As some of you probably know I came back from Wien (vienna) yesterday after having gone on a four day trip with the intent of seeing Wien a little since I was going to the Amanda Palmer concert there anyway. But it all turned out a little less pleasurable than intented and came with a slightly bigger toll than anticipated.
It turns out that not having bought tickets in advance we were left high and dry by the sold out Amanda Palmer, which invariably cast a dark shadow over the whole trip making it seem somewhat redundant and like a waste of time. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that I spent four full days with my girlfriend and we did have fun and did see some very beautiful things. I am just so disappointed by the concert fiasco that I can't at all appreciate the rest of the trip and can only think of how I wasted time and money for both myself and the girlfriend ... I mean she didn't even want to go, I practically bent her arm and forced her to go.
The problem is that if it was just about the trip we could've taken it at any other time. We could've gone when she had more time in regards to school, we could've gone when she had more money to spend and, hell, we could've gone when I was having less of a fuss at work and what's more, we could've gone for a longer time period and thrown other cities into the mix for an even better trip. Right now it just feels like we've taken an impromptu half-arsed vacation that was a waste of effort.
Perhaps my feelings about the trip would've been better if Wien was more impressive, as I'm sure they'd be awesomely high spirited if we got into the concert. Wien, as a whole, is pretty much like Ljubljana. The architecture is the same, the basic layout is the same and even the vehicles on the road are the same. Let's not even get into the chavs who are exactly the same as home, same language, same style of clothing, same nauseating behaviour and the same kind of cars.
The only hint at being in a different country was that streets and such were in German, but even that didn't dispell the feeling of only being on a trip to a different city in the same country. London was a much much better experience last year, in fact I was probably making my girlfriend sick by constantly comparing our trip to the trip I'd taken last year.
So all in all, I don't regret traveling with my girlfriend per se, I just regret the poor timing.
Continue reading about Wien is nothing special
Semantically similar articles hand-picked by GPT-4
- Vienna day one
- When the universe tries to communicate, or how I almost didn't get home
- Plans and scams
- Punk
- I returned to Slovenia after 3 months and I am culturally shocked
Learned something new?
Read more Software Engineering Lessons from Production
I write articles with real insight into the career and skills of a modern software engineer. "Raw and honest from the heart!" as one reader described them. Fueled by lessons learned over 20 years of building production code for side-projects, small businesses, and hyper growth startups. Both successful and not.
Subscribe below 👇
Software Engineering Lessons from Production
Join Swizec's Newsletter and get insightful emails 💌 on mindsets, tactics, and technical skills for your career. Real lessons from building production software. No bullshit.
"Man, love your simple writing! Yours is the only newsletter I open and only blog that I give a fuck to read & scroll till the end. And wow always take away lessons with me. Inspiring! And very relatable. 👌"
Have a burning question that you think I can answer? Hit me up on twitter and I'll do my best.
Who am I and who do I help? I'm Swizec Teller and I turn coders into engineers with "Raw and honest from the heart!" writing. No bullshit. Real insights into the career and skills of a modern software engineer.
Want to become a true senior engineer? Take ownership, have autonomy, and be a force multiplier on your team. The Senior Engineer Mindset ebook can help 👉 swizec.com/senior-mindset. These are the shifts in mindset that unlocked my career.
Curious about Serverless and the modern backend? Check out Serverless Handbook, for frontend engineers 👉 ServerlessHandbook.dev
Want to Stop copy pasting D3 examples and create data visualizations of your own? Learn how to build scalable dataviz React components your whole team can understand with React for Data Visualization
Want to get my best emails on JavaScript, React, Serverless, Fullstack Web, or Indie Hacking? Check out swizec.com/collections
Did someone amazing share this letter with you? Wonderful! You can sign up for my weekly letters for software engineers on their path to greatness, here: swizec.com/blog
Want to brush up on your modern JavaScript syntax? Check out my interactive cheatsheet: es6cheatsheet.com
By the way, just in case no one has told you it yet today: I love and appreciate you for who you are ❤️