And they are good friends - among the nicest on God's Green Earth, whom you've known since before you could read or ride a bike, and who stuck by you even through your round glasses phase...
For starters, you get to do all the things you've been secretly wanting to do but have been unable to do because you're not really a tourist. Things like going for a ride on one of those horse-drawn carriages that meander through the old city center, riding the famous old ferris wheel in the Prater, going for a cruise down the Danube, or taking the Sound of Music tour around Salzburg and loving the heck out of everything from your lederhosen-clad guide to the gazebo where they totally filmed 'Sixteen Going on Seventeen'.
For starters, you get to do all the things you've been secretly wanting to do but have been unable to do because you're not really a tourist. Things like going for a ride on one of those horse-drawn carriages that meander through the old city center, riding the famous old ferris wheel in the Prater, going for a cruise down the Danube, or taking the Sound of Music tour around Salzburg and loving the heck out of everything from your lederhosen-clad guide to the gazebo where they totally filmed 'Sixteen Going on Seventeen'.
You have an obligation to participate in the consumption of schnitzel, baked emmentaler, goulash, spätzle, Sachertorte, krapfen, and as many varieties of strudel as exist in the city of Vienna, all within the span of a week. It's a heavy burden, but it must be done. Your friends don't know know knödel from nockerl, and they think that goulash means macaroni in a big pot of tomato sauce. They must be educated.
Introducing the cheese pretzel: a pretzel made with cheese, not a pretzel served with a side of Cheez Whiz.
Introducing the cheese pretzel: a pretzel made with cheese, not a pretzel served with a side of Cheez Whiz.
It's amazingly relaxing to hang out with people you know well and who know you. You don't have to worry about convincing them that you're passably sane or intelligent, because that ship sailed the day you riled up all the other first-graders at your friend's birthday party and got them to smear cake all over their faces. They don't care how quirky you are or how unresponsive you become when tired. If they laugh at you for pulling out the Purell after touching the air in the subway, or for admitting that you occasionally sing "Soft Kitty, Warm Kitty" to your cat, there's no malice in it.
If they are good travellers, enthusiastic and responsive, you get the fun of watching them truly enjoy themselves. I may live in one of the great cities of Old Europe, surrounded by palaces and monasteries and Roman ruins and vineyards, but not everyone else does. Some people live in Buffalo, where there are no intricate networks of subways and trams to get you where you need to go, no cobblestone roads, no dogs allowed in the stores, no pits of plague victims under your feet, no little plaques outside apartment buildings listing the names of former residents who became Holocaust victims, no meteorite collections at the local science museum, and no open-air, pedestrian-only shopping streets. In case you're in danger of forgetting, your friends will remind you just how amazing it is that you live in Europe.