Month: October 2004

What a nice weekend! I, my cousin and her family went to Vienna on Saturday to go on a river cruise from Vienna to Passau on the river danube. We arrived about two hours prior to the departure, which is very unusual for us, normally we are always the one who show up at the very last moment. Since there was enough time I went for a walk and had a Cappuccino in small restaurant. The worst cappuccino in my entire life I have to admit. Pure garbage and heavily overpriced, even if it would have been drinkable! And I’ve had a lot of bad tasting cappuccino.

But that was about the only flaw for the entire weekend. The “Amadeus Rhapsody” was a nice ship with comfortable cabins and a big Jacuzzi on the upper deck. We had sunny weather most of the time and even the thunderstorm in the late afternoon on Saturday was beautiful to watch. The dinner was delicious and very “pretty”, although, it could have been a bit more. I lost about seven kilograms the past four weeks and 75 kilograms is not my dream-weight.

It takes about 24 hours to get from Vienna to Passau by boat, and we arrived in Passau around 1:pm in the afternoon. My father and my uncle picked us up and we went to a “Biergarten” where I had a huge “Wiener Schnitzel”. So right now I’m up to 76 kilograms, I hope it stays that way ;-)!

My parents own a small taxi company, and two days ago they got a new car. Neither my mom or my father have used it yet. Usually a new car is something they try immediately. But this time my brother was the first one to test it.

About two years ago my father and I went to a car show. They had a brand new car with a lot of gimmicks, and my father did not feel comfortable doing a test drive with the car. I laughed at him and said that in ten years we are going to have cars he would not know how to handle because of all the gizmos! So what’s so different about the new car? At first – you don’t need a key, this car comes with a chip card which is about the size of a credit card. You can keep this chip card in your pocket and just push a “Start” button. If you want to shut the car, you press that button again. It does not have a hand break, it’s all automatic. The entire cockpit looks more like a space-ship with all different kinds of buttons rather then the cars my parents were used to. There is feature which adjusts everything, from your seat to the mirrors and your favorite radio station to your special needs. But what if you don’t know how to adjust everything in the first place, its almost like using a computer, something my father has never done before! Of course my father will learn to drive this car, but for the first time he will need to read the description that came with that car. I’m afraid he is a victim of modern times. He is not the only one out there having problems to keep up with all those little inventions. People who design and build cars should be aware that not everything they add will make things easier. Sometimes the key to make things better is to keep them the way everyone is used to.