The empty glass...

...was set down, lemon sucked, and somewhere in the haze of the smokey expat bar Glenn said, "Austria was a song."

Austria was a song. Thursday was St. Patrick's day, Andrew and I hung around my room, ate beans and rice, and reveled in the balcony being usable on the first nice day since november. We yelled conversation which led to some confusion, and a pawn fell on my chair.

The pawn was from two floors up, Shell(ie/ey/y) and Abigail's room. Returning the pawn got us an invite to an irish bar with a mob, and we took it. Got angry because of the aformentioned frustration and had a beer, then went to see the Life Aquatic.

I don't have to say anything about that movie, because if you're keen on Wes, you already know, and if you're not, you won't agree.

We went from the movie back home and Andrew and I made our way into the next building for what we thought was a St. Patrick's day party, but it wasn't. It turned out it was someone's birthday, but all the same we were given drinks gratis. Hanging out and talking with Jesse followed. We were up till the wee hours and I was supposed to get up to go with Andrew to meet his friends Glenn and Brett at the train station. (Technically, Brett was, at that point, a friend of a friend, but let's not split hairs.) I didn't make it due to alarm clock idiosyncracies. Regardless they came into the place Jesse and I were eating in the early afternoon, and we hung out with them thereafter.

It was 7:40 and we were finishing dinner in the Staro Brno brewery. Andrew, Jesse, and I are informed that there is room and an invitation for us to sleep in the huge apartment hostel Glenn and Brett have acquired through what I believe were clerical errors. We accept, and have just under an hour to get our passports and buy tickets for the train.

We did it. Glenn said, "stop being a martyr," and andrew replied that martyrs don't succeed. "I'm a hero." He is.

He ran from Vistaviste (don't care about spelling it right) to our rooms, got all our passports, toothbrushes, and a stick of deodorant between two trams going by. This after having been drinking for over six hours.

Jesse has money, and Andrew and I do not, so Jesse, I will safely say, is also a hero. If he hadn't been willing to help us (specifically me) out, this weekend couldn't have happened. At least not for me.

So we're running, adrenal, through the streets of brno after urging our tram to move faster than it by rights ought, and we get to the train station. Andrew goes into the office, sweating and breathing heavily. He says we need three tickets for Vienna returning on Sunday and departing right now. The ticket clerk, deadpan, says, "yeah, I know."

So all of a sudden, we're in Vienna. Glenn plays tour guide, we talk a lot. Kasekrainer and Jesse's first tequila and beers that cost too much and snitzel and churches and hapsburgs and tours and austrian television and mohitos and long island ice teas and cold viennese winds. So much film waiting for a lab in the states to get developed.

Saturday was the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and we walked against the tide of a huge austrian protest being escorted by jackboots with bodies. We had leisurely coffees in the train station before we left and we had to run to catch our train back to brno.

"This is an adventure."

MUSIC: neutral milk hotel: two-headed boy

P.S. Do not see the movie Leprechaun IV