not much luck in Austria - again

[openidwouldwork]

*sigh*

so, most of last week I was down in Austria for diving. Which resulted in ONE dive and minor ow (ankle again. The other one.)

*grumps*


The Plan:

Avoid that lake at all cost ;)

Pick up a (non-diving) friend, drive down to the Feldkirchener Seen, find buddy, dive. Drive half an hour to a pre-arranged inn. Next day to be spend on job interviews, the non-diver doing sightseeing. Then drive to the Attersee region, find buddy(s), two dives, same next day, then spend last day on sightseeing in Salzburg.

You are probably already seeing one of my problems.

Dive your plan:

Well.

On the way to pick up my non-diver I was called by the Praxis I was supposed to visit the next day and told that they had found someone else. This in itself wasn't that bad, but there went that night's accomodation. We had a leisurely second breakfast and discussed what to do...

A few hours later we set out directly to the Attersee region and arrived late afternoon. On the way I had called two dive shops - one as a buddy-finder for the next day, the other to arrange a special dive the day after - and, as my non-diver was hell bent on camping, had asked for advice on about diver-friendly campground. When we arrived there we were told they were full... so we went to the tourist info and started calling random campgrounds. We finally found one with vacancy at the southern side of the Attersee, called 'Europacamp'. Hot (36°C) and tired we checked in and set up our tent...

What we didn't know was that the campground belongs to the Socialistic Youth and the RSO (Revolutionary Socialistic Organisation) was having their summercamp there. This means there were workshops on Demo-behaviour, Rehoric, rights, writing articles and painting banners during the day.


And Anarchy at night.

A morning muster would have been greatly appreciated by us, but no such luck.

Instead another Horror awaited us the next morning: the Kinderfreunde. (Childrens's Friends)

((yes, in German German this name does have an *cough* unsavoury connotation, but the Austrian girl who showed us to our campsite didn't understand what I was alluding to when I asked her about it, so I suppose things are different in Austrian German. I hope.))

Anyway, the hostel part of the Europacamp was booked solid with children 6 to 10 years old. Let your imagination run wild... think what this means for the breakfast buffet.

Even if you managed to slip throught the doors at 8am sharpe (and beat the arriving mob of pests) to get your second cup of coffee you had to stand in line for half an hour, surrounded by screaming menaces. We had a steep learning curve and took two large cups each the next day.

The Kinderfreunde stuck Terror even in the most hardened socialistic heart; overheared conversation: "When I woke up, I looked at the alarm clock and saw it was already 8:01h and thought 'OH NO, the KINDERFREUNDE!' and then I ran"

But I digress.

I listened to the weather forecast the afternoon we arrived at the Attersee, and they predicted (correctly) storm gales and thunder for the next evening. As the special dive is VERY reliant on perfect conditions, I called the diveshops again and rearranged my scedule.

So, after a restless night (who on earth has to play volleyball at 4 am, AND cannonade the ball into our tent anyway???) we set out to the Traunfall.

(more about 'scubing' and diving there elsewhere)

To do some non-diving and sightseeing we visited Gmunden (pretty), Traunkirchen (boat-shaped pulpit) and went swimming in the Attersee.

Another wonderfully refreshing night (*cough*) later, I cheerfully set out to the other diveshop. Diving FAIL resulted. The buddy I picked up there paniked after 5min in 9m depth, ascended and was not willing to try again. (visibility was allright, there was a lot of light and it wasn't that cold, but I suppose if all your 50 dives have been in Turkey or Egypt... but really, I'd rather not dive than hold hands and coddle an vacational diver. (plus I wasn't getting payed for babysitting. Quite the opposite)).

I tried to find alternative buddies by calling several other diveshops, but there was a severe weather alert for the afternoon and all diving was cancelled. So I collected my non-diver (she had been hiking) and we went to Bad Ischl. We were surprised how not pretty the town was, and quickly retreated to the wonderful Kaiser Therme.

Highlight was the Lazy River but the whole Therme is great.

This night I opted to sleep in the car (the predicted storm had arrived, as well as more partying Socialistic Youths), so I had a wonderfully restful night. The non-diver in the tent was treated to a night-long shouting match between different fractions...

I had hoped that I could find another buddy at the one or other well known divespot, but as it was pouring rain the next morning, no random divers were to be found... :(

Salzburg wasn't fun either (pouring by the bucket) so we drove home (and spend most of the day in the gigantic traffic jam that was the A8. I hate Munich)



*sigh*

Comments

[rosinarowantree.livejournal.com]

I would love to glide round on the Lazy River ... but it's a shame that your diving was so disappointing in the buddy-line. And you shouldn't have to baby sit - either the baby-buddies, or the Kindergarten. *HUGS* and *SNUGGLES*

[openidwouldwork.livejournal.com]

That's the trouble when you don't travel with your own buddy *sigh*

I really want to show you the one or other Therme one day!

And the Kinderfreunde were just plain terror... how dare they block coffee access in the mroning?!?