Thursday, 3 October

WIEN...And Out!

About two months before we came over to Europe, I had written a request for tickets to see the Vienna Boys Choir[126] at Mass while in Vienna. By my `schedule'[127], that would be on Sunday, October 6th. And up until this point, we had been following my `schedule' pretty religiously--sure, we had moved things around a little bit to see Elke, switched the order of Switzerland, Fussen and Munich, went to Salzburg a day early, stayed an extra day in Hallstatt...well, maybe we didn't exactly follow it that well. Anyway, we were scheduled to stay in Vienna through the 6th, not only to see the Boys choir, but to go to all the composer's homes Friday morning, when they were free before noon. But the `schedule' was about to get vetoed.

Though it upset me a bit at first, Doug was extremely anxious to get out of Austria and into Italy and France. Though Vienna had been better, overall the Austrians were pretty rude and out for the tourist dollar, and he was itching to start speaking a language he actually knew...French. I eventually agreed with him, so we decided to say ixnay to the Boys choir, knowing that we really only wanted to go so that we could say that we did. Not a good enough reason to stay so long in one city.

So we made plans to take the sleeping car to Venice that night. We checked out of our hotel and went to the train station, where we could make reservations for a sleeping car[128], which ended up costing nearly twice what it was supposed to (4800 AS, $24/person). We also decided that, since our train wasn't leaving until after 10 pm, today was the perfect day to do laundry...but where? Following Frommer's directions, we took the subway with our bags on our back to a station near the street that it was supposedly on, and then walked down it...and walked further...and further. Geez, with the best subway/tram/bus system in the world, you'd think there was a way to quickly go the 20? 30? blocks, but the only one we found went the opposite way down a one-way street. We walked for forever and a day[129]! Finally we found it, and found that it was a one-minute walk from a subway station, only three stops more than the one we got off on. OOHHHHH!

So for about $11 for one washload, we washed just about everything that was in our bags and, quite literally, the clothes off our backs[130]. While we were waiting, Doug went to the nearby phone booth and, using the last of our Austrian phone card, discovered that just about every hotel in Florence[131] was booked on the Friday and Saturday nights we wanted to stay there. Since when does Florence have an Oktoberfest?--surely something must be available and reasonable! I told Doug to forget Rick Steves' suggestions, and go with Frommer's. He finally found something, once again for considerably more than the published price. Not what I wanted, but I guessed it would work out fine[132].

After finishing up the laundry[133], we started back towards the train station so that we could put our bags of clean clothes in a locker. On the way was Schubert's Birthplace but, since this was our last day in Austria and we only had a little money left, we couldn't afford the admission[134]. Sour grapes, but it wasn't rumored to be very exciting anyway. After dropping off our bags in a station locker, we went to the Stadtpark (city park), looking for a market nearby at which we could make a picnic lunch. Hard to believe, but there wasn't anything nearby....not even a McDonald's. So we took a tram back towards the hotel where we stayed and found two markets--one where we bought cookies and sodas, and one where we got our sandwiches. Too starving at this point to want to go all the way back to the Stadtpark, we sat on the grass near the subway station for our picnic, attracting many stares and smiles from passing travelers. Oh, but that lunch was soooo good[135], and sooo cheap ($6 total, I think, and we had enough leftovers for lunch the next day!).

A striking resemblance between Tracia and....nah! Here she is at the famous Strauss statue in Stadtpark.

We wandered around the rest of the afternoon, hard-pressed to kill time with little money and, more importantly, little energy for sightseeing. We did stop for a while to watch a Peruvian band play on the streets near St. Stephen's...actually, it wasn't the band we watched so much as the children's reaction to them. Two kids were dancing all about, and one cute little red-haired boy stood entranced, still holding the bill his parents probably gave him to put in the open guitar case. He was too scared to give it to the musicians, and yet too interested to run away.

Upon Doug's insistence, we went in search of a coffee house to sit and relax and spend an insane amount of money on one drink. We looked in RS, and found that Cafe Hawelka, one of the many listed, was nearby. If you only looked at the decor, you knew it was atmospheric and then, logically, cheap: old movie posters papered the walls, the booths were small and tattered velvet couches reminiscent of the "Haunted Mansion" in Disneyland, and the overall lighting in the place gave off a distinctive orange glow...like Cafe Roma in Davis back home, only darker. But then I noticed that the waiters, (yes, there were waiters there), were wearing black tailcoats and ties! Uh-oh, this is going to be one expensive cup of coffee. It was about 5 or 6 pm when we first got there, and we lucked out and found an open velvet couch booth near the window. A impatient and rather rude waiter came up to us immediately, wanting to know what we wanted. Well, what did they have? And how much did it cost? Knowing that we only had about $10 left, this was important. With the waiter growing more anxious with us, Doug decided on a large beer and I got another one of those interesting unsweetened hot chocolates, knowing that would pretty much polish off the last of our dough. But the good news was that that same $10 paid for our entire evening's entertainment, and gave us the best memories of Vienna. How, you ask? Well, we discovered why coffee houses are so popular, and why they charge so much for one drink. Like the three hour dinners in which so many Europeans indulge, one cup of coffee can last all evening if you want it to. No, nothing exciting happened in that cafe. No entertainment, no games, no sights, just one, long, relaxing evening. Doug took advantage of some of the reading material they had provided there[137], and I did a lot of reading in RS about Italy. Surprisingly enough, though we drank our drinks in about 10 minutes, the waiter never once came up to ask if we wanted anything else. I guess they really don't mind loitering here--in fact, they expect and encourage it!

Doug finds out what is going on in "the world" at Cafe Hawelka

When it turned about 7 pm, the place was getting quite packed. Doug chose the wrong time to go to the bathroom, because just as he did, some burly waitress directed two ladies to sit at our booth...right where Doug had been sitting! I told her, "no, my husband is sitting there," but she totally insisted, saying (as best as I could understand) that he could squeeze in on my side. Oh well, so much for relaxing. Or so I thought...

Actually, when these two girls realized I was American, they tried out their English and we started talking furiously. Doug came back from the bathroom, and I introduced to him my new Swiss friends, just as he told me about his friend from the bathroom[138]. We then talked with Barbara and Sibylle about all kinds of things--our trip, cultural differences between the US and Austria/Switzerland/Germany, and, knowing Doug, language of course. It was here that I once again noticed how they gave me that funny little smile that everybody gave me whenever I tried to speak German. Up until then, I had always thought it was because people thought it cute and funny that my grammar was so bad. But these two finally came clean and said it was because, for some reason, an American speaking German had a charming accent. Who would have thought?

Before we knew it, it was time to leave to get to the station...wait!...actually, it was well past that! As we apologized to our table mates for our `abrupt' exit, a waiter was screaming at us. We hadn't realized at first that he was upset that we were trying to leave without paying. Oh yeah, we completely forgot that we hadn't paid yet! Well, do you blame us, seeing that we drank our purchases away...5? 6? hours ago!!! Well, needless to say, no explanation eased up the waiter, so we left him no tip whatsoever[139].

We practically ran to the station in the end, since fewer subway trains were running that late at night and we had to wait more than usual. We did make the train, but with only about 2 or 3 minutes to spare--not great planning for the $50 we spent on our reservation. We then found our compartment, sharing it with three Colombian women and a Australian girl. Cramped but functional, we settled into our bunks[140] and, seeing that it was about 11 pm already and this was only a 8 hour train ride, got immediately ready for bed. It was quite shocking not to have my husband laying next to me, so I snuggled down on his bunk at first[141], and then retreated to my own after a few minutes of `hoding'[142].

Even with biker pants and a T-shirt acting as pajamas and with the train continuous stopping and starting, I was able to get in a few hours sleep, mostly because we could make our compartment completely dark and because the other people in our car wanted to sleep even more than we did. Ah, but was it going to be enough to make it through an entire day of heavy-duty sightseeing in Venice? That much was yet to be seen....