Vienna, Day 1

Four Things That Are Annoying:
1. That each country in Europe feels the need not only for a different language, but a different fucking keyboard contraption. In England and America, you have QWERTY keyboards. Okay, I complained about them when I was young and learning to type, but now I know how to type and they work fine. In France, you have AZERTY keyboards, which are annoying but which I have gotten used to. NOW, in Austria, they have QWERTZ keyboards. This is driving me completely insane. There are, like, ten letters that I can count on to be there when I need them. Don't even get me started on punctuation marks. Typing now makes me want to cry.
2. My normal February cold, which arrived promptly on schedule the day I was supposed to be leaving for Paris, and which now keeps me up for two hours at a time every night coughing my lungs up. Shut up, stupid cold. I'm tired enough without your influence, and now all my hostel roommates want to kill me.
3.The book I finished on the way here, Andre Norton's Wheel of Stars. Dear Andre Norton, Since you are neither Madeleine L'Engle, nor Ursula Le Guin, nor Robin McKinley, I must insist that you stop pretending you are, and therefore stop writing books which feature the end of the world because of the stupidity of mankind, the joyous reuniting of two identities into a whole person, or a perfectly normal young woman who suddenly discovers that not only does she have magic powers, but she is some sort of last true hope for mankind. Look on the bright side, Ms. Norton: you are also not Mercedes Lackey, so perhaps if you set your sights a little lower, you can write lovely, decent page turners set in an entirely fantastical environment. Play to your strengths, my dear. Love, petitechica.
4. The fact that it apparently takes four hours to get to Prague from here. I refuse to believe it is that far away. On the map it looks like it should be two or three hours, not four. Now it will be much more of a pain in the ass to take a day trip up there, but I shall go anyway.

Four Things That Are Awesome:
1. The shopping in Vienna. The shopping in Vienna is totally fantasic, and if I had had any money yesterday I wouldn't have it anymore. All the bookstores have a nice, relatively big English language section, the clothing and shoe stores are fantastic, and the souvenir shops don't annoy me as much as usual because lots of them sell Mozart CDs. Also the downtown area is completely gorgeous beyond all reason, it's like you walk along, la de da, and suddenly there's this completely beautiful building right in front of you. Not every building is beautiful -- lots of it is just very commercial, it reminds me of downtown New York -- but that makes it all the more startling when one does suddenly pop up.
2. The St. Stephen's Cathedral, which I randomly stumbled into yesterday. This has to be the most Gothic building I have ever seen in my life. It's all dark and broody and archy and full of gargoyles. I had no idea it was there but now I think it is extremely cool and one of my favorite cathedrals.
3. The movie Hollywoodland, which I saw last night, in English, because Austria loves me. Damn, that movie was completely excellent, and everyone should go see it immediately. Adrien Brody is gorgeous, but more than that the acting is really good, the camera work is really good, the story is suitably twisty, it's just all around awesome. I have to say, the noir genre is completely growing on me. The mystery genre in general, really, but particularly the subset that is noir. I blame Veronica Mars, and also all the Bogart movies I got for my last birthday. I know I like the mystery genre because the detectives are usually so cool, and they have a way of making me feel both really smart and totally in awe of their intelligence at the same time, which I like. They can even be a little smug, and that's okay, as long as they're smug in the direction of people around them instead of in my direction. Julian Kestrel, Veronica Mars, Philip Marlowe, I even picked up a Thursday Next novel yesterday and was liking her. (This means I'm going to have to check out both Lord Peter Wimsey and Sherlock Holmes books again, now that I sort of like mysteries; this genre has been growing on me so totally slowly that it's hard to know what I'll like or won't like at any given time.) Anyway, Adrien Brody as Louis Simo definitely goes on the good list.
4. My hostel, which has cleanliness, relative privacy, and free lockers that come with your room. One of the best hostels I have stayed at, so I really hope they don't hate me for coughing so much.