I Remember Wien

 Vienna

After Okbtoberfest, we’ve set our sights east to visit David’s friend Edgar in Vienna. Edgar and David met almost 10 years ago at a climbing gym in San Jose and they’ve been friends ever since. David’s often wanted to visit him in his home country of Austria but never thought he’d have the opportunity. So this was it. We boarded a commuter train to save over 50 Euros per person, grabbed a couple Radlers (a bottled half lemon soda, half beer mixture), and a baguette and took the 7 hour snail’s-pace train ride across Austria, or Österreich as it’s called in German, meaning East Reign.

Edgar and Eva, his wife, were very generous and offered us an open ended stay with them at their brand new condo a few kilometers off the Danube river. At this point, we’d been taking in cities a couple days at a time and were very excited to have an opportunity to unzip our backpacks all the way. They were excellent guides and hosts. Every night we were treated to a different Austrian specialty for dinner, including Weinerschnitzel, and Leibercase (like a loaf of hotdog), and Spatzl (twisty pasta) with cheese.

We also got to make ourselves at home and do a few things the trip hadn’t allowed us to earlier, like completing a 1,000 piece puzzle, watching half a season of Friends, singing karaoke and watching primetime TV.  Our favorite Austrian show was a game show featuring a rich TV exec competing with a random audience member for a chance to win his money, through a series of strange games.  The episode we saw had a quiz portion, a shooting range exercise, and a weird Frisbee game.  The best aspect of the show is that it is totally live, and the 2 hour show often ends up taking closer to 5 hours, as viewers watch dramatic shots of contestants putting on protective gear, walking from one event to the other, and waiting for the referee to walk to the end of the shooting range to score their shots.

Vienna is an amazing city, with beautiful baroque architecture and palatial buildings on every corner. It was reminiscent of Prague, but dwarfs it in size. The buildings go on in every direction. We also noticed that the streetlight poles were all very ornate and every block has a different style. Also, every single city we’ve visited has had a Swarovski store, sometimes two. But, with Swarovski being Austrian crystal, Vienna really takes the cake. We counted 5 stores on our walking tour of the historic downtown area.  Vienna also takes cake on….cakes.  We got to try four different Austrian specialties at an old coffeehouse, complete with the requisite hostile staff.

Our lovely hosts took us on a daytrip to explore Vienna’s surrounds, including the site of Edgar and Eva’s wedding.  Which is, by the way, a CASTLE.  When we were in Munich we asked Edgar where he got married, and he said nonchalantly, “Oh, this castle near Vienna.”  When we reacted with understandable wonder and awe, Edgar replied, “It wasn’t a very big castle. And the reception wasn’t there.” (It was in fact in another castle.)

Big or not, it was still a castle, and it was beautiful.  We walked around the grounds, tried to have Edgar and Eva reenact their vows, and took some “Where Are They Now?” photos.  

We continued along the Danube to Wachau, farm country, hitting more old castles and monasteries as we went.  And on the way back toward Vienna, we had one of our favorite dinners so far in Europe.  

In farming villages, farmers will open up their space as a pseudo restaurant for just a week or so at a time, selling their latest crops and meats, along with their homemade wine.  To find one, you look for what kind of looks like a dreamcatcher or a wagon wheel made out of hay, hanging from the door.  That’s your only sign that the farmhouse is open for business.  We found a cozy place and soon found ourselves confronted with one of the largest platters of sliced meats we’d ever seen.  With only three carnivores in the group, we were worried, but we made surprisingly short work of it.  We also got to try strum, or “young” wine, which tastes a lot like a cider.  And, as Edgar tactfully pointed out: “One glass is good, two glasses is diarrhea.”  As polite houseguests, we heeded his advice.

Pork, Deer, Blood Sausage, Beef, and MORE!

After the weekend, we were lucky that Edgar could take a day off work to do some more sightseeing with us.  See below!

Best Sights:

Hofbrunn Palace: Spanish Riding School: We got equestrian and watched Lipizzaner stallions practice session, complete with classical music and a professional horse poop scooper.

Prater: An old amusement park from the 1800s.  It was closing up for winter, but we imagined it would feel a lot like Oktoberfest inside Disneyland in the summer months.

Seeing a car get towed: To remove the car from a parallel parking space, they used a crane and lifted it up from above by the four tires, placing it onto a flat bed truck.  The whole thing took less than one minute - pretty crazy.

Best laughs:

With our new down time, we went out for a brisk morning jog along the Danube river and some stretching at a small dock. Mid-pushup, Robin’s iPod fell out of her pocket and slipped through the iPod width gap between the planks, dangling only by the headphone cord still attached to Robin’s ears. Luckily the distance was only enough to dip about an inch into the water, and with some careful maneuvering we fished out a still functioning iPod.

We found out that in Vienna, they call hot dogs Frankfurters (people from Frankfurt), and in Germany, they call them Wieners (people from Wien/Vienna).  Seems no one wants to take credit for that food.  Also, this led us to the conclusion that our slang for manparts literally means “a person from Vienna.”  Even Edgar thought this was hilarious.

Best Tips:

Music is such an important part of the city’s history. Many of the great classical composers conducted orchestras and called it their home. You can see a concert at Musikverein, one of the top 5 concert/opera venues in the world for 6 Euros, which gets you a standing only spot in the back, but has views as good as you’d get in the cheap seats. The night we went, we saw the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the oldest orchestra in the world, formed in 1743.