It's Pentecost Monday today, and so we don't have class (tomorrow either!). I'm using today to clean my room for my parents' visit (yay!) and blog, and tomorrow a couple of us are going to Passau. None of us actually know what's IN Passau, but it comes highly recommended by everyone.
In other news, the weather here has been very well suited to my tastes. Mostly the days have been warm (in the high 70s to mid 80s), and then in the evening epic thunderstorms roll in and all the allergens get washed out of the air. Plus, in the window where the pressure is changing and the clouds moving in, there are really nice, almost haunting cool breezes.
On Saturday, Lauren, Rachel, Kay and I went to the Weltenburg Cloister, then on a river cruise, and then climbied up to the Befreiungshalle in Kelheim (another Ludwig I endeavor). It was part of a program with the Akademisches Auslandsamt, the office on campus that deals with foreign exchange students.
The boat ride was only 20 minutes long, which was kind of disappointing, but we got gelato during it, so all was not lost. At the end of the boat ride, we were led through Kelheim to a path up to the Befreiungshalle. The path had to be like 60 degrees above the horizontal where it started. I was scared. (We didn't get to see much of Kelheim because we weren't close to the center, or at least didn't know where it was.)
In the end, the hike up was not too bad, especially with company, and it was super-duper worth it. The multi-colored rectangles are not the result of different colored stone, but rather painting. It looks pretty sweet up close.
It says "The German Fight for Liberation, Ludwig I, King of Bavaria, 1863"
Believe it or not, the inside was even cooler than the outside.
Strangely, you can also walk behind those angels.
Photos from Dult:
Three views of the heart cookies that were everywhere. They have strings so you wear them like a necklace.
I realized in Vienna that one of the few vocabulary sentences I remember verbatim from my middle school German book was "Können Sie mir sagen, wo das Hotel Sacher ist?". It means "can you tell me where Hotel Sacher is?", and the answer is Vienna. The Hotel Sacher is what gives its name to the apricot-jam-and-chocolate "Sacher Torte". I didn't actually try one, though, because everyone said that it's dry. Small world, though...or something?
I arrived in Vienna around 4pm on Wednesday, because I had class in the morning, and was luckily able to check right into the hostel. That type of hostel is the BEST! I really recommend Hostel Ruthensteiner to anyone considering stopping in Vienna. It was 15,50 (Euros) a night, with in-room kitchens and showers, as well as being a very short walk from the train station and subway stops. The staff also speaks English and German.
I had gotten a ton of guidebooks from the Regensburg library, and had flipped through them both in the 'burg and on the train, so I had my trip generally planned out (of course, that was to change). The goals for day 1 were to go to "Graben" (a shopping street/pedestrian area) to see the Pestsäule ("plague column", erected to thank God for not killing EVERYONE in Vienna with the plague), stop at "Trzesniewski" to get their famous little open-faced sandwiches and tiny beer, and go to "Schwedednplatz" to find out information about day trips on the Danube to Bratislava. (Don't get too excited about Bratislava, I didn't go.)
From the hostel to Graben was maybe a twenty minute walk down Mariahilferstrasse, which is also a major shopping street. I did not buy anything, though I looked through every bookstore I saw for a copy of the book I'm translating. (I ended up having the bookstore I like in Regensburg order it for me - worked perfectly!).
Buffet Trzesniewski is a place that I found suggested on the Toy Town Germany online forum by a guy who "just stumbled onto it". When I read that, I thought, "oh cool, I hope I can find it." Well, you know what? The two-story-tall sign pointing to it from the busiest street in the city was helpful. It is not a secret spot. Hell, Rick Steeves knows about it. My unhealthy distaste for the man aside, it's a pretty cool restaurant. You line up along a glass sandwich case, and as you move, you have to make up your mind what different types of tiny sandwich you want before it's your turn. Then you pay for the sandwiches and your drink at the register, and then go to the other end of the bar and have your drink order filled from the tap.
From left to right: pepperoni (aka hot pepper), speck mit ei (bacon and egg) and ei mit gurken (egg on bed of relishy business)
It was quite delicious. Though this has reminded me of a public service announcement:
In Germany (and Austria):
- "pepperoni" means hot peppers, "salami" means pepperoni (with pizza)
- If they give you a basket of rolls with your food, and your food didn't COME with a basket of rolls, you will be charged for every one you eat
- There are no vegetables in "wurstsalat"
- "scharf" means spicy, but it probably won't be (by American standards)
- If you order a "water" with your meal, you will get a bottle of carbonated mineral water, and you will pay out the nose for it.
- "not" does not mean not. Got it? ("ausgang" means "exit", but "notausgang" means EMERGENCY exit)
- Saying "I don't speak German" to people begging for money will not deter them. It will make them ask you in English.
- If some guy outside the library comes up to you and tries to sell you his self-published book of esoteric texts about Free Masons and the secrets of the universe, don't be carrying a stack of seven German books. He will not believe you when you say you can't read German.
After Trzesniewski, I went to Schwedenplatz where I discovered that the rates to Bratislava were higher than I'd anticipated (50 euro round trip instead of 30). In the end that's probably okay, because I was a little hesitant to go without knowing anything about the city AND having to change currencies.
From there, I hopped onto the subway, was asked for a Euro specifically for drugs, and went back to the hostel. Vienna seems to have quite the drug problem, I saw a number of strung-out people on trains and in stations. I think it (the whole three days) was the least safe I've ever felt in Europe, with the exception of the subway brawl in Berlin. The hostel was in a quiet Turkish neighborhood, so I didn't feel threatened there. I had recieved a lot of warnings from online travel sites about Vienna after dark, so (as in Zurich) I had planned all along to stay in the hostel after dark.
The first night in the hostel I talked a little bit to this pair of American sisters (20 and 25) who were traveling around a bit after the younger one finished a semester abroad in Rome. It seems like whenever I meet Americans in hostels, their plans are "to just wander around." Pretty much the opposite of my philosophy, but most of them are "unterwegs", and probably don't have the internet access to look stuff up like I do. Or German libraries where they can check out five books about Vienna. I also met an English woman returning from a few months of volunteering in "Palestine". I meant to ask if calling it that was a political statement or a British thing, but I didn't get around to it.
Day 2
I awoke bright and early at around 5:29 am. Sunlight was streaming through the windows, and I was pretty sure I had slept through my 8am alarm. I looked at my alarm, and was pretty sure I had set the clock on it wrong. I walked into the kitchen to look at the *actual* time on my cell phone, only to discover that it was 5:29. I promptly returned to sleep.
I woke up again at 8, and had a brief conversation with the English woman about how all the stores were closed for Ascension. She had found an open bakery, but was unable to buy jam, and I made a mental note to start travelling with my one-serving nutellas and jams. I really wanted to use "entschliessen" in the last sentence, because it's really the most appropriate word, but I couldn't for obvious reasons.
My first stop was Cafe Landtmann right near the University. There is no real campus, but the highest concentration is near the subway stop "Schottentor", and that's where I was.
The cafe had been recommended online, and it was so classy! 8 Euro breakfast classy. There are no pictures of the interior, because I'm pretty sure taking one would've been totes crass. The waiters were wearing tuxedos, and they had lots of half-booths. They're like booths, but the seats are paralell to the wall, not perpendicular, and you sit across from someone in a chair. It was kind of a big thing in Vienna. They were upholstered, which was sweet. I had a "Wiener Melange" (cup of steamed milk with a shot of espresso), two rolls with butter & viennese (and amazing) raspberry jam, and a soft-boiled egg. I really never thought in a MILLION years that my middle school German teacher's mock German breakfasts would come in handy, but I would not have known how to eat the egg without Frau Wagner. I was out of practice, so it was still pretty ugly, but the point stands. I also beat the system by remembering just in time that I was going to get charged for the extra rolls I ate. I felt super-smug. Either way, the food, atmosphere and experience were worth the 9 Euros with tip, and I wasn't hungry until dinner time.
Here begins the Ascension Day tale of woe. I walked about six blocks from the cafe to the "Medizin Historisches Museum" at the University, only to find it closed. So I took the subway to the Naschmarkt, an open-air gourmet food market, which was also closed. The bright spot THERE was the subway station art. Every few feet of tile there was a floor-to-ceiling mirror with a title and digital, dynamic statistic display. I took a self-portrait. I wore that sweater every day in Vienna. I have also worn those shoes all over Germany, Switzerland and Austria. They have Baltic Sea sand in them.
The title says "Lovers (people in love) in Vienna today". I just was able to get a good shot in front of that one. As Xtine might appreciate, they also had the digits of pi:
As it dawned on me that everything ever would be closed that day, I sat down and reworked my agenda. All of the outdoor activities were transferred to Thursday, with the possible conflict of impending rain. It was looking blue-skied enough at the moment, so I went back to Schottentor, and hopped on a tram to Grinzing. Grinzing was formerly a suburb of Vienna, but in 1892 was sucked into the cities 19th district. It is suggested in all the guidebooks as the perfect place to experience the "Heurigen", which are basically wine biergartens. I hate wine, and love beer, and I had no interest in doing that. I did however, have a singular goal.
As you can tell from the teaser, I did eventually find Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel's tombstone. I had the exact location of the grave from FindAGrave.com, but those directions were incorrect, as it didn't seem to be in the 6th row. I also took a photo of Gustav Mahler's tombstone, but he's not as cool.
That goal accomplished, I headed back to Schottentor, where I took another tram to the Hundertwasserhaus. Another guidebook favorite, I thought it looked pretty boring, but it was really stunning in person. I'm really glad I checked it out. It was designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, a famous Austrian modern architect, who also seems to have been a pretty cool dude. I took a ton of photos, which are in the photo section, but none of them really capture the coolness of it.
After the Hundertwasserhaus, I accidently missed my stop on the subway, and visited the Stadtpark (city park) briefly. Then, morbid as it may be, I was off to the Zentralfriedhof (Central Cemetary), which is not central at all, but has lots of famous dead people in it. Clearly that was a priority.
Karl Kraus was one of the movers and shakers of the Viennese Modernism, which I took a class about last year. He founded a controversial literary magazine called "Die Fackel", and somewhere I own a copy of his book of aphorisms. Now that I try to write this, I realize I don't know/remember that much about the guy.
I took what could most accurately be described as a "buttload" of photos in the Zentralfriedhof, and I'm uploading them all to the blog's photo section. I'm going to tag them with "Zentralfriedhof". Here are a few interesting ones:
I was there for quite a while, but eventually left because my feet really hurt. It's a pretty gigantic cemetary, but I highly recommend it to visitors to Vienna. But find the locations of the stones you want to see before leaving home, because contrary to popular belief, the maps at the gates don't have any markers on them, just section numbers. ALSO, contrary to common sense, the main gate is the 2ND gate (2. Tor), not the first.
One of my German guidebooks had quite the appealing photograph of "Cafe Central" in it, so I made that my next stop for a mid-afternoon pick-me-up. Upon arriving, I was quite intimidated by the facade, and was excited to see that it had a sister "Konditorei" across the street. Cafe's have bread items and actual food, whereas Konditoreien have cakes and confections.
I walked in and stood at the counter, looking over all the cakes and deciding which one I wanted. Having settled on an apricot-poppyseed cake, I looked up, hoping to catch the attention of a waitress. After a few moments of awkward silence, I realized that I was just supposed to sit down, and the waitress would come to me. So, I sat down at the only free table in the small shop, which had four chairs total. About 30 seconds after I saw down, three people walked in and began looking around for a table. Although I'd been told that the Viennese are not into hanging out with strangers, I was planning on offering them the rest of my table when I could get their attention. Just about as soon as I had processed that idea, one of the two men asked in English if they could sit with me. It turned out they were all American and didn't speak a word of German. Small world. It sounded like the woman had been travelling for a while and that the two men had just recently come to meet up with her. My guess is that they were probably high school friends, and they said they were from Texas and Arizona. They were surprised to hear that I was American, and asked what I was doing in Vienna. I told them about the Regensburg program, and one of the guys said "Do you go to Vanderbilt?" (in case I have never mentioned it, the Wesleyan Progam in Regensburg is in consortium with Wheaton (MA) and Vanderbilt). I was all "No, but that's my program! How did you know that?". It turns out he went to Vandy undergrad and had a roommate who did a Regensburg semester. Again, small world. We talked about travel a little, and I helped them find something on their map (I'd been memorizing the map so I wouldn't have to constantly pull it out and look like a tourist). When it came time to pay, they paid for my cake and tea, saying "No, you're a student, it's cool!". So I thanked them profusely and we went off our separate ways.
While that was quite the fortuitous event, I do not want to let the importance of the cake fall to the wayside. It was one of the best slices of cake I've ever had. I LIVE for eating extraordinary food. The cake part was almost black due to a deliciously high ratio of crushed poppyseeds to batter. The top layer was whole dried apricots covered in a layer of gelatin-like glaze. (this is just a Germanic type of cake - fruit suspended in gelatin over a base). Now, that was mouthwatering enough, but what impressed me the most was that the cake was firm enough that even if you put the fork down through the middle of an apricot, it allowed enough leverage that the whole apricot was not yanked out. Thus the balance and aesthetic of the cake was preserved for the life of the dish. Wahnsinn. Apologies for not taking a photograph.
By the time I left the Konditorei, it was raining. I wandered around aimlessly in the rain briefly, before going to the Kaisergruft, which is the official crypt of the Hapsburg family. It was also closed.
It was getting dark, so it was time to get dinner and head back to the hostel. I walked through an open door to a full restaurant, which I was told was closed. Violence was narrowly avoided on my part. There was another restaurant around the corner, which I went into. It was not great, and they didn't list all of their beers in the menu, so I ended up with a Zwickelbier, which I find sour. But it was food, I guess.
When I returned to the hostel, the American girls had been replaced by two Canadian girls named Ramona and Nicole. We had a long conversation with a (different) English woman about how stupid it is when people blog about people they meet in hostels. Obviously, I kept my mouth shut on the topic.
Day 3
Friday was "do everything you couldn't do for the last two days" day.
The whole time I'd been out and about in Vienna, I'd been stopping at every souvenier shop trying to find a Freud postcard for the Lucibellas. This is relevant because I DID NOT FIND ONE! So of course, my first stop on Friday morning was the Freud museum. I was 99% sure I would get nothing out of the museum, so I just bought the postcard and hit the road. But tell me there's nothing funny about this sign:
The Freud House was merely a stop, however, on my way to the Medizin Historisches Museum. I suppose it shouldn't have been a surprise that it was a total letdown. Nothing will ever live up to the one in Zurich. It had two small rooms of displays, and then a large hall of elaborate wax models of body systems that were made in Florence in the late 1700s. The stuff in the display rooms related mostly just to Viennese history, and the wax models, while VERY realistic, had no labels, and it's not that interesting to just look at things without context. There were, however, two upsides for me. First, the person who came into the museum after me was an American who didn't speak any German and was trying to ask the ticket seller a question. My apparently EXTREMELY American accent resulted in her calling me over to translate for them, which of course was secretly exhilerating. The exchange itself was totally boring (he was looking for a book, she didn't know where it was), but I was completely capable of translating it both ways. So that's always a warm and fuzzy. Second, in the wax model room, they had a diorama of the old Vienna central hospital, which had a very unique tower structure on its grounds. It turns out the tower was an insane asylum (remember this for later) in the hospital's heyday, called the "Narrenturm", or "fool's tower". I looked in my guidebook, and the tower, if it was still there, was located about two blocks away, so I excitedly set out.
Not only was it still there, but it turns out that IT is the home of the Pathological-Anatomical Museum, which I had read about, but was unable to find the address of. The hours were something like 8-11 on Wednesdays and 13-16 on Thursdays...it was closed.
I was kinda upset, but since I hadn't even expected to get that close to the museum, I survived. Then, as I was walking away, I saw a group of students coming out of the tower. None of the signage said anything about it being open, except for something about a campus tour, but when I tried the handle, the door opened. There was nobody inside, which was odd, but I didn't have to pay the entrance fee, so again, no complaints. The museum was a bunch of individual rooms with exhibits in each - it was obvious that they were former cells. There were some gross preserved organs and moulages, an apothecary setup (again not rivaling Zurich), and an "alchemist's practice", among other things.
It was quite creepy in general, and made moreso by the complete emptiness and silence. After about 10 minutes, as I walked into the "morgue" room (of the former insane asylum, as you may recall), I heard two doors slam in quick succession. Apparently I haven't completely lost my mind here, because my brain immediately suggested gently that I make sure those were not the main doors being locked behind the last employee to leave that day. I was half right. It WAS the last employee leaving, but the doors were not yet locked. I burst out through the exterior door pictured above, and a younger guy smoking a cigarette did a double take. The conversation went something like this:
Him: "Were you in there?"
Me: "yeah"
H: "Oh, with that last tour?"
M: "nope"
H: "Well is there anyone else in there?"
M: "I don't think so"
H: "Are you sure?"
M: "I didn't see anyone"
H: "Well it's closed"
M: "I kinda thought so"
THAT WOULD'VE BEEN THE WORST POSSIBLE MOST-DEFINITELY-HAUNTED MUSEUM TO BE LOCKED IN! OH MY GOD! That's about all there is to say on that topic. Here are some more photos:
After that near miss, I headed to the Naschmarkt, which was open this time. I was pretty disappointed with it, but perhaps unfairly. Here's the problem with open-air markets: If you don't live in the
city, there's no point in buying a cheese ball or a bag of tomatoes,
you know? I was hoping to find pumpkin seed oil, an Austrian
specialty. It was all very expensive, so I didn't buy any, but I later
went to the "Penny Markt" across the street from the hostel and bought
it for much cheaper and in a larger amount. I bought one bottle for me
and my mom, and one for a certain friend who would appreciate such a
thing. Oh, and I bought some pickles out of the barrel. I love
pickles.
I soon went looking for a cafe that looked pretty great that I'd passed a couple of times near Albertinaplatz called "Cafe Tirolerhof". It also had beautifully upholstered mini-booths. However, they did have a bizarre practice of asking you what you wanted before giving you a menu. I wanted a menu.
My guidebook said that they had the best Apfelstrudel in the city, so I ordered that and a hot chocolate. It was the only Apfelstrudel that I had there, but I wasn't that impressed, to be honest. It was a huge chunk, and was very dense and not flakey at all. The apples were maybe a little overcooked, and it just wasn't INTERESTING. I didn't really want to keep eating after I was full, which is a sacrifice I'd make for a truly awesome dessert. The hot chocolate was quite delicious however, and the whole shebang gave me an impressive sugar headache.
After finishing at Cafe Tirolerhof, I went on to the Kaisergruft (Hapsburg crypt), which was fairly uninteresting, unfortunately. It's just a series of 5 or 6 rooms with tons of elaborate (or not) sarcophagi in them. Only some of them were labelled with names, and none of them had any additional information. (No, I did not BUY the guide at the desk). It was one of those situations where the museum kinda sucks but you don't want to look "uncultured" by walking through it super fast and going to get a wurst. You want to see a sweet tomb, you visit my buddy Ludwig IV in the Frauenkirche in Munich. It's even free!
The trip to the Kaisergruft was followed by the much-anticipated trip to Kärnterstrasse to buy MACARONS! I'm gonna post the photo again, because it's gorgeous.
I got one raspberry, one chocolate, and one pistacio. Against the odds, the pistacio was the clear winner, being one of the most amazing things I have ever eaten. The taste was a nice even, creamy pistacio flavor, and the texture was indescribable. It was very airy and tender and reminded me of a cloud. The raspberry was in second place (filled with jam!) and the chocolate took third (the filling was a bit tough). I never thought I'd get to try one, and I did! Arguably the highlight of the trip
By then my feet were really hurting, so I went to sit on the statue-dealie in front of the Hofbibliothek. I saw some totally sweet photos of the inside of the building (it's a former palace library), but because they decided to be total jerks and charge admission, I didn't go in. I imagine I didn't miss much. While sitting out in front of the library, I ate one of the pickles I bought and drank some water, which is a mean combination against a sugar headache.
After my little break, I went to a random cafe near the Stadtpark so I could sit down more comfortably. It wasn't really a cafe so much as a bar that was open during the day and sold tea. It was pretty bad, but it was quiet.
This will come to no surprise to those of you who know that I was not impressed by New York City until I went to Zabar's, but the store was AWESOME!! It was a two-story grocery store specializing in imported foods. They had cheddar cheese! I can't really describe how neat it was, and I think it might be lost on those not subject to German food 24/7, but WOW! (sorry Dad, antiques roadshop condition). I bought one of their fabric shopping bags to carry my beers home in: One honey beer, and one pumpkin seed beer of another brand. That bag makes a great souvenir.
I believe it was about 5pm when Will talked me into going to back to the beer tents with him. And thus, I leave you with a photo and a short film:
Highlights included: Famous dead people, Canadians, free cake, Parisian pastries, and coming very close to being locked in a museum.
And my personal favorite:
In Vienna, they ask that you give up your tram seat for pregnant women, parents of small children, blind people, and Sigmund Freud.
Ideally, by this time Saturday, I will have paid my respects at the grave of Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel.
Unanticipatedly cool.
1) The Circle of Life: In a recent post, I discussed Obazta, a Bavarian cheese dish. I promised that the next time I ate it, I would take a photo. I ate it today, but I didn't have my camera. Then, Jess sent me a photo of some Obazta we had in Bamberg. That's Gretchen on the right.
2) I have been making my way through "Von der Natur nicht vorgesehen", and the author at one point mentions the places she'd been in the United States: New York City (naturally) and Vinalhaven! The same, 1200-person Vinalhaven that we can (theoretically?) see off in the distance when we visit the beautiful summer home of family friends on another island in Penobscot Bay. In other news, I'm definitely translating that for my thesis. *gulp*
3) On Wednesday, I leave for Vienna for three days. The plan is to get there around 4 pm, stay Wednesday, Thursday and Friday night, and then spend as much or as little of Saturday there as I want. Hopefully I will not go crazy with solitude as I did in Switzerland. I've gotten four guidebooks from the library, as well as the Rick Steeves' "Germany and Austria" that my Dad left here. I think Rick Steves is kind of a stupid jerk, and normally I'd say that at least it was useful for the maps, but he draws his own, because he is kind of a stupid jerk. So...I'm using it to get an overview before using the German-language guides for more specific items. RS promotes this BS-type of "have-your-eyes-pass-over-everything-without-seeing-anything" tourism. It's like, "Here is how to see everything "important" in a city in one day", and it's unfortunate. It also makes him look dumb when he refers to anything in his best-selling guidebooks as "off the beaten path." And lastly, today, I found this in the book (referring to cake shops): "Shops like this boast "K u. K" - good enough for the König und Kaiser (king and emperor, same guy)." I am currently enrolled in a class for four hours a week about how König and Kaiser are not the same guy. I am not going to get into why he's wrong, but what really gets me is that he made this fairly obivous error while saying something that had no other purpose but to make him look "smart". Okay, I'm going to stop myself there.
4) On...Thursday? I went to the Trinity Church (Dreieinigkeitskirche) on Gesandtenstr. (here in R'burg) and climbed up into the steeple, as it is open for a nominal fee during the summer. Here are a few photos from the visit (click to embiggen):
(The rest of the photos are also in the "photos" section of the blog.
5) This weekend I went to Aschaffenburg, which is near Frankfurt right on the Hessen border. Our friend Regina's parents and brother live there, so five of us went to visit and stayed with her and her family. The biggest deal in Aschaffenburg is the castle, which is quite large and is red.
We also walked around the shopping area of the downtown a little, looking for a mothers day gift for Regina to buy for her brother to give to her mom. Hah. Unfortunately, my camera died right before I was able to take a photo of a giant knife that served as the sign for a kitchen store. I was able to take one photo in the toy store:
We went for a walk through the neighborhood and into the hills on Sunday before we left:
The following cat was not interested in the competition:
7) One more photo from Regensburg:
Okay, I keep saying it, but tomorrow I'm ACTUALLY going to go hike up the hill north of town. Unless it rains. Oh nuts, it looks like it's supposed to rain. Um, revision...sit in cafe and read Von der Natur nicht vorgesehen? I'm going to go one of these days, though. I'm going to Aschaffenburg this weekend, where Regina's parents live, so that should probably be pretty great.
In other news, one of my classes got disbanded, and I finished knitting two scarves this week. Well, one scarf and one neckwarmer (I modified that pattern pretty heavily). Maybe there will be a cold snap? Anyway, the goal is to take a really rocking picture (with either mountains or a liter of beer...opinions?) of one of them for this calendar contest.
Goals for tomorrow: mono-follow-up blood test, buy much needed umbrella, buy more mozzerella cheese.
I think that's accomplishable.
I actually wrote it on my calendar today to BUY HEALTHY FOOD, seeing as I have been living on almost exclusively popcorn and generic, German snickers for about a week now for no discernable reason.
I am, as we speak, eating a delightful falafel sandwich: falafel-from-a-box, pita-from-a-pouch, fresh lettuce and tomato, and the pièce de résistance(/ruiner of healthiness, budget, and shirt), fresh, homemade tzatziki from the gourmet counter at the grocery store. I didn't take a photo of it. I did take a photo of lunch:
Regensburg is one of those rare places that is a curiosity itself, but is also a functioning, vital city. Though I had planned on sleeping in, I woke up at nine this morning and went out to breakfast at Cafe Prock, just off Kohlenmarkt. The cafe is really beautifully furnished inside, with paintings and prints of Regensburg icons. But not in a kitschy way. Plus, they have really yummy looking goodies to take home.
I brought a book ("Von der Natur nicht vorgesehen" (As Nature Didn't Intend) by Hilde Domin), and sat inside by the window so as not to be too distracted. As I sat sipping tea and looking out the window, about two tour groups would go past every five minutes. Each stopped right outside, and a few members in every group took a photo of the tower across the street. I realized that I didn' t have a photo of that tower, or of many other things that I passed ten times a day. So, after breakfast, I went on a Stadtbummel (stroll around the city - but isn't it great that they have ONE word for it?) and took about 30 photos. Here is the cream of the crop:
There are also a few more in the photos section.
Most importantly, I am just finishing a cone of chocolate-rose petal-pink peppercorn gelato. I wish I could tell you that it is as delicious as it is bizarre, but that's a tall order, and it's still pretty good.
So, I met my tandem partner, Sabrina today. The idea of tandems is that you meet up with a German and speak German for half an hour, and English for a half an hour. We ended up talking for about two hours, and she invited me to come with her to her hometown (Landshut) which is home to the tallest brick tower in the world. If the weather is nice we'll probably go on Saturday.
I finally found the Regensburg Public Library, and got an 8 Euro library card. This should be a more cost efficient way to find a text to translate than just buying books willy-nilly. I found two books by Hilde Domin, a Jewish German author who left Germany in 1932 and then returned in the 50s. I really admire the people who were able to come back after the Holocaust. It must have been extremely hard.
The library itself is really neat. It turns out it's about a block away from my room and I just never noticed. I will have to post a photo later, as it is covered with scaffolding. It shares the building with a handful of other offices and businesses, but the reference desk backs up to a door that opens to a balcony overlooking Haidplatz. Being that librarian must rule. The library is also cute and tiny. It is one floor with a mezzanine above it. It has a whole room dedicated to foreign language materials, and just looking in the American section was a little jarring. They had the Moosewood cookbook, Mom!
The most surprising thing about the library is that the building it's in has this ridiculous Italienate courtyard. I promise to take a photo of it. The inner walls of the building are lined with these elaborate marble-looking arches. I don't know how to describe it.
ETA: Okay, so the libary is in a building called the Thon-Dittmer Palais, and here is a photo of the interior. Also, here is a website about the area. It's in German, but the pictures are what matters.
Obatzda/O'batzta/Obatzter is a standard, beer garden cheese dip snack food. Its main ingredients are camembert, cream cheese or butter, beer and paprika, and it's served with raw, sliced red onions on the side. It's generally pale orange due to the paprika, but I have eaten a whitish version (in Berlin).
It is traditionally served in either a dallop or a series of scoops on a plate with what Americans would call pretzel stix protruding skyward. Thus, it either looks like a hedgehog, or a dead, comic-book caterpillar. It is extremely delicious. I had some for dinner last night. Unfortunately, I did not think to take a photo. I promise one in the near future.
In other news: Mom, Dad, I have a really stupid idea for our Christmas card photo. Contact me privately.
ETA: I have been mentally compiling a list of "Ways to seem like a local" in Regensburg. At the moment, most of the list escapes me, except for my personal favorite: Comment on the poor quality of Thurn und Taxis beer. Everyone will think you're super cool. I think I may have even been patted on the back once for saying that.
