No Way Out

I've got to say that today's little adventure was not something I anticipated having to deal with while living in Vienna. Today, I was locked inside my apartment. I got ready this morning, forgetting breakfast but intending on grabbing a bite on the way, and went to exit my apartment. My door to my apartment locks with a key, both from the inside and the outside, so in order to unlock the door from the inside you must insert your key into the lock. However, when I did this, it only went in half-way. And that's when I remembered Sarah's comment about the mother here occasionally leaving her key half-in the lock (the utility of this is beyond me) on the outside.

So I jiggled and jiggered, forced and cajoled, incrementally adjusted my tactics, and got nowhere. Slightly distraught, I returned to my room to think. On the one hand, the mom was doing laundry in my apartment, so she was bound to come back some time. On the other…I really didn't want to roll in to work at noon. I started considering my other options, but I was Rapunzel without the hair, a climber without a rope, an intern without a way to leave the apartment and get to work. I'm on the top floor of an apartment building and the only other apartment is the family's apartment, so no one would hear my screams for freedom. However, I did have the internet!

Friends who were online, from the U.S. to China, had many suggestions: use a credit card to defeat the locking mechanism, remove the pins in the hinges and just do away with the door entirely, etc. I considered chucking my luggage out my window and using them as a crash pad. An internet search of "how to escape from a locked apartment" yielded results focusing on some ridiculous game that involves clues in a trash can. First of all, this was sure-as-heck not a game, and second, my trash had no clues - believe me, I checked. Tree branches were maybe jumpable, but having recently broken a limb I was not eager to repeat the experience. After an hour, my landlady checked her email, and she came over very apologetic and saying it wouldn't happen again. Despite the fact that losing my freedom to leave my apartment left me so distraught that I forgot to grab breakfast (which I duly made up for by eating a burger and fries at lunch), I managed to do work while I was trapped, so only a little productivity lost.

Recent lessons learned:
--There are no fire escapes in my apartment. In the event of fire, I am screwed.
--I guess if I really fear for my life, I'm sure I could put on my climbing shoes and climb down or jump to the nearest tree.
--Winne the Pooh in German is Winnie Puuh
--The climbing gym has a cafe that serves wine, beer, and sausages. Even the climbing gyms here are more civilized.
--I now know how to buy grocery bags at the store…now if only I could get speedily packing my groceries down, I'd be set.
--I can now proudly say I know two ways to get to the bathroom at work.