Vienna - Day Thirty Eight

I am an idiot.

Last night I went out to Flex - the legendary nightclub with the legendary club night, London Calling. I had an amazing night, I danced like a fool and drank too much alcohol, but spoiled the whole thing a little by somehow managing to lose my digital camera in the back of a taxi on the way home.

This is even more spectacularly inept than it sounds. My expensive, all-singing all-dancing camera has been broken since Milan and apparently needs to be sent back to Nikon to be fixed, which will take a few weeks. With that in mind, and frustrated at being in beautiful cities and unable to take any pictures, I had just blown about 150 euros on a compact digital camera and then spent the last two days making up for lost time. This is the camera I managed to lose, a mere 48 hours or so after buying it.

I had about 100 photos on there already, and some of them were really nice. Yesterday, with time on my hands and the sun hot in a blue, blue sky, I visited the impressive palace and gardens at Schönbrunn, on the edge of the city. Completely on the spur of the moment I bought a ticket for the zoo that they have there - the oldest in Europe, founded sometime in the 1700s. I sometimes get depressed at zoos - there's nothing worse than seeing animals cooped up in bad enclosures - and I was a little worried that Europe's oldest zoo might be a bit basic, but it turned out to be fantastic. The enclosures are pretty imaginative, and they have some cool animals. I would have paid the entrance fee just to see the three jaguars they have there (especially when one of them snarled at a teenage girl who tried to poke it - she nearly passed out with fear), but they also have a baby panda, some energetic sea lions, sleepy hippos and a really well designed rainforest house. I had more fun than a solitary zoo visitor should probably expect to have, and enjoyed walking round the palace gardens and getting lost in the deceptively tricky maze.

I know I only have myself to blame for losing the camera. It's another beautiful day in Vienna today though, and it's hard to get too depressed in this town. I'm off to sit in the park and maybe grab another coffee in the excellent Phil. I think I'll put off moving on for another day...