Adventures in Europe: The Frid Apartment

We'd arrived in Vienna, Austria earlier that day to attend (the most welcoming ever) church, but before we headed out sightseeing we needed to find our airbnb apartment; the owner was waiting for us there. However when we went to punch in the address on our GPS, we realized we didn’t have a house number, only the street name. Although we had the apartment owner’s phone number, we had no way to contact her. Navigating our way to the correct street, we found it long and filled with large apartment buildings. What to do? Alex(andra) and I noticed that at the main door of each building there was a list of apartment numbers and last names of all the occupants. This of course led to the brilliant idea of Alex and I looking for our apartment owner’s last name (Frid) on all the building tenant lists. I headed down one side of the street and Alex the other, beginning the laborious process of scanning each occupant roster and then traversing down to the next tall building. “I found a Frid, I found a Frid!” Alex soon elatedly exclaimed. 


I rushed over and up we traipsed the five flights of circular stairs. And there in front of us was the Frid apartment. But what if it wasn’t our Frid apartment? Surely there was more than one Frid on an entire Vienna street right? But although I was a little embarrassed, we rang the bell. And we rang it again...and then again. No answer. “Guess this isn’t it,” I dejectedly announced as we sadly trekked back down the five flights of stairs. As we began making our way down the street again, Alex approached a kind-looking middle-aged woman and asked if she’d heard of the place we were looking for. It was hard to even ask for help since we only had a street name and last name. The nice lady offered to call for us, but she’d left her cell phone at home. No problem, her house was just several blocks away; we could accompany her there. Chatting as we walked, we arrived at her apartment complex, rode up the elevator five floors and entered her Ikea-looking apartment where she retrieved her iPhone. She quickly phoned our apartment owner who told her the residence was in building #28 and she was still there waiting for us. Back down the elevator five stories, and our friend walked us to apartment building #28. Imagine our surprise and somewhat embarrassed amusement when we realized it was the exact same building where we’d just been! Of course we didn’t let on to the helpful lady, but instead thanked her profusely and on her merry way she went. Back up the five flights of stairs we trudged to the Frid apartment. This time we knocked on the door and almost instantly there was Ms. Frid welcoming us in. After she left we tested out the doorbell, yeah it totally didn’t work.