Is this the special media-friendly carriage?
Some pictures:
Vienna
Because Kristine's flight from
London
was delayed for a couple of minutes we almost arrived at the same time in
Vienna. Helga was on Kristine's flight as well, convinced that this was
the ONLY flight that George could possibly take. Kristine and I never
figured out what made her so convinced - he has since flown with airlines
other than BA, and there were plenty of connections that day - and it
didn't turn out to be true anyway. Thank God! ;)
We ended up sharing a taxi to our hotels, which was a somehow stupid move because it cost so much more than the really convenient S-Bahn. Kristine and I were staying at the Courtyard by Marriott, which was nice and posh enough. When we walked in the receptionist welcomed me with "Good evening, Frau Mohnberg!" They either had no other guests or we were the only ones missing, funny! I said: "Oh, you must know me from TV and cinema!" We had a quick snack in the hotel bar, got ready and then went to the U4 club which was really only 4 minutes up the road. The club was unpretentious and relatively small, with a well-located DJ Booth. George came on quite late, after 1:30, but played for 2.5 hours or so. He looked gorgeous, if a bit tired, and Frank was filming the crowd with this video camera. There were lots of photographers, and many pictures have already been uploaded, which is very practical. I took a few, and a short movie to "Fuck You". Tina Robisch was there, looking utterly miserable all throughout the set, not dancing, and leaving early. I've never known her personally, but she does have issues - she didn't even say hi to Kristine or Helga... probably not surprisingly after the stories I've heard. The "guy with the feather boa" turned out to be an Austrian called Andy, and "Zsa Zsa Gabor" from Hungary and friend were there was well. At one point George recognised me, smiled and pointed and me saying " You...!". And he did mean me this time, Kristine confirmed it! So that was funny, if not deeply meaningful, haha!
After the gig we surrounded the building twice, but I was giving up hope of being in the right spot at the right time. Andy came out and said he had been "backstage" and that George was staying at the Ramadan hotel just across the road. We waited some more, joined by a very drunk Austrian American Football player who had won the European Championship and had been partying since Monday. A guy carrying pizza went back into the building through the back-door ("garbage entrance"), and a bloke with a huge camera stood by. Eventually one of the organizers left and told the photographer that "he was gone". By then me and Kristine were feeling very awkward about still waiting around in the cold, ages after the gig had ended. There's a difference between just hanging around in front of the club for a couple of minutes and waiting for hours some back door after everybody else has left and had their pizza... But Helga didn't want to go, so we eventually left her there and walked back to our hotel. Maybe she even went over to the Ramadan after we left? Will we ever know? Probably not.
We caught a couple of hours of sleep and then left for the airport around 10:30 (this time by train). Our flight would have been another "good bet", but no luck! We didn't see Helga at the airport (even though I *think* I caught a glimpse of her) which Kristine took as the safe indicator that we had missed George. He must have flown earlier, otherwise Helga would still have been around waiting... Maybe they really flew to Costa Rica today?? What a dreadful, stressful thought!
Kristine had cancelled the hotel room in favour of Kenneth's humble abode on the outskirts of the outskirts of London, so I went straight to St Pancras and caught a train home to Sheffield. It turned out to be a slow, 3.5 hours train. I am still on it now... still 30 minutes to go. I had 2 sandwiches and 2 glassed of wine, including one on the plane. I'll be good again from tomorrow and won't have any alcohol until the Too2Much event.
Tonight I'll hopefully get to finally watch that documentary - if I don’t fall asleep. I also have to post my blogs, take a couple of hundreds of screenshots and download some photos. Luckily I will have a full Sunday tomorrow to myself! Oh! Stephen texted me yesterday teasing that he was recording "9 out of 10 Cats" because there was something I needed to see. But he didn’t reveal WHAT!! *Might* have been Stephen Fry, but I will soon find out...
Laptops are just great, by the way - because I could type me blogs on the train and check my email on the road I am saving so much time!! I need to get one... some day.
