So…I still don’t know who the Third Man was.

04Apr08

After grabbing my train tickets for the next day I realized that I had come to Vienna without too much of an agenda as far as things to see or do. This is partly due to not completely nailing myself down to a hard itinerary before leaving on the trip as well as the lack of (free) internet facilities in Italy.

So I had a day…what does one do with a free day…one takes care of business before anything. My mother had notified me that my bank had not gotten my address change notification about two months, while I was in London – and I had completely forgotten in the mean time…which lead to a hold being put on my bank account due to my mail being sent back to the bank. I will not get into how I resolved the issue due to the fact that it might have been slightly illegal (no matter how proper, moral, or in good faith), but I worked to resolve the matter and found out later that my (and another’s) efforts were successful when I was able to use an ATM again. If I had known that having a wife(ish) was so useful I would have gotten one long ago…although that would have been to my disadvantage, seeing as how the one I got now is pretty capable, intelligent, and good looking…thanks again, darlin.

After all that, I took a chance on the first thing I saw in the tourist info at the hostel that struck my fancy…the Austrian Folk Lore Museum.

Sometimes you just miss and I missed with that one…I didn’t get a whole lot out of it, but maybe that’s just because I can’t read German.

As I have found in my favorite cities in Europe, just walking around the right parts gives you a good enough experience that you feel justified in being there and the walk to and from the Folk Lore Museum was like that. Just cool stores, “interesting” people, and lovely (old) buildings…a good day.

That night I went to a late movie that I had seen advertised while I was trying to find the Mozart museum. “The Third Man” was an old black and white movie that starred Orson Wells and was adapted from a book by the English writer, Graham Greene. Thanks to another, more recent, movie (Donnie Darko) I was familiar with Greene’s work and had read a couple of his books, and now I was really excited to see the movie that was featured on the cover of the book that I had read…bonus: Orson Wells was in it, I dig him!

The story is fairly convoluted, I remember that about the book, although I seem to remember the book taking place before World War II and the movie took place after…during the occupation and reconstruction of Vienna (which must be the reason that it was being played here). It was a fairly typical noirish, and was drawn out in parts, but I must say, I really enjoyed it…if only to not be in Vienna for a night, but to be somewhere more familiar (a movie theater) watching a movie that takes place in Vienna. This is not to say that I am not happy to be in Europe, I am. I’m just saying that this movie happened at exactly the right time so as to kinda recharge my batteries and get me in the right mood for the home stretch of my trip: one month to go.