Wien, Österreich

Not long after I returned from Africa I decided that my next New Year vacation would have to be in Europe. This gravy train cannot last forever, and I want to visit a civilized place at least one more time while I still have the chance. I was undecided where to go specifically and did not worry about it until it was time to actually make some plans.

After I went to Bangkok I knew that Pi Chi and I should go to Paris. The reason for this will be discussed later. I also knew that while I would have a good three weeks vacation, Pi Chi would be lucky to get a full seven days. We decided to spend all of her week in Paris, but I did not want to stay there for three weeks since that would likely be on the expensive side. Paris ain’t Albuquerque. There are plenty of other places in Europe worth seeing. I considered warmer locations like Spain and Italy, but they are expensive even during the winter. Probably because they are the warmer locations. I thought about the least expensive places, like Berlin and Prague. Prague is supposed to be exceptionally beautiful in winter. It is also exceptionally cold. I knew I did not want the weather to plan my trip and I knew that I did not want to go to too many different areas. Spending a day or two in one city and then moving on is a popular activity in Europe, and a great way to not actually experience anything.

At this point I knew that I would be spending a romantic week in Paris and a less than romantic time at a concentration camp. The two camps with which I am most familiar are Auschwitz and Mauthausen. Auschwitz is the far more famous and popular tourist destination, if it can be called that, but it is also in the middle of Poland which was, at the time, in the middle of a record breaking freeze. Mauthausen is in Austria; no stranger to cold, but no Poland either. And any time of the year I would much rather see Austria than Poland. So I decided to spend a few days in Vienna, go to Mauthhausen, and then gradually make my way to Paris. This is where things got interesting.

Booking a plane ticket that arrives at one destination (Vienna) and departs from another destination (Paris) is not that difficult. The airline industry calls that an open jaw ticket. It is then assumed that the passenger will find independent transportation from point B to point C. This being Europe, I knew that would not be a problem. What was a problem was that the local Chinese travel agents know nothing about open jaw tickets and actually told me that this type of travel is impossible. I assured them it was not. Their point of view was that since they were travel agents they knew better. My point of view was that since I used to work for an airline and actually arranged more than a few open jaw pairings for more than a few pilots I knew better. Our disagreement was moot since matters were complicated with the addition of Pi Chi. She would be flying to Paris two weeks later and we wanted to return together. Just for fun, most airlines as a rule want at least one of the passengers to have the same name as the name on the credit card that purchased the ticket. Since we were departing on separate flights, this meant that her name on her credit card would probably not be the same as my name on my ticket. Since I have no credit card, it seemed only prudent to use hers.

Essentially, purchasing the tickets with a credit card was not an option. Getting the tickets through a local travel agent did not look too appealing either. Most of the travel agents who were willing to talk to me said that it was impossible. The Chinese love to tell you that things are impossible. When I first moved here I wanted to get a real mattress rather than sleep on one of those rollaway mats. I was told that would be impossible. It was not. When locals ask me how tall I am, and this comes up quite a bit, and I tell them, they tell me that my height is impossible. Yet every professional American basketball player is taller. I often wonder how they ever accomplished anything with such a negative attitude. The two travel agents who were willing to make at least some attempt could not get us what we wanted. One of them wanted us to take connecting flights to Vietnam. I had no problem with connecting flights, especially since there are no direct flights from here to there, but I would need a visa merely to land in Vietnam, and it was probably already too late to fumble through the paperwork in time. The agent was also unsure if we would both be on the same return flight. She would have to get back to me on that. She never did. The other travel agent actually was able to book my impossible open jaw ticket, although he said it was difficult and more expensive, and he even booked us both on the same return flight. I had finally found a travel agent who understood what I wanted. Unfortunately, he said the tickets would cost about US$6,000. This seemed a tad pricey for two last class plane tickets. The high quote, he claimed, was because of my impossible open jaw ticket. Since the price cycle was due to change at the beginning of January, he said that we could wait and see what the new prices were. The downside was that if the price was higher there would be no way to take the lower price. Also, I was supposed to leave January 18, and I thought that I might want to have something booked before then.

Naturally, on the internet I found plenty of open jaw tickets that were far lower than the prices I had been quoted, and getting Pi Chi and I on the same return flight was simply a matter of calculation. However, the credit card problem still existed and airlines and websites that sell tickets have a thing for credit cards. I looked around for other payment options, but everyone wanted a credit card. Finally I wrote e-mail to the three airlines that fly from where we are to where we wanted to go and explained the dilemma. Only two bothered to write back. Singapore Airlines was the one that did not. Eva Air said that they would love to have my money, but that they only sell tickets via a credit card. About a week later KLM told me that they could easily book me on any number of open jaw flights and that getting us on the same return flight was no problem. Also, they would be quite happy to take a bank wire transfer or international money order. An additional e-mail the next day gave me all the details I needed to make the wire transfer, and within three days everything was booked and paid for. As it turned out, my impossible open jaw ticket was actually less expensive than Pi Chi’s standard ticket.

Now all I had to do was figure out where to go between Vienna and Paris.

Hafnersteig

Before this trip, if someone had asked me which language I knew more, I would have chosen French over German. Although I took more German classes in school, I have always felt that I knew more French. I was wrong.

In Vienna I checked into my hotel auf Deutsch. The front desk clerk and I had the usual reception conversation in German, as well as something about the speed limit of vomiting (erbrechend Geschwindigkeitsbeschränkung?) and we both generally understood each other. On the streets of Vienna I spoke to shopkeepers and the like in German. “Darf ich Ihre Aufmerksamkeit auf der Ziegenhirt mit Aufsatz lenken?” Now that I was out of Asia people just assumed that I spoke their language. My most amusing international moment came when an American (I have decided) tried to ask me for directions in broken German. I eventually understood where he wanted to go and I knew exactly where it was. We were on Kämtnerstraße, not too far from the Staatsoper. He was looking for St Stephensplatz. Obviously if he just kept walking forward he would hit it. While he was butchering the vocabulary and ignoring all rules of grammar, I did not bother to point out that I could speak English with a fair degree of proficiency. When I told him how to get where he wanted to go he looked at me pretty much the way my Chinese students do when I conjugate verbs. (The point being that verbs are not conjugated in Chinese, so it is a completely alien concept for them to learn). I then pointed in the right direction. If he kept walking that way he should not miss it. After he thanked me and walked away, I saw him approach someone else. Hopefully someone more helpful.

I was getting a little proud of myself until I had a conversation with the hotel’s front desk clerk about the city’s underground system. We reached a point where my only response was, in English, “You got me there.” To this the clerk was surprised.

“You speak English.” She announced in disbelief.

“More or less.” I responded.

“I thought you were from Bavaria.” This was odd since I thought I was speaking proper Berlin German. Apparently my proper Berlinerisch has a heavy Bavarian accent for some reason.

“No.” I replied. “I live with Chinese.” This pretty much killed the conversation, but I did get the underground information I needed.

Stephensplatz am Graben

None of the Vienna U-Bahn lines that I rode actually went underground. Some of them were rather elevated. But they were all very cheap and incredibly efficient. My first “underground” trip was on a Saturday. While I was at the station trying to figure out their particular fare payment system I noticed that other people were simply heading toward their trains without cash, card, or any other obvious method of payment. I chose to follow suit. If some official should ask me why I did not pay I could simply claim ignorance. Once you tell people you are American they never question your ignorance.

I decided that the U-Bahn was free on Saturdays. Neither myself nor anyone around me was paying anything in any way to ride these trains. This seemed like a pretty good deal, but this left me with the need to figure out the system the next day. The next day came and went and I had still paid nothing. Clearly the U-Bahn was free on weekends. Or probably not. The entire time I was in Vienna I paid absolutely nothing to ride, on any day. It seems unlikely that this is a free service. More likely I was doing it wrong. But there were no turnstiles or any other barricades to keep us cheapskates out. If they use the honor system they are far more trusting than any other transit system I have ever seen.

Hofburg

I do not mean to generalize, but Europeans are just better at everything than Asians. The trains are on time. Many of the stops in Vienna have signs displaying exactly when the next train will arrive, and it is accurate. I take a round trip train ride at home once a week. I have ridden Chinese trains on about 64,000 occasions. It was on time once. Comparing the cleanliness of European trains versus Asian trains is like comparing something very clean with something very dirty. Plus, Chinese trains cost money. Viennese trains are free. Although probably not.

Then there is the culture. Every culture has its own culture and there is something to be found in all of them, blah, blah, blah. But Europe has Culture. The nearest museum to my home is an inefficient three hour train ride away. Museums here are not really what I would consider world class. Maybe the rice museum, the bamboo museum, and the lantern museum are interesting for a full 30 seconds, but they cannot compare to Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum or Paris’ Louvre. Some would say it is not a fair comparison. I would say that is my point.

Let us say for some strange reason I or my neighbors want to go to the opera or see a symphony. I can think of two cities where that is even possible, and there is probably a reason you have never heard of the Happy Fun Chopstick Orchestra. Now say someone in Vienna wants to see an opera. They have one or two opera houses and a symphonic concert hall here and there. In fact, I do believe a composer or two might have actually been to Vienna once. I am not being fair, you say. Surely the Chinese have their own version of music, art and culture. I simply am not giving it a chance because it is so different. Well, yes and no. Of course there is Chinese music and art, and yes everything about the culture is different. But I am neither exaggerating nor being facetious when I say that the idea of a cultured night out to the people around me is getting shit faced at the local KTV and maybe seeing a puppet show.

Through no fault of my own 27 January 2006 just happens to be Mozart’s 250th birthday. Both Salzburg and Vienna (and indeed many other cities) planned major celebratory events. Among other things, Salzburg planned to perform 22 operas, 55 masses and 260 concerts. I had no plans to go to Salzburg, and since most of the big events would not begin until after I left Austria, I saw no reason to make the effort. Not to be outdone, Vienna decided to restore and reopen the house on Domgasse where Mozart lived most of his time in Vienna and wrote many of his most famous works. The Nationalbibliothek announced that it would display the original handwritten score to his “Requiem”. Along with a major increase in concerts, they also decided to litter the city with more information about Mozart than anyone really needs to know, such as the fact that he was alive for 13,097 days. The only problem with all of this was that most of everything was to begin in the summer, long after I was gone, and almost nothing began before 27 January, the day after I was scheduled to be in Paris. I could have delayed my arrival in Paris, but the hotel was already paid for and I wanted to be there before Pi Chi. I would have to settle for a single outstanding performance of his Concerto in Eb for Piano No 14 (KV449) and Symphony in Gm No 40 (KV550) by the Wiener Philharmoniker with Leif Ove Andsnes on piano. I have nothing against Chinese puppet shows per se, but this was so much better.

And then there is the food. Some people love Chinese food. Or at least whatever version of Chinese food is available to them. I can take it or leave it. There is enough I can do with it to survive, but my Chinese experience has certainly not been a rich one, culinarily. I love Thai food (Thai and American) and Japanese food (best in Japan). I can even deal with some Indonesian food. But real Chinese food has never really appealed to me. I prefer American Chinese food, which has little to do with Chinese Chinese food. Eating is not something I do a great deal of at home anyway. I never eat breakfast. Unless the first meal of the day is breakfast regardless of when it is eaten. Some days I do not eat dinner. Not because of any logistical concerns and certainly not because food here is too expensive. Far from it. When I choose not to eat it is because I simply have no desire to eat. I neither live to eat nor eat to live. I mostly eat when I remember that I probably should.

Although it did not happen, I actually thought I was gaining weight in Vienna. I ate like a fallen Weight Watcher at the Bellaggio buffet. There was just so much good food, and such variety. At home we have rice or noodles, with different vegetables depending on how much one chooses to live it up. There are many ways to cook rice or noodles, but at the end of the day it is still just rice or noodles. Vienna probably had rice, and I am almost certain there was some form of noodle, but I saw none of that. I ate bread. Real bread. Not this Chinese crap with bean paste or some kind of jelly substance hidden inside. I ate plenty of pasta. Not noodles. Tortellini, penne, ravioli, manicotti, fettucini. The Chinese word for spaghetti literally means Italian noodle. To the Chinese, pasta is spaghetti. Fortunately in Europe, pasta is a wide variety of milled goodness.

I had a little pizza as well. My last real pizza had been in Africa, about a year earlier. I had been in the mood for pizza for about 10 months. I think I might have eaten pizza at least once a day every day I was in Vienna. And it was even better than Africa. Most of the pizza places I went to in Vienna were operated by Italians, or at least hairy people who yell at each other in Italian. In between their shouting competitions and quantitative alcoholic consumption, they made a mighty fine pizza. New York pizza is still the best in the world as far as I am concerned, but Vienna pizza comes a pretty close second. And that is a serious compliment.

Maria Theresienplatz

Vienna is an exceptional city. My original plan was to spend three or four days in Vienna, a few days somewhere else, and the remainder of the trip in Paris. On my first day in Vienna I decided to simply spend the entire time there until I was due to go to Paris. There is plenty to see and do, and my hotel was cheap enough that I could extend my stay without undue hardship. I stayed at the Hotel Kärntnerhof. I do not generally like to give out free advertising, but if I ever go back I want the same hotel, and this is as good a way to remember it as any.

This was a perfect hotel for a first trip to Vienna. It is on the tiny, very quiet Grashofgasse, within the Innere Stadt and very close to pretty much everything. This is not a popular tourist hotel, although it is a very short walk through a quiet residential neighborhood to where the tourists want to be. It is also close to some excellent restaurants that most of the tourists will never know about when they stay at the larger hotels on the larger streets. The cheapest rooms are very small, but the bed was very comfortable and the pillows were the best I have seen anywhere. My only complaint about the hotel was that there was no refrigerator in the room. This is a common problem in Europe. They seem to assume that since every hotel is surrounded by more than enough places to find food and drinks refrigerators are unnecessary. But I like cold drinks at unsightly hours and I like to be able to get one without taking off my fuzzy bunny slippers and putting on my shoes. This issue was easily resolved at the Kärntnerhof as it had an old fashioned double window situation where I could put drinks outside the window and still keep them inside. This worked well since it was colder than death outside.

And that brings us to the only insurmountable problem with this trip. It was just too cold. At home I get cold when it dips to 15 degrees. That is not really that cold, but after a 10 month summer of 30 to 35 degrees and unbearable humidity, it seems cold. I spent the first day in Vienna just walking around. Vienna is the kind of city where one can walk endlessly through narrow alleys and winding boulevards and never get lost. I had assumed that I would take a photograph or two on my walk, but it turns out my good camera (not technically my best camera, but the one I prefer) has issues with the cold. After taking a good two or three shots the camera said nein. I spent the rest of my time in Vienna (and throughout most of the trip) using my technically better (though not my favorite) camera wrapped inside a wool sock. As long as I turned the camera off after each shot and kept it inside the sock as much as possible the battery stayed alive, although on life support and begging me to sign a DNR.

When I arrived in Vienna the sky was solid gray and it was 3 degrees. I was cold. The clouds eventually went their separate ways and by the time I left, the sky was solid blue. Unfortunately, it had then reached –15 degrees. I was very cold. The Russian cold front that was killing people in Moscow was gradually making its way west. The weather was expected to get even colder in Vienna. As I walked from the greatest grocery store in the world and turned from Graben to Habsburgergasse, a blast of freezing wind shot through my head like a CIA bullet through a Kennedy. As much as I wanted to stay in Vienna, I decided it was time to move on.

This is just wrong.

Volksgarten