Wien-er I

I’m back from Viennaaa – land of the schnitzel, the best trains ever, more dogs per square mile than anywhere else, lots of old senile people who mumble to themselves, and many, many weirdos.

I thought London has strange people, but in Vienna there are more. The only difference is, while London weirdos are more likely to stab you, Viennese weirdos are quite harmless, which is great!

Our airport sleepover was an interesting experience, although I didn’t really manage to get much sleep. Brandy did though.

So I took a walk taking pictures of random sleepers.

I took this shot from where we were sitting. At the time of taking it I didn’t notice the guy waving. Well, I say waving but it looks like he’s really saying ‘Don’t take my fucking picture you weirdo’.

Our plane to Bratislava was very inviting.

I took some film shots out of the window. Considering I’d used the wrong settings on it for the entire trip (more on that later) I think they came out pretty well!

_{Nikon EM, Superia 200}

Bratislava looks interesting, doesn’t it?

When we landed, we took the train from there to Vienna. Buying the tickets was an amusing experience. People don’t really speak English in Bratislava, so after some slow, loud speaking, and big arm gestures, we managed to get what we needed. It’s strange though – a return ticket costs half the price of a one-way ticket.. not sure why that is. James got shouted at by the ticket person as well which was quite hilarious. He was all scared, like a wittle girl. Haha

The train was fab – it was one of those super old-fashioned ones with separate ‘rooms’ and curtains.

Haha what a view..

The toilet was absolutely disgusting though. Yuck, yuck. My shot of it came out rubbish but I’ll post the one James took when it’s up.

Where there’s a mirror, there’s an obligatory self-portrait

I don’t like making fun of the slightly larger members of our species, but really and truly..

She swished all the way past us.

James and I went out into the corridor to check out the train and we saw her in the next compartment munching away on some crisps. She saw our cameras and quickly hid her food. I thought it’d be a tad insensitive to take a picture of her then, but I actually wish I had!

My first impression of Vienna – the trains.. amazing! I wish we had trains like that in London.

Wieselll

The stations even have cool names like Kettenbruckengasse. Say it. Kettenbruckengasse. Love it.

They have these knobs that magazines hang off – see how clever these Viennese designers are? The London tube doesn’t cater for us like that!

You don’t even really need a ticket – there’s nothing to swipe in or out and I didn’t see any inspectors. No one cares! It’s great.

Finding our hotel was a bit of a mission, mainly because James is rubbish with directions and thought his navigation map thingy on his mobile phone was actually worth relying on. Old fashioned maps are the way forward I tell you! So while we tried to figure out where we were, I took some shots of the surroundings.

Cute Viennese graffiti

Funky Viennese graffiti

Doggies snogging

Lonely doggy

Pretty Viennese walls

After asking a few people for directions, we finally found the hotel. The lift was funky.

We met up with Sev and Miriam for Chinese dinner at this dinky little restaurant, and then with some others in a place called Centimetre III, where you pay for some food per centimetre – clever concept. Kinda.

Marcus

Arno – we did the waltz together I’m in Vienna – it had to be done!

Lonely guy at the bar. Yeah, it hasn’t come out well but I still like it.. I can ‘feel’ the atmosphere.

The next day we met up with some others and went around the city. I stupidly forgot the digital camera battery in the hotel room so had to make do with the film cam

_{Ilford XP2, Nikon EM}

Porn is big in Vienna. It’s advertised around the city quite openly.

They even sell porn magazines next to toy shops

Unless they have a different concept of sex toys over there.. hm.

Miriam – she has the best facial expressions

I don’t remember taking this shot so I guess James did. My camera went around a lot that day ¬__¬

Sev took this one

I think James took this one of me ¬__¬

He also took this one of some old man doing something

We walked through Naschmarkt, a bustling market with lots of character

That’s one big jack fruit although my mum says that’s actually small compared to the ones they used to get in Africa.

We bought some kind of fish from here – quite delicious, although very greasy and messy.

Pig-shaped bread! How cool is that? I asked how much it is, but apparently I needed to order it a day in advance. Booo.

Super giant dog

After I took this some lady came up to me and started babbling. I had no idea what she was saying so I just said ‘big dog!’ and she carried on mumbling. People love mumbling in Vienna. It’s a city of mumblers.

Random signs

More dogs

This next one is very underexposed.. I’m surprised more didn’t turn out like this with the damn settings I was using

We went to a supermarket and bought..

Mmm prawn crackers.

We also went to a theme park later that day, and I took more shots on another roll of film that I need to scan, so more from that later.

Back to the hotel and back to digital!

Sev joined us

That’s all for now – more to come soon..

Tony <3 WMD

14/3/07 – London, Westminster

I was in Westminster at lunchtime today – there were protests taking place against the Government’s stance on “weapons of mass destruction”. Conveniently I had a camera on me!

Greenpeace protesters climbed up a crane in front of the Houses of Parliament and let down this banner. Yes, Tony Blair loves WMD. Effective? Hm, not sure but it got pretty widespread publicity – so I suppose their mission was accomplished.

It actually coincided with the day that MPs were going to vote on the subject of Trident. Read more about it here.

In Parliament Square, Brian Haw was making his voice heard through a loudspeaker. He was urging people to go to the Tate Britain to see the anti-war exhibition. As you can see, the road was blocked off by police so I couldn’t go any closer to say hello to him Next time, next time.

These protesters had attached themselves to barrel-like objects, as the police looked on. It was quite amusing really – there were only a handful of demonstrators yet loads of police, and the road was blocked off.

Er, I don’t think they were very amused.

More of them on the other side of the street where we couldn’t get access to.

You can’t really see it clearly but there were men sawing away at the barrels to release the protesters, while they just sat there and stared at them haha

One of them is taken away by police after being ‘freed’

This woman was talking to a “legal observer” about all kinds of things, but in short – how fucked up the Government is. She was looking at me the whole time. I guess she was talking to me then!

That’s all. I miss the days when a lunch hour could stretch to the whole day.

On a side note, remember this woman from my Darfur shots? She reminded me of Michael Jackson, but I just found out that she’s actually Bianca Jagger