Whirlwind Daytrip to Vienna

04 September 2007

At 03:30 the dreaded alarm began singing its ugly tune. Argh. I was in no mood to be getting up, showered and dressed. 03:30. It's just much too early. Fortunately, I do not have to push myself to my limits that way very often so I was able to drag myself out of bed.

At 04:30 the taxi driver arrived and I started my day trip to Vienna, Austria. I was on my way to the European Society of Cardiology Congress to attend the first presentation of the long-awaited results from the study on which I have been working.

The taxi ride and the flight were nice and quiet. Since I was awake anyway, I made use of the time to catch up on reading.

Upon arriving in Vienna, I stepped into a cab and headed straight to the Conference Center.

The one thing that I did have the opportunity to do while I was in Vienna was to try to Austrian coffee... several times. According to my travel books, Austrians are known for their coffee. The fact that I had been up since 03:30 in the morning, I felt, justified my 2 cappuccinos, 2 coffees with cream, and 1 espresso. In between meetings, I could be found hidden in a corner with my work papers and a steaming cup of liquid energy. I can attest that Austrian coffee is every big as good as "they" say it is... I enjoyed each and every sip from the beginning of the day to the end.

In the afternoon, I made my way to the Poster room where I found a former colleague (DD) from the University of Minnesota. We had a very enjoyable time catching up and chatting about Gent and Europe in general. I was sorry to have to run off to another meeting.

After a long day of several meetings, I headed back off to the airport and made my way home. It was a typical business trip.