Austria from the air, cruising Wien to Krems
When I woke up on the plane, my first thought was, oh, it's morning and the sun is shining, I must've slept all night! The air smelled less like stale plane and more like breakfast, and I was hungry. My second thought was, wow, my body feels really, really tired. When I looked at the clock to see how long I had slept, I was disappointed to discover my eyes had been shut a mere two hours. So that's what they mean "flying into the sun." The head is saying, "It's breakfast time!," the body is saying "but it's only 2 in the morning..." Sorry, it was my first experience with flying overseas, and I had no idea to expect this on an overnight flight.
Someone from home had asked me to let them know if Austria looked different from the air, and my answer would have to be a resounding "yes." Not just because of the red roofs and narrower streets in the towns, but the countryside seems ever so slightly different as well. The 
best I could put my finger on it is this - the fields and farmland seem to more easily follow the natural flow of the land than what I see from a plane in America. US soil seems more... geometric, perhaps; contours be damned, US fences divide a row of trees or split a hillside regardless of the flow of the land. Maybe it's because European soil has been cultivated so long, the trees and bushes and hillsides grew around the people. Or perhaps it's more that the people - having cultivated the land so long in Europe - grew around the contours of the land. US soil is so freshly cultivated. We have barely had time to cut the trees down once and have the forests grow back in our short 200 and some years. Or maybe I'm just crazy and was wanting it to look different! I swear though.... The towns, now they DEFINITELY looked different.
After I landed in Vienna, we had to drive to the city center to pick up Gary Burger (Monks lead singer) and his wife Cindy at their hotel (they arrived a day earlier). The city streets were amazing, down past these beautiful old buildings, row upon row of them, very narrow, sometimes brick, and the drivers swerve and careen down them like you wouldn’t believe! All of the cars are small, in fact there are a lot of Smart Cars here, so tiny they are as long as most cars are wide. I saw one SUV here, a Ford Tahoe, and one jeep. The largest passenger vehicles 
are cargo vans like the one we rode in, but they aren’t as large as ford explorers or expeditions, and they’re multi-passenger. I really liked the small cars - very fuel efficient! We inquired to find out it costs approx. 50 Euro to fill up the cargo van we were riding in, and it used diesel. Ouch.
Now when say careened, I mean it. Past other cars down streets barely wide enough for two, squeaking past trolley cars (and I mean within INCHES). And all these wires hanging overhead, part of the trolley electrical system and part of the town’s streetlights (they hang overhead). Pretty wild. I wish I’d had time to explore the city some.
Martin was our driver, a twenty-something guy from Krems who did not speak a lot of English (but did amazingly well considering the circumstances). He went above the call of duty when he had to carry on a somewhat awkward conversation with me at the airport for approx. 15 minutes while Christoph (the booking agent who set all this up and who flew in from Berlin) went to get something to drink. Remember, I knew practically NO German. Martin very graciously attempted to talked with me in English to fill the time - apparently he doesn't have much need to speak English, so he felt he was a little rusty, but I thought he did great. Thanks, Martin! He is from Krems, lived in Vienna for a while, knows nothing about the Monks music, but works for the company who is putting on the Kontraste music fest where the Monks are headlining on Thursday.
After we picked up Gary and Cindy, Martin drove us to Krems, about 75 kms above Vienna. We drove about 140 kmh on the highway (I don't technically know if it's called the autobahn in austria, but I do not think so). It was a tad shocking to look over at the speedometer and see 140 on the dial, because of course I was thinking miles per hour! It took a moment for that to register correctly, and for me to do some rough math (140kmh = approx. 70-75 mph, right?) before my heart stopped pounding so rapidly. Harhar. I had a giggle to myself. What was even funnier, at around that same moment I suddenly realized the music Martin was playing on the stereo was … Tenacious D!! Absolutely hilarious to meet this non-American, lightly English-speaking guy who loves Tenacious D. I couldn’t WAIT to share that one with folks back home. Especially the people I work with - for three or so days leading up to my departure, we had been listening to the D over and over at work, trying to introduce my boss to Jack Black's crazy sense of humor.
I love coincidences.
From Vienna to Krems, the area is relatively rural, with little towns lining the way. The countryside in Austria really isn’t that different, from say mid-state North Carolina or Virginia; lots of farming fields, lots of trees and green plants (shrubbery!) and wildflowers. Very temperate, obviously they get about the same amount of moisture as the NC mountains. It was kind of bizarre, how much Austria seemed almost like home. What was even stranger were the little differences that made it NOT quite like home. Like the power poles, for instance. Just slightly similar but different enough to seem a bit off. Or again, the ways the fields more easily followed the contours of the land. Or the red tiled roof on a farm building (as opposed to tin or metal). If you went to sleep in the fields around Yadkinville, North Carolina and woke up in the Austrian countryside not realizing you were in Austria, it could sort of screw with your head. It's a very disconcertingly similar-but-different feeling.
Crops are a bit different, though I did see a lot of corn. Differences included lots of canola plants (for making oil) and of course fields and fields of grapes. Krems is in the heart of Austrian grape making country. Right on the Danube River, or actually Donau. I’m not sure why the English have to anglicise everything. Seems as though using the intended or original name would be less complicated than having two names for every town, river and mountain. In Austria, Vienna is actually Wien (pronouned veen). Go figure.
As I am looking out across this pristine Austrian countryside, I suddenly see … a Ford tractor plowing the field.
When we got to Krems, we went directly to where the Monks will be holding rehearsals, in this little jazz club underground in… of course… a former monastary! It’s really cool, two levels underground in what was I guess the wine cellar. The place just kept going and going, from one dungeon-like room to another. Pretty dank and musty, and smelled like decaying brick, but after a little while you get used to it. I’ll bet there are rooms like this all OVER Krems.
End of part one. On to part two --->