by a good 3-5 goals. Also, in their defense, the other team was stacked full of guys working at the pitch. The man Spence kicked in the groin was ranked #4 out of all the people who have played.

This is a real sign for a real Asian eatery. We were floored when we saw it. Never again do I want to hear about how America needs to be more politically correct. Hilarious.





This is pretty representative of how the entire game went, minus the time when Tony asked the striker to "go easy" on him.