Offering local help for Vienna

 

I assume you mean the distance to Charlie P´s:

 

WOMBATS - The Base is in Grangasse 6 and would be 5km walking distance or approx. 25-30 min.  by public transport, with having to change lines once in between, the times include the walking distances to and from the underground or tramstation.

 

WOMBATS - The Lounge is a bit nearer to the starting undergoundstation, so its just about 4,5 km or 20 - 25 min. by public transport with having to change lines once in between, the times include the walking distances to and from the underground or tramstation.

 

Public transport tickets are € 2,20 per ride or € 5,70 for a 24h ticket. A cabride from bothplaces would be € 10 - 12 during daytime, around € 15 at night.

 

These informations are also valid for the Strawberry hostel and hostel Rthensteiner, as they are all in the same little area of town, its a bit like Lower Gardiner Street in Dublin there.

 

Greets, Fritz

 

To the problem with agressive bouncers: Martin agreed that over this years spring and summer, the problem has been more severe then in previous seasons. On average, they have to take approx. 3-4  english-speaking clients to hospitals per weekend-night, due to both just alcohol-intoxication or due to injuries resulting from bar- and streetfights. According to him, the reason are to be found on both sides:

 

On their side, the city has reduced the number of police-officers in the town, and this has lead to more and more bar-managers hiring extra security-staff. Most of the people doing these jobs are either former police-officers, who became victims of this saving, and are now on the dole, or there are still many former ex-czechoslovakian federal-army soldiers standing at the doors, who also lost their jobs when the two countries seperated, because they might have been e.g. Czechs who lived around Bratislava and weren´t willing to move to the Czech republic with their families. In general these fellows are experienced, they look impressive and they know their regulars, but most of them only speak very little English and they are also lacking most of the modern techniques that western doormen would use, like de-escalation, talking somebody down ... they are trusting their fists and battons more in these cases.

 

On the other side, Martin said that due to high number of cheap airlines serving the town now, they are getting their more than fair share of especially stag-partys from England and Ireland now (without beeing able to tell the difference) , and he thinks that some locals think that it is already too much. The locals e.g. experience problems getting a room or a big table for a birthday in the bars in the oldtown, because the bar-owners prefer to give the reservations to tourist-parties, because they tend to drink more expensive drinks and spend more money for lapdances and such stuff ... Also, he told me that one of the biggest problems is the way in which many foreigners treat the local women. Eastern European women are generally very open to foreigners, they enjoy a chat and will give you a very welcome feeling quite quickly, but that is not because they fancy you or they want more from you, its just the way they were brought up during communist- and post-communist times, which was very liberal and independent and definetly more emanzipted then in many other counries. If a girl in Bratislava or Prague allows you to invite her for a drink, or share a table with her in a bar or something like that, this doesn´t mean anything else then that, and should not be seen as an invitation to take quick steps forward, she might not even be single or searching ... And of course, drinking is a major problem as well, some boys just overdue it by far, and while the beer ist still dead cheap for us, the price has about doubled in the last 5 years for the locals, without their salaries rising in the same way. And it doesn´t really make you more sensible towards the cultural differences, nor does it keep you aware of possible troubles coming up .... Besides that, many Czechs and Slovakians are accousing the tourists for the enormously quick rising prices especially in bars and restaurants in the tourist-towns, and many young local students can no longer afford going out every weekend, while they have to watch hords of drunken foreigners strolling through their towns every night singing and chanting and throwing around money like there would be no tomorrow ... keeping in mind its no wonder that especially late at night in bars, these problems might lead to one or two clashes at night, and if you now add drunkenness, language difficulties and problematic security-staff, thats a receipe for disaster.

 

But all in all, we both thought this shouldn´t keep anybody from going there, because comparing the numbers of people that are their, and the small number of incidents, its still a relativly peacefull town. Just be carefull, try to stay at least partially sober enough to be still in controll of what you are doing, accept a NO as an answer if you get it, and just try not to behave like an idio but like a guest. A "Sorry, but I don´t speak your language" just gets you more friends and more likely through the door then a "Hoy mate, you´r e not speakin any f... English here ?"

 

Greets, Fritz

I've always felt uncomfortable about lads from England & Ireland going over there, throwing thier money about and rubbing the poor locals noses in it in the process. Its bang out of order in my opinion.

 

Lets hope we and the locals all have a fantastic time next weekend.

 

Foggy, morning temps. 10° rising to max 22° during the day, 20% chance of rain during the whole day - but its fairly early to call that a safe forecast !