And so my time in Austria comes to a close. I’ve stayed in Klagenfurt this weekend, and will fly back Wednesday evening. Gah… flying. I wonder what the chances are my flight will be delayed, cancelled, rescheduled, or otherwise rendered incompetent. Of the five flights I’ve made to and from Austria, only one has actually gone according to the original plan. The worst was going home last Friday, where my flight from Klagenfurt to Vienne was delayed by an hour, which meant I missed the last connecting flight to Zurich. I managed to get on a flight to Basel, take a taxi from Basel airport to the train station (CHF40, halved with someone else) and take the train to Olten. On the plus side my flight was upgraded to business class, and my seat number was A1. Of course by the time I got to Olten it was past midnight and there were no more trains to Murgenthal (my stop), so Claudia came to my rescue and met me in Olten. And it was Emil’s birthday. Thanks Austrian Airlines!

I’ve had a touch of a cold or something since Friday, but it hasn’t slowed me down much. You can’t keep a good man down, as they say. And you can’t keep me down either. Nonetheless I’m quietly spending my Sunday reading Dilbert, watching a German overdubbing of Angels in the Outfield, and updating the blog. Was a really nice day so I went to the Zentrum for lunch and took some pictures.

Yesterday I went walking on the Slovenian border with some guys from work. Actually we parked on the Austrian side, showed our passports to the dude in the checkpoint, and walked up the valley on the Slovenian side. The border is just a 3-foot with a stick-figure sign saying you shouldn’t jump over it. Some rules just beg to be broken. There was a duty free shop too (the border actually runs through the shop), but Austrians and Slovenians aren’t allowed to buy from it, unless someone with a foreign passport buys it for them. Not that I did or anything.
From next Monday I will work in Zurich on a real project. A colleague here at work says he knows someone in Zurich who has a room for rent. I’m quite happy staying in Fulenbach for the moment, but the 90min transit to work and back might change that. I’ll try commuting for the first week and see what happens. I’m looking forward to having a regular lifestyle.