Category: travel

Albertina Museum In Vienna, Part 1

On Sunday, we planned to visit both Albertina and at least some of the Hofburg museums, but we ended up spending the whole afternoon in Albertina (including lunch, which took longer than we expected for a museum cafe).

We started with the State Rooms exhibit, then moved on to Monet to Picasso and Fascination Paper.

This very unconventional piece of furniture was made for Archduke Carl, who got tired of the constant presence of the staff who didn’t allow him to do anything by himself. Having this very modern looking, and for his time, revolutionary, this stand allowed Archduke to put things on it and take them off independently (do not ask, that’s what the exhibit description says!)
And that’s how Archduke Carl looked
On the opposite side of practicality – a porcelain table
Continue reading “Albertina Museum In Vienna, Part 1” →

Travel

Now, trying to post in chronological order.

About the travel. British Airways decided to gift me a free business class upgrade, and they notified me when I was dropping off my luggage, not at the last minute. That was super-nice, because they are not my primary carrier, and I didn’t expect it. Also, that meant that I could sleep horizontally and try to get my sleep back on track. But now, I had a dilemma. Originally, I booked premium and planned to skip the meal and try to sleep right away, but now, there was some fancy food in sight, and at the same time, the flight was delayed even more.

I ended up having dinner, which was a mistake, because although we departed almost an hour late, the captain made up for it and we arrived almost on time, which meant I had less than four hours of sleep. My Apple Watch was going nuts about my lack of sleep.

I had a very long connection in London, which I was hoping to use to catch up on my community-related work, but I wasn’t super productive because I was so tired. My arrival in Helsinki was very late(as expected), and we had an early flight to Vienna.

To be done with the topic of sleep deprivation, we also had a late dinner with one of me peer on the first night in Vienna, and I finally caught up on sleep on Tuesday :).

I spent a very long time choosing a hotel to stay in Vienna, and it was OK location-wise, but there were several unexpected twists. First, although they said on the website they had a fitness center, it was… not really. To be precise, it meant a corner in their pre-sauna room, so you could technically exercise after you get out of the sauna, but not like you could come in the morning and do the weights. Second (and that was the first time ever I had such a problem) – there was no closet in the room. Nothing. Even a small one. Instead, there were two hooks with a bunch of hangers, and good luck hanging both the coats and the clothes! I would never thought I had to check for that!

Anyway, we survived, and are about to leave now, but I will definitely mention it in my review 🙂

Vienna On My Instagram

It might look like schnitzels, desserts, and coffee, and lots of entertainment, but this visit provoked a lot of thought about the parts of the history I didn’t know. I how I will have time to tell al about it, but for now – just my Instagram feed 🙂

Vienna Holidays

I will show more pictures shortly, but for now, just one. I am trying to spend my birthday in a new country every year, at least for another couple of years 🙂

On The Way Back

Finishing the post I started three days ago.

I didn’t upgrade my return flights because I didn’t need to sleep on the long flight back, and I figured I could purchase the lounge access separately. What surprised me at Yerevan’s Zvartnots airport was that they had a 24/7 duty-free store and a 24/7 business lounge.

I bought some (a lot of) chocolate, chocolate-covered dried fruit (and the only reason I didn’t buy dried fruit without chocolate was that I had three bags from my host), some flavored coffee, a bottle of pomegranate wine, and a set of three miniature Armenian brandy bottles. I really wanted to buy a bottle of Akhtamar, the best local brandy, to give it to Vlad, but there were no medium-size bottles, and my purchase was already heavy and bulky enough, and I still had to squizz everything in my carry on (not like they won’t allow an extra duty free bag, but I didn’t want to have an extra bag heavier than my luggage :).

The business lounge in Zvartnots was … strange, and they were surprised I was willing to pay for it rather than claim my credit card holder benefits, but having that the flight was forty minutes delayed, and that, due to many flights departing in the early hours of the morning, the international terminal looked like a Soviet Union era railway station, I believe I made a right decision.

I also paid for lounge access in Frankfurt, and everything there was as expected. I charged all my devices for the long daytime flight, and spent the time productively answering tons of unanswered emails and documenting my trip.

I’ve already mentioned that the arrival process had become exceptionally easy after the new passports were introduced, but this time was a record, especially because I didn’t have checked luggage. Thirty-five minutes after the aircraft stopped taxing, I was already on the Blue Line train (that includes the airport transfer to another terminal), and two hours and fifteen minutes later, I was already at home (yes, I took the L again, and it is becoming more and more acceptable, especially without the heavy luggage)

Feeling Armenia

Even though I stayed with locals, it’s impossible to draw any conclusions and/or form any opinion about the country after a three-day stay. Still, there are a couple of things I wanted to mention.

Armenia is a relatively poor country, still, the level of mutual trust is surprising and runs counter to my idea that you need a society of splendor to achieve it. One can say that the priest was comfortable leaving his belongings in a wide-open temple just because there was nobody around who could take advantage of the situation. But in the building where my friends live, the front door has no lock and no buzzer. Moreover, they only lock their apartment at night or when everyone is out, just like I do.

Another thing that I noticed was the way people talk to stranges. It was not our regular over-cheerful/annoying American talkativeness, but very calm and respectful willingness to support a conversation, whether it’s a smalltalk, or a meaningful discussion. No pressure to buy anything at the souvenir shop. Only the cab drivers at the airport, looking for clients, were annoying, but cab drivers are always and everywhere cab drivers. By contrast, during the actual rides, cab drivers were remarkably silent.

Calm, peace, and respect – these words defined my stay in Armenia.

More Snow, More Mountains, And Armenian Cuisine

When we left the monastery, we walked around a bit to take in some amazing views.

The last ray of the sun over the mountain
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A Snow Storm And A Trip To Haghartsin Monastery

It started to snow on Saturday evening, and it kept snowing. And kept snowing. And it snowed all night until about 8 AM.

My hosts started to worry about whether I would be able to get to the airport in the evening, if the mountain pass wouldn’t be cleared of snow. And even before that, we planned to go to the Haghartsin Monastery, and we were unsure how the roads were going to be. By noon, however, it looked like the snow stopped, and the roads were drivable. My hosts ordered a cab, and had a unique experience of a ride on mountain serpentine roads with at least six inches of snow!

Finally, the cab driver said that he’s not goign to get us any further, and we walked a little bit up to the Haghartsin Monastery, where we had experienced the most beautiful winter fairy tale one can imagine.

Continue reading “A Snow Storm And A Trip To Haghartsin Monastery” →

Some Pictures From Dilijan

Continue reading “Some Pictures From Dilijan” →

Lufthansa Adventures

I haven’t flown Lufthansa since 2020, and back then, I didn’t have a platinum status with Finnair, so I was not spoiled with lounge access and priority boarding. Several days earlier, I decided to upgrade my second inward flight to business class, because with six hours between flights, I couldn’t imagine surviving without the lounge. On the morning of Dec 24, I received an email from LH stating that the flight was full and asking passengers to check in their carry-on baggage free of charge. I didn’t want to check my cookies, so I decided the best way was to upgrade to economy premium. This gave me boarding group 3 instead of 6.

An hour before the departure, I was called to the podium along with many other passengers … and upgraded to business class🤷🏻‍♀️

The best thing about it was that I got almost six hours of sleeping horizontally, and was pretty much a normal person in the morning. The second best thing was that they served us a special LH spiced cocktail at departure.

And chocolates on Christmas morning, and one more small chocolate box right before arrival:

And our aircraft most definitely caught the eye of Santa Claus!

I worried a little bit about security in Frankfurt, because I knew that Germans are very particular with following the rules, and was not sure what would the say about sweet potato pie and a large tin of cookies in the carry-on, but to my surprise, German security had no issues with anything, and the only things that concerned the ORD security were two bags of protein powder.

I had a lot of time to spare in Frankfurt, which I spent in two lounges (the staff of the first one said they were closing at five, but it was quieter than the other one). I took their advice, and it actually worked well. Both lounges were indeed quiet and holiday-themed.

Something that really puzzled me in the business class blounge athroom – out of all places in the world, that’s where I would least expect it!

And something that pleasantly surprised me – a Christmas mini-dinner on the late-night flight to Yerevan. I can’t even remember the last time I had a goose! This one was very well made and had dumplings and cabbage on the side.

When we arrived in Yerevan, it was 4:15 AM local time, and I still had a 1.5-hour car ride to my final destination, but overall, the travel experience was the best possible for such a long trip!