Monday, 5 September. We rose early and found ourselves almost first for breakfast. Later we noticed almost everyone was there but Alice, and I began to inquire about her. I even had the clerk phone her room twice. The first time no one answered. The second time a woman's voice said they'd be right down. Finally Howard Blum and I went up to her room and knocked on the door. When no one answered, we went inside and found Alice and Joyce sound asleep. We poured a little cold water on them, and they finally were ready more than an hour behind schedule.
This was the finishing touch to Alice's feud with Milos Hvalek, who was backed by Captain Schultz. All the way back to Vicenza they deliberately overstayed every rest stop, aggravating an already strained situation. We had lunch in Klagenfurt, Austria. The trip back was tedious but our last dinner, at the Hotel Moderno in Pordenone, was really fine and mitigated some of the hard feelings. We finally got back to Verona at midnight.
Adding up what the trip cost, we found that we had managed to spend $77 beyond the charge for the tour itself ($47 each), for a total of $171. To put this in perspective, though, that was roughly 40% of our total family income for a month. Afterthoughts. During the tour, and immediately after, we wanted to come back to Vienna for a more thorough and leisurely tour, preferably during the winter. Looking back, however, we believe we saw most of what we wanted to see. The friction of personalities was unfortunate but, on the other hand, we became good friends of the Blums. It was our first tour and we learned from it. We doubt we will find any other city as charming, beautiful, and full of fascinating history as Vienna.
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