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.