Yearly adventures for birthday bashes.. with Burak

Yup.. almost the end of the year, so that can only mean one thing.. the Mr Lee yearly birthday bash with long time friend Burak... and since leaving Turkey, the tradition has moved from Izmir where it was normally held to somewhere in Europe.

Last year it was Gothenburg, Sweden due to Burak being on assignment there. This year we wanted to try something different. At first we were trying to align our trip with a painting class somewhere in Europe, but that failed... so the back up was then somewhere we could go and have a few pints.

Ibiza, Spain was top of the list, but costs to fly there from Turkey were terrible, so we compromised and settled on Vienna, Austria!

First things first of course.. the traditional finding a spot to park at the airport.. followed by a beer at the home airport, before having a beer at the destination airport. Got to love tradition ;) 

It was at the second beer that Burak showed up, and we could begin our trek to the hotel in the 6th District of Vienna. To which we were kinda not that smart about and walked. Thankfully it was only 2 miles away from the airport.. and was good prep for the next day ;) 

Good food was needed after the long trek though, and it went along with some decent beers... 

Later we would end up at a terrible cocktail bar drinking terrible beers call Zipfer with Lemon/Lime. Tasted like Strongbow/Cidar.. not for us at all.. 

So we would end up at an Irish pub around the corner soon afterwards, but not before seeing that I have a restaurant in Vienna as well! Need to find out how to get my royalty cheques now!

Seems they are quick as well! Who knew! Maybe a good spot to eat while painting in the future? Will investigate further at another time.. 

On Saturday we did what geeks in a new city/country would do first.. head straight to the miniature etc shop located in town. What we were surprised to see though was the huge selection of LARP weapons and such. Burak was quite confused what this weapon was, making it dreadfully obvious that he is more a healer than a damage dealer... 

As evident from his selection of a staff soon thereafter... 

For me though.. found a nice 2 handed hammer, and a good costume that goes with my bloodthirsty manner in combat.. 

Some say it would be an improvement.. those same people would get a taste of the hammer as well.. you have been warned!

In the end we only picked up a few older Rackham models found in the back of a drawer, before heading off to see Museums for the day!

Along this trek, Burak had mapped out what we would be doing for the most part. First stop was the Sisi museum and apartments. Seeing how the nobles of Austria used to live and what they would eat their 30 lunch and 28 dinner meals on! Yes... 30 lunch meals.. and we even saw the letter from a high born that complained when the war began and they had to only have 12 meals at lunch. Oh and without their normal French Champagne.. oh the horror!

But we were in high spirits still and began to have a wander around the city further. Getting lost among a plethora of Christmas fare set ups along the way... 

And yet nothing that grabbed our eyes well enough to pick up... 

Through all the walking, we really did wish we had something to drive around in. Found this.. was considering to just take it with us but thought better of it in the end. I mean.. we doubt that it had the mileage needed for the trek that we had engaged in that day.. 

Our trek finished for the day at the Military Museum.. quite an interesting sight to behold there.. Our only problem of course was that we arrived far too late, and as such only got to see one wing of the place. Means we need to go back at some point and see it again, but spend the whole day there. Plus they had wifi.. so I think that is doable ;) 

Have to say that the guns and advancements made during WWI was impressive overall. Especially that massive gun and how they were able to get it work during those years.. 

We really wish we had this car upon leaving the museum though as we were exhausted and it was still quite early. Thankfully we found a taxi just as the rain began, and were able to head back to the  hotel. We were naive to think that we would just rest a bit before heading out again.. but ended up crashing for a quick 3 hour nap before proceeding back out for dinner and more drinks! 

Back to the Irish Pub even if they had Strongbow advertisements.. they were saved by their Murphy's Irish Red available there!

Gave me Super Powers and made the logo on my shirt glow! Huzzah!

Sometime after being kicked out of that pub we headed back to the hotel to call it an early morning ( 3 or so? ) before packing and leaving the next day. 

Unfortunately photos stop at this point, but in the morning we did meet up with Christoph and got to see a few of his wonderful sculpts ( more geekery here! ) while eating his breakfast ( long story! ). 

That would be the best part of the day as the trip home was abysmal due to terrible turbulence throughout the flight back to London.. 

With all that however, we had a great time.. catching up just like old times which was really nice to have at this time of year. And already we are planning next year.. someone said Maldives is a good place to visit ;) Now to get back to more proper writing and such for the blog!