Bécs Welcomes You.

This past weekend Max and I ventured off to the land of Mozart and Milka, not to mention coffee, public transportation that is both quiet and smooth riding and of course, the slightly cliché, Wiener Schnitzel. I also ventured from Hungarian to German, a language that I do not know, but seem to have better intuition for. Max also speaks German, which helps…I took full advantage of this…. communication sans charades, pointing while smiling and nodding, happy dances, or some morph of all three is a nice change. Words. They are wonderful.

We took the railjet from Budapest on Friday afternoon. It took just under three hours, and we got to ride through wonderful country side, through an EU wind farm (I’ve never seem so many windmills in my life) and fields and fields of full grown sunflowers. It was beautiful. I would have taken a photo, but when we got to Keleti Paladuvar station in Budapest, I realized I forgot it. Keleti, like most things in Budapest, was probably once very beautiful. You can tell by the architecture hidden under all the soot. However, one area of the station (where you go to buy ‘international’ tickets) has been very well restored to its former glory. The area is soot free, with crown molding, murals and gold paint that shimmers in the sunshine. There are few, open and public, places in Budapest where you’ll find this.

We arrived in Wien-Westbanholf around lunch time and went to the hotel to drop our bags. Thanks to a very nice Birthday present, we got to stay in a super posh hotel right on Vienna’s Ring Road called The Hotel Bristol, Wien (that is what is said on the slippers that were waiting for me in the room). The Room Was Gorgeous. Really, when we walked in there was a place to put your coat, a mirror and a long marble hall way leading to the ‘bed room’. Halfway down the hall way there was an enormous marble bathroom with all the typical hotel amenities plus a manicure set. I won’t lie, the beds at the Sheraton are more comfortable (thanks to their ‘perfect sleeper’), but anything is a step up from the couch that I call my bed here in Budapest. The room also had a huge window ‘dressing’ and a couple of paintings on the wall, one of a jester looking man. There was also an LCD TV, a CD player (complete with cheesy CDs that you buy at 2 am from the shopping channel), a mini bar, a mini clothing grooming area (shoes horns, shoe brushes, laundry bag, sewing kit, etc), and a desk. I could not make the silly TV work. The staff were nice and some were really good at playing the ‘snotty posh hotel staff’ role. In those cases, I too pretended to be super posh….however I am not the actor in the family, so I probably looked and sounded slightly deranged. Oh, did I mention the elevator had two chairs in it? (built right into the elevator?).

After we checked into the hotel we walked around our new weekend ‘hood’, then went for lunch. I was being fussy (I don’t know why, but I was), so when the sign saying Wienerwald came to sight, Max instantly took charge and said ‘We are going there’. Oh man. It was Austrian Swiss Chalet. Slightly saltier, lacking chalet sauce and those French fries, and CD’s chickens, but it was a slight taste and reminder of home. Good choice, even if it wasn’t exactly authentic Austrian.

After lunch we went back to the hotel to actually go into the room and put our stuff down (it wasn’t ready when we arrived), got changed to go to the Hotel Sacher, for their famous coffee and Sacher (Saha) Torte. Sacher Torte is a kind of cake only made at that hotel and only exported to certain locations in the world. It’s also very touristy as 90% of the people in the hotel café were eating it. Touristy or not, it was probably one of the best European ‘fluffy’ cakes I’ve had so far. For the detail oriented people, the Sacher Torte is a chocolate cake with a light chocolate filling and thick dark chocolate, almost like Marzipan, icing, topped with a dark chocolate ‘Hotel Sacher’ medallion. The cake itself is very fluffy (as most cakes here are), and the very chocolaty. To add to the caloric count of this ‘snack’, a rather large dollop of real whip cream is added to the side of the plate….maybe to cut the chocolate-ness? Either way, it was Very Very yummy. I had a Kliener Café, which was a long black espresso with foamed milk on top. It’s served in a clear cup (similar to an Irish coffee cup) so you could see where the coffee started and the milk ended) very well presented.

After the sugar and caffeine high of the Sacher, we decided to take a 3 hour walk around Stephansplatz, (which is where there is a large church (which was under construction), and also a main tourist drag). I also took advantage of the shops, and popped into a few. Not much different from Budapest and, well, Canada. So aucune achats were made.

Then we went back to the hotel to get directions to a vineyard we were eyeing to go to for dinner. Vienna is known for their local ‘wine pubs’. And if you go just outside the city you can actually drink wine right from the Vineyard. The wine is slightly different than typical wine as it is served to you just before it is fully fermented, so the taste is slightly different. I can’t think of the words to describe that I mean. Sorry. But anyway, we ended up in the middle of nowhere suburban Vienna at a very very local pub. Inside was like a country cottage, and outside there were lots of picnic tables overlooking the vineyard. We started outside, but mosquitoes got the better of us, so we ended up back inside the house. Literally, it was a house. We had some more wine ( 3 euros for .5 litre!) and dinner (which is typically whatever the local family makes that day), and just enjoyed the night with the people there. I think the best description of the atmosphere is probably skin to a maple syrup ‘sugar shack/Cabin a Sucre’, instead of coffee, pancakes, sausages and maple syrup, we were eating bread, dip, potatoes, pieces of roast meat and wine.

We were there until pretty late, and the waiter ended up giving us a ride back to the metro (as we had missed the last tram). As per usual, I, well in this case, Max, got his story. He was Serbian, arrived in Vienna about 3 years ago, started working at the pub, then bought a share of it, and now helps produce the completely organic wine in addition to a second delivery job. We meant to buy a couple of bottles, but we completely forgot...He told me to tell Canada that Serbians are nice people. So, I tell Canada now. Serbians are nice people. (he was nice enough to give us a ride to the metro saving us a very long walk back in the pouring rain!).

Saturday morning we got up and ventured over to the Secessionist house where there are normally cool art exhibits. It was a modern one, and we decided not to go in. Then we went to a huge open air market for breakfast. There was one stall that was roasting coffee…and the smell was taste was DEVINE. After a coffee, we walked further into the market were there were tons of spices and colors and smells and people. At the end of the market there was an equally large flea market. Yes! I was slightly disappointed at the quality though. There were a lot of things there that could actually be considered garbage. Like naked one armed Barbie dolls.

After the flea market we went to Mirahilfer Strasse, the ‘Queen West’ of Vienna. We popped into some shops and just people watched….I was also on the hunt for something that told time as I was watchless….found nothing. After this we went over to Belvedere Palace to visit the gardens and see the permanent art exhibition. The permanent collection includes Klimt and Monet, and many local Austrian artists. There was also some cool ‘sailor’ paintings. The palace itself (where the art is displayed) was also magnificent. The architecture in each room was so intricate, and each ceiling was a mural about one greek god or another.

In the large reception area they had large velvet covered yoga balls where could lie on them and look up. I found max lying on one of them staring at the ceiling, so I decided to copy him. Except, the balance ball got the better of me, and my bum made a fairly painful interaction with the marble floor (not to mention the loud ‘splat’ sound). I fell at the palace!!!

Luckily, I managed to figure out a proper technique that allowed me look up at the ceiling without falling. It required that I take my bag off my shoulder (so I was properly balanced), carefully do a backwards ‘crab walk’ over the ball, then steady myself once the ball was in the proper position on my back. I felt like I was in a yoga class. About 50% of the new comers to the room also had the unfortunate ‘ball to floor’ experience, so I didn’t feel so bad of my initial kurplunk.

After Belvedere we wandered through Karlsplatz (another big, large square), and back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. (I also wanted to grab my coat as it was slightly chilly!). For dinner we went to a small family restaurant, apparently famous for their Wiener Schnitzel. Other than the fact that their portion sizes were larger than even North American standards (really, I am not kidding!), according to Max, it tasted ‘like my aunti makes it’. So points go out to the restaurant. The whole experience was hilarious as the place was actually closing down for a vacation, and so there was no real menu. You ate what they brought you, which was what they had left, which was salad and original Wiener schnitzel. We also had wine spritzers, which are pretty popular. After dinner we walked around the Hofuburg Palace, to Parliament and then back down the Ring Road to the hotel.

Sunday morning Max had to catch his flight, and so I wondered around the areas that we hadn’t already wondered to, had a pretzel croissant, bought some Milka chocolate and a bottle of Almadudler and caught the train back to Budapest to arrive to an empty apartment with the walls of the shower leaning against the kitchen wall. Apparently the bathroom renovations going on did not go as planned……….I had to supervise the installation of the shower the next morning….