Death Vehicle a.k.a The Segway

This story starts off in Vienna where 4 girls, to protect them, let's call them May, Tori, Rochelle.....hell it was Fay, Lori, Suzanne and I and we decided to take a sightseeing tour of Vienna by segway. You know the things that all Paul Blart Mall cop wannabes use around the mall because God knows it would kill them to walk? Yeah, those things. We met our guide Victor in the park at the appointed time and were promptly given a helmet (this should have been our first clue). We spent the next 10 minutes trying to stand up these vehicles of death and then it was off through the city.

And I do mean through the city. Not on side walks, not on nature trails, but we were zig zagging through traffic like Frogger in the video game. Then the incidents started. First off, I had not really mastered the art of stopping as was evident as I collided with a parked car. It was strangely reminiscent of the time I ran into a parked travel trailer on my bike as a child. As I stood their trying to decide what I should do next, Victor yelled "Let's go" and we were off like the police were in hot pursuit.

Next incident involved Suzanne. As we hovered while Victor was explaining the architecture and history of a building, Suzanne looked up, leaned back and shot into reverse stopping only when her head (thank goodness for the helmets) crashed into the building behind us. After some aspirin it was off to one of the main pedestrian squares in the city, similar to the mall in Washington D.C.

Of course there was a festival in the square as we raced through it, weaving and bobbing past innocent bystanders. Not all were so lucky to avoid our wake. Fay ended up running over a girl's foot as she screamed at her to get out of the way in English. Too bad most people speak German in Vienna!

Finally, we were in a park by our hotel looking at statues when we had to cross a narrow wooden bridge with low sides. One false move and we would be in the canal with our segway and out hundreds of dollars in security deposit. Lori caught a curb and then next thing you know she was down, bleeding from multiple appendages. After assessing the damage (Victor declared her to be fit for more combat on the segway) it was back to the park to return our vehicles of doom. Too bad Lori still has scars 4 years later from this "minor incident."

As we staggered back to the hotel, bruised and battered, we realized that segways are A LOT harder than they appear and that for the rest of the trip we should stick to sightseeing on the ground!