2 posts tagged “vienna”

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.

Back to the topic at hand.

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've been making an effort of late to notice and remember the good things that happen to me rather than focusing on the bad things.  I think going to the Konditorei was just a great moment in the history of my luck.

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.

Highlights included: Famous dead people, Canadians, free cake, Parisian pastries, and coming very close to being locked in a museum.