Flashback Friday: Shop For A Hat, Get in the Local Paper- Vienna, Austria

Flashback Friday, Trip Reports, World Hats, ,

FlashbackFriIt’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted a look back into the past on Michael W Travels with a Flashback Friday.

Today I’ll be posting the first Flashback Friday of 2014. The topic has to do with one of my favorite things to buy while traveling- local & traditional hats. Besides buying a little something for Lucas on our trips, I try to avoid buying souvenirs. The only thing that I will still seek out are hats.

Here is the post:

  • Shop For A Hat, Get in the Local Paper- Vienna, Austria

This post was originally published on April 27, 2012.

a man wearing a hat
Authentic Alpine Hat
One of my favorite souvenirs to buy while traveling is hats. I wrote about this in my post about my purchase of a Tarboosh in Egypt. (You can read the post here)
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On my trip to Vienna, my must buy souvenir was a Traditional Alpine Hat.
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After visiting a store which sold traditional clothing and hats near Hofburg Palace, I decided that a nice, authentic hat was out of my price range. I’d have to start looking in regular souvenir shops and hope to find a good imitation.

a framed picture of a garment

Invalid request error occurred.I decided to check out a couple of touristy stores later that day and was pleased to find some good looking hats in the $15-$20 range. I found a hat that I was interested in. I was trying it on and looking in the mirror when a man came in and motioned like he was taking a picture with his camera and said “Click Click” to me. I shrugged and said sure, a bit confused why he wanted a picture of me trying on the hat.

a brown hat with a knot
Traditional Alpine Hat purchase
A moment later Kim noticed another man walk into the store holding a small notebook. He came over to us and said that he worked for a newspaper called Kurier. He was writing an article about tourism in Vienna and wanted to ask me a few questions. He told us that the article would be in the paper the following day!
a newspaper with a picture of a man and a woman
Cover of the paper I was in
The first thing I did the following day was go to a newsstand and buy a couple of copies of the paper. I was thrilled to see a photo of me (wearing the hat) in the paper but I had one problem, I couldn’t read the article since it was not written in English!
a newspaper with a couple of people
Awesome picture from Kurier
I had planned to ask someone at our hostel to translate and read the article to us.
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Later in the day we stopped by McDonald’s for a snack. While we were eating, a young, local guy sat near us. I asked if he spoke English, which he did and showed him the article. He looked at the photos, looked back at me and was like no way, that’s you. He was smiling and laughing and went on to read us the article.
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I don’t remember exactly what I said for the little interview, but I remember saying something like- Vienna is cool!

Well that wraps up the first Flashback Friday of 2014. Have you ever unexpectedly made it into the newspaper while traveling? If so how and where did it happen?

Have a great weekend!

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