Lost in Vienna: Part II

Well, I just got back from my second visit to Vienna (and most definitely not my last). This was a totally different experience than the firs time when I went with Marc.

That trip was all sightseeing and wandering (exactly what I wanted to do mind you), while this trip was all about family and friends and sitting in the Kaffeehaus. Completely different, but just as wonderful. Although honestly the trip didn't really start out that way.

We left Frankfurt late, and since we were driving and there's a major train strike on right now, hit all sorts of insane traffic on the way to Vienna. What should have been a 6+ hour drive turned into an 8+ hour drive and we didn't actually get to Vienna until almost 1am in the morning. Ugh. But it was still a great visit.

I met Nick's family and some of his friends, we got the chance to sit and relax in his favorite Kaffeehaus, Hawelka, which Marc and I went to in October. But the best part was that I started to see the city as someone's home as opposed to just a place to visit. That's my favorite way to see new places sometimes, I mean it's fantastic to see all of the sights, but I really love seeing how people live. I guess that's the anthropologist in me coming out.

The culture here is completely different than what I've experience before. All of life seems to center around the Kaffeehaus. It's where people meet and sit and in some cases live. There are friends Nick has that he only met because they both happened to frequent the same Kaffeehaus, where I think I mentioned before Nick's Dad used to frequent when he was at university and starting out work. It is definitely a different pace of life than what we have in Frankfurt.

Before we left for Frankfurt on Sunday afternoon, we had lunch with Nick's family, and wouldn't you guess it we had Wiener Schnitzel. How apropos. His mom made it from scratch and it was so incredibly good. And although I couldn't follow the entire conversation he had with his family (most of it was in German), I did manage to follow some bits. I guess that's at least a small testament to the fact that I might actually be learning to speak German. Shocking to be honest, but I'm glad of it. Now if only I could get Nick to speak a little slower . . .

Anyhow, horrid traffic aside, it was a really nice weekend. I can't wait to go back with him in December to see the Christmas markets, he raves about the holiday market drink, Punsch. I can't wait to try it.

Nazis and Anti-Nazis

So last weekend, there was another round of protests in Frankfurt.

Three groups carried out demonstrations on Saturday:

The Nationaldemokratische Partei Deustschlands, with 2,000 people demonstrating, marched through the neighborhood where my office is located. This is the right-wing, neo-Fascist party here in Germany (aka neo-Nazis). They marched against Islamism in Germany and the construction of a new mosque that the Hazrat-Fatima community wants to build in Hausen (another nearby neighborhood).

At the same time, an alliance of religious communities and citizen groups, the Römerbergbündnis, carried out a counter-demonstration in the same area. And a radical activist group called ANTIFA (anti-Fascists who can probably be described as anarchists) also marched against the right-wing protesters.

As far as I know there was no violence, then again it's hard for me to tell since I can't really read the newspapers yet. Everything was pretty quiet in my neighborhood and in the city center. There's always some concern that the protests will end up around the European Central Bank seeing as it is such a strong symbol for capitalism within Europe.

It's so interesting to see how Germany struggles with protests of this sort. On the one hand, it is illegal to give a Nazi style salute. On the other they stand by freedom of speech and even though many of the Germans I've come to know in the last nine months abhor the idea of neo-Nazis they still allow them to protest. That's freedom of speech if I've ever seen it. In some ways they have more freedom than we do in American now. There have been so many rules enacted, so much surveillance permitted that nowadays if you have anything to say against the government you truly have to be careful. I guess so much of it seemed ok when the legislation was going through because we were all a bit shell-shocked after 9/11, but it has to stop at some point. Freedom of Speech is one of the critical tenants that America is built on after all. . .

Lost in Vienna: Part 1

I'm posting this a little bit late because after Marc left I got buried under an enormous pile of work in preparation for the brand plan presentations. However, I couldn't not write at least a little something about our trip to Vienna.

After a second night of drinking enormous steins of beer, we hopped on a train to Vienna. Oktoberfest is officially over and I think we’re both exhausted and I’ve definitely come down with a pretty horrible cold. But no fear on that front, we’ve still been good tourists in Vienna.

After arriving via train, we made our way to the hotel, a fantastic recommendation from Birgit, the Hotel Rathaus Wein und Design. A really lovely boutique design hotel located just outside the first district. It’s pretty much given us access to the entire first district which is where most of what we want to see is in the city.

Thanks to Nick we even have our very own tour guide in the form of his friend Florian. Honestly, it was practically a professional tour (I’m ashamed to say that after living in Chicago for almost 7 years there is no way I could give a tour to visiting friends that even comes close to his level of detail). With Florian as our fearless leader for the morning, we managed to see most of the major sights in the first district, the Stephan's Dome, the royal palace, Parliament, roman ruins and perhaps most importantly, Nick’s favorite Kaffee Haus, Hawelka, where we had breakfast.

After Florian headed off, Marc and I caught the U-Bahn out to Schloss Schönbrunn, the royal summer palace. It was gorgeous, but since neither of us felt like touring the inside because it was a really lovely afternoon, we ended up wandering through the gardens for a few hours. And it was in the labyrinth section that we found perhaps my favorite part of the castle, a math puzzle that took us (collectively) a good 20 minutes to solve. Obviously our basic math skills could use some refreshing. But we had such fun wandering through all of the labyrinths, activating the Male and Female principle stones (don’t ask, I still don’t quite understand what it was we were doing).

For dinner that night, Florian picked us up and brought us to a beautiful view over the city before we went to one of the Heurigan restaurants where they are licensed to sell the newest Austrian wine vintages.

One of the last things we did was to visit the Karlskirche which has been undergoing restoration for quite a few years now. It’s beautiful and interestingly has the Hebrew word for God incorporated into the main stained glass window over the altar. You can take an elevator up onto the restoration scaffolding to get a better view of the frescos. Marc and I actually did this and I have to say it is one of the scarier things I’ve done in a while and I’m not one who is really afraid of heights. But there seemed to be no one managing the number of people on there and quite frankly is just didn’t seem that stable to me. But we saw it and I have some wonderful pictures to show from the trip.

Not a bad introduction to Vienna, although I’m looking forward to coming back with Nick and seeing it a bit more as a local. I have no doubt that I’ll be back soon. All in all a really fantastic few days to end our trip together before we had to head home to Frankfurt for Marc’s last night/Poker game (where I might add he won! I so love beginners luck in these games).


My tips:

Hotel:
Hotel Rathaus Wein und Design
190 Euro a night

Things to See in Vienna:

Schloss Schönbrunn - the summer palace and a UNESCO World Heritage Site

Parliament

Museumsquartier

Karlskirche - The scary climb to the top was not worth 5 euro

Stephan’s Dome

Food and Drink:

Dine at a Heurigen (wine bar licensed to sell the new vintage)

Have a melange at a true Viennese Kaffee Haus (I did really like the Hawelka!)

Good Resources:

Wikitravel.org

2007 F&W Best New Chefs!

Some of you may remember that a few years ago I took a brief foray into the world of public relations and had the chance to work with some amazing chefs in Chicago and Kentucky. Well, one of my favorite former clients, Paul Virant, was just named one of Food & Wine magazine's 10 Best New Chefs in 2007.

So if you are in Chicago and have the chance, or you haven't been in a while, I highly recommend you check out his restaurant, Vie. It's about 20 minutes outside of the city by Metra and his food is fantastic. Plus he's an all around nice guy and I just love promoting people I like even if I'm not paid for it anymore.

You can learn more about him and check out some of his recipes and even watch him prep one of his dishes here:

Oktoberfest 2007: Day 2

OK, I think we were all a bit in need of a calmer start to the day, and possibly some recovery from all of the beer we consumed last night. Thank heavens our reservation for the tent tonight isn't actually until the night.

So instead we have spent the day wandering through Munich. Top on the list was a surf spot (yes I know, I didn't believe it either) in a park that TJ wanted to to and check out. And sure enough, there it was, a bunch of guys and a girl or two in wetsuits surfing in a river. I guess what happened was that a log got lodged in the river one day and someone figured out that it was surfable. So now they've actually secured it under the water with cables so that it is always present. It was pretty unbelievable but cool to watch.

After a very leisurely afternoon, we headed back to the hotel to get back into our now, very unattractive smelling clothes (amazing how beer can permeate fabric, really amazing) and piled back downstairs or round two of the Oktoberfest madness.

Once again, the pictures tell the story so much better than I possibly can. But suffice to say it was another night of crazy drinking and dancing and singing. The tent we were in was a bit more exclusive than the Hoffbrau tent from last night, a bit more civilized but so much fun. And the food was unbelievable. If I were ever to go back to Oktoberfest, this is where I would want to have a reservation. Much more fun in some ways than the first day.

Of course, no Oktoberfest night would be complete without at least a brief stop at the carnival rides, unfortunately this time we managed to drink until all of the rides had closed. So instead part of the group went off to the arcade, I guess that's what I'd call it, where apparently Marc, my fearless and oh so talented brother, schooled the rest of the boys in how to play hoops. Talk about family pride.

Anyway, all in all a pretty amazing Oktoberfest. I don't think we could have had a more wonderful group of people to hang out with for this trip. Hopefully Vienna will be just as much fun (albeit with slightly less alcohol), and even more so, I'm very seriously hoping that this cold that is threatening me doesn't actually turn into anything. At least I have the train ride to sleep on. . .

Oktoberfest 2007: Day 1

First day of the fest.

After a whirlwind of activity yesterday that involved Marc arriving at 7am, a train ride to Munich and a frenzy of dirndl and lederhosen shopping, we were all decked out in our fancy (and still clean) new clothes.It was time to head off to the Hoffbrau tent for our first day of Oktoberfest madness. I could try to explain exactly what happened on this day, but truly I think that the pictures do a much better job of demonstrating what happened during our experience beginning with the enormous beer steins (yes they really are bigger than your head). Everyone's excitement was practically palpable as we strolled through the streets of Munich on our way to find our tent.

Probably the best part was as we walked down to the festival, people stopped to take pictures of us in our outfits. I guess we were quite a sight, all 10 of us in full German traditional clothing. I have to say, we did look pretty fantastic. But again, the pictures are perfect evidence of it all.

Birgit was once again our fabulous guide in getting us to the right place at the right time to actually begin drinking beer our of glasses bigger than my head. And yes I will have to say that again because it is true, I have never seen anything like this in my life. Not even in Wisconsin where I think they take beer as seriously as the Germans do.

After a full 12, yes 12 (!!!!), hours of drinking, some of us decided maybe it was time to head home, but about half of our group decided that the smart thing to do was to head out to the carnival rides. So off we went, all 10 of us, ok 9 because we lost Ben somewhere along the way. But there we were, heading up into one of those crazy rides that whips you up to the top of a very, very tall pole and then drops you down in sudden bursts making you think, well god knows what you're supposed to think. Honestly after three or four steins of beer (more than you think after 12 hours of drinking), I could barely feel a thing so it seemed like the most ridiculous ride ever. But hey! I was game.

After our brief jaunt on the rides, Marc and I decided we were ready to head home, so off we went with most of the group although we did leave Jeff, his sister and brother-in-law, and TJ behind. I have a feeling there are going to be some pretty funny pictures that come out of that decision.

I can't believe there's another full day of drinking after this day. I think my dirndl is going to be slightly worse for the wear as well. . .