When I woke up, a few hours later, I found out there were dryed dog shit all around me.
 
Where I was, it was too long a walk back to the base. I took a train. Then I walked back to the same place I had found the others the day before and there, I found nobody. I was 5 minutes early...
 
The reason why I was so punctual is that there was supposed to be a workshop on hitchhiking right at the begining, and I wanted to participate.
I put down my bag, got my computer out and that's where I started typing this story. After a while, a swiss guy showed up. We waited together. The guy was this typical frustrated kid on an ego trip that makes the raw material of all "ambassadors". Sure enough, he was one of the superior kind. A "country ambassador", supervising many less important "city ambassadors".
 
But it was still interesting to talk to him. Frustrated kids are not necessarily boring. After a while, I started to wonder if we were the only ones that found the place. And I knew it was the place because I had been there the day before.
 
I went off for a walk around the gigantic park to try to find lost-looking people. And when I came back, I decided to go to Bratislava. It suddenly came to me that I wasn't enjoying it at all, that this saturday was going to be just as boring as the days before, and that I could always come back for the second big important-people meeting on Sunday. Bratislava is just 100 km from Vienna.
 
So I walked out of the park and into a cybercafe, and connected to both BeWelcome and HospitalityClub, two other hospex networks that have a dedicated "phone number" field on the profiles.
I harvested 10 phone numbers from people in Bratislava and went off to a public phone to serial-call them. Half never answered, the other half wasn't available. I hang up the phone feeling a bit empty.
I walked out the the booth, looking at the crossroad. Left? Right? Straight? I pondered for a while and went back.
 
In the park, at the base, there were still nobody. So I went out of it again, plugged myself on some more heavy-metal, and walked back to the centre, not too fast, trying to stop at each cute building or nice little street.
 
I found out later that the base was actually at another place, though it was written in the program that the base on Friday and Saturday would be at the same spot. I suspect that the kids I had found the day before were actually the mistaken ones and later moved to the "real" base, that I couldn't know about because I had left very early to the ambassador-leaders meeting. I suppose I should just blame myself to have had only one phone number of someone else.
 
In the evening, the participants were invited to come together at a restaurant. I thought it was my last chance to join up with them. But I stopped in a park before and ate my lot of bread and jam, as it was unlikely the restaurant would be within my budget limits.
 
It turned out it was way above my budget limits. It was one of those really "typical" viennese restaurant that no sane viennese would ever go to. It was loaded with tourists.
They had booked the basement for us. We had to walk through the main room to get there, there was a violin player going from table to table, playing romantic music to couple in exchange of offending tips.
The waiters were as impolite as in Paris, the food was eatable... Have the couchsurfing people ever heard of a freaking Vokü?
 
I sat down near a british guy that I had made friend with at the barbecue. I said hello to everyone at the table. One of the girls turned to me: "Hello, I'm Kerstin, are you an ambassador?". Here we go... And it was pretty much like that all through it. "Hi, I'm the ambassador of Marseille.", "Oh... he's an ambassador too?"... I think that this (relatively) posh restaurant was the most awkward moment for me. I felt like a tramp at a royal ball.
 
The good part is that a lot of people ordered more food than they could eat so, even though I didn't buy anything, I still walked out fed.
There was a going-out-in-a-bar meet-up planned after. I found some kids that wanted to go there at the restaurant and we all went together. It was a walkable distance but they wanted to ride the train. I told them I didn't have money to pay for the ticket. To which they replied that they were not going to pay for it.
 
Walking out of a 15€-a-dish restaurant, to use the public transportation network without paying... That was a bit too much for me. But I really wanted to meet up with the others and I didn't know where the place was (and was too stupid to collect phone numbers...), so I followed.
One of them even tried to make the point to me that riding the mass transit without paying was absolutely sustainable and that paying for the ticket was actually a bad thing to do. There was even that Unitedstater guy that I had heard talking up the wonderful public transportation in Europe, lamenting about the evil Babylonic system in his own country... My mood was degrading by the minute.
 
But when I arrived, Dingo and Anne-Sophie and Aine were there and I could be myself again without being afraid of hurting the stupidity of someone. The place was very cute indeed. With light shows, and stuff hanging from the ceiling and... guess what... expensive drinks, and well dressed hip youth going to and fro. After a too short while, the two above mentioned girls wanted to go home, and I felt the cruel dilemma of going home early with my friends or staying at the party, alone in the barnyard.
Had I stayed, I might have had a smashing time with the couple of nice people that were probably somewhere to be found in the crowd of assholes, but I chickened out. I was a bit tired too. You don't sleep so well in dog shit.
 
They brought me back to Fabian-the-Great. I taught them to play Caps. And while I was watching a game, I fell asleep with a beer on my stomach that ended up spilling on me. I woke up when Ulf came back.