the neverending story.

E & V

This cleverly chosen title is certainly the best way to describe our feelings towards the probably most hated word in the Austrian vocabulary.  

OEBB. 

For all of you non-Austrians who have never heard of that expression before- it means "Österreichische Bundesbahnen" (translation: Austrian federal railway). Every day you can see huge posters and TV spots where they praise how over-punctual their trains are, -how clean and non-smelly. Well. Let us tell you the truth. They're not. 

Our personal favourite quote about the OEBB is: 

-"OEBB. They never wait, but they're always late."- 

Aww.. yeah. we love that one.

So whether you're going home, to other parts of Austria, to Venice, to Rome or to god knows where - do not- we repeat- DO NOT count on the OEBB. Sure, it's better to take the train than to walk to your final destination, however we're not actually sure if we wouldn't in fact arrive there faster by foot than by taking the OEBB.. 

We say the word OEBB quite a lot, don't we? ..

Well, today we decided to leave Vienna really early in order to enjoy the upcoming sunny days on the countryside. We happily met at the main rail station, accompanied by our good friend Tom, and already were at home in our thoughts. But HEY! NOT SO FAST! Someone cheered too soon, it seems. Of course, our lovely OEBB, again, had a delay of 10 minutes and we had to switch the platforms two times in order to get to the right track, finally. When we got on the train we were utterly in awe that we actually found a seating accomodation just for us three and said out loud how happy we are about it. Well, that's where we jinxed it. First of all, our train had to switch routes and therefore had a delay of another 10-15 minutes. When we arrived in Wiener Neustadt, our interchange station, we had to find out via monitors that our connecting train was - of course - gone and didn't wait, and the next one had - how else could it be - a delay of 30 minutes. Well at first. 

Then it turned into -

.. then into ..

.. and then into .. 

.. and actually it was quite funny, 'cause it then turned into 41 minutes again, but when we happily cheered that we gained another minute, it turned back to 42. So there you have it. OEBB hates us. And other Austrians as well. And we swear to god,- if we hear or see one more commercial about their punctuality or their overconfident announcement of how tourist-friendly and international they've become (-the incredible pronunciation of english sentences by the train guard -""Wi wisch juu a plesnt dschörni änd a nais däi in ostria!" speaks volumes) - we have to puke. Honestly. 

So, of course, we had to go get ourselves some lovely treats while we where waiting and bought some baked goods. The "Franz Josef Stangerl" was especially attractive to us..  :)

-- Esther trying to get the caraway off of her pretzel stick -- 

Finally going home. 

At last, we would like to add something. Even though this post may has its amusing sides, we would also like to say that we are aware of the fact that sometimes (not most of the times)- but sometimes very serious accidents happen on the rail roads here in Austria as well. Very sad things that we won't talk about right now. So all fun aside, we feel obligated to say that we do not - in any way - take that specific topic lightly and we also do not just want to make a good joke out of it.  

E&V