Dateline Alger

Kinda anti-climatic, since y'all know I'm home, but . . . I am home.

I had a last drink of pivo with Slavko on the job site on my last day. Then Wednesday, Slavko and Nada were kind enough to rise one hour early in the dark to drive me to the ferry to Split.

Short flight to Vienna after waiting around in Split, arriving about 2:00 p.m., walked to my "Pension Mozart" - thank you, MapQuest - and checked in, then walked around the old center of town. Nicely enough, the pension was almost in the Museum Quarter and directly adjacent to the old center with its government buildings, museums, cathedrals, palaces, sculptures, and squares.

Spent 8 Euros (senior rate!) to see an Impressionist exhibit at the Palace Albertina, then found a 20th century exhibit downstairs which I enjoyed even more, especially Joan Miro. Spent a little time lost in the dark in a large park trying to find my way back to the pension.

Interesting place, for a big city. Famous Austro-Hungarian architecture (of course!) with mythological trimmings, tons of cultural events and venues, sculptures and monuments everywhere - (musical or military themes) - parks, lots of bicycle paths, pedestrian sections, great old electric trolleys just like Zagreb or Sarajevo (since Austria supplied the trolleys to those places when it ruled them), buses, and the Underground, plus the wonderful City-to-Airport electric train, super-quiet, convenient, and only takes 16 minutes one way.

The next day, 9 hours to Toronto, 5 hours to Vancouver B.C. and - thanks to Julia - one-hour to Alger. Almost like magic!!

My first impressions now that I'm back:

1. Wooden houses seem so flimsy compared to the stone ones of Dalmatia.
2. Colored walls seem strange! (All white in Dalmatia.)
3. The sprawl in the U.S. seems obscene. (Flying over Austria and Vienna, I could see again the European planning which keeps the villages and cities so tight with farmland running right up to them.)

(And a tip: if you ride a newer 767 with Air Canada, you can adjust the headrests up or down for a comfortable overall fit in the seat, as well as wrap them to fit your head. I discovered this 5 hours too late while stretching my cramped body in the aisle waiting to exit the plane.)