Supersized Vienna

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Memorable Giant Weiner Schnitzels.

When a backpack similar to mine was frustratingly dumped on the floor and a weary traveller plunked down into the padded airport seat next to me, two thoughts crossed my mind. The first “Why on earth haven’t you checked your backpack in?” and the second, “Bet she’s on the same Intrepid trip as I am”. She was wearing comfortable clothing, hiking boots, had a backpack; albeit not checked in and looked tired. All signs of a young backpacker. I refrained from asking her if she was on the same trip, after all she may consider me socially insane. Besides, I too had been up since 3am to catch the Heathrow Express to be sitting at the departure gates for this early morning flight and my social skills had taken a caffeine deprived turn for the worse.

Aisle seats are great if you have a bladder the size of a golf ball but not so great if you want to sleep. Without a wall to wedge my head in, it proceeded to fall onto the American lady’s shoulder for the third time before I gave up any sense of sleep. She thought it was amusing and forgave me, I was thankful I didn’t drool.

The possible Intrepid traveller was squinting at the CAT machine. I don’t blame her; it’s partially in German which is fair enough, being in Vienna. Although at any international airport you can’t help but be complacent and expect most ticket machines capable of munching up your credit card to have an English option. A push of a button and her credit card was ejected with no sign of a train ticket. A small crowd (no queues, this is not Britain anymore) had gathered around waiting and she was clearly becoming flappable. Partially because I am helpful and mostly because I am impatient, I pushed what I thought were the right buttons for a ticket. By some form of luck that seems to have kept me out of trouble thus far, out came both her credit card and the correct ticket. She thanked me and went to look for her bag. It was only then I noticed she didn’t have her backpack with her. Right, I thought, if she had managed to lose her bag while bringing it on as hand luggage, it would probably be a first in British Airways history that the passenger had lost their own bags and not the airline.

Airport trains are fantastic. Firstly, tickets are a set price and you know you are not going to be ripped off by some unscrupulous taxi driver with a dodgy meter. Secondly, if the train only has one stop which happens to be the city centre, you are unlikely to stand there with a panicked expression on your face as it rockets by your station. Bonus if the train also has informative ads on a bright television screen telling you that the tap water is entirely safe to drink and to fill your water bottle before heading out for a fun filled day in Vienna. Bet Evian is not too impressed about that.

Off the airport train and onto the metro as per Intrepid Trip Notes instruction, I was at our joining hotel with minimal fuss. Hotel Mozart sounds very Austrian but in reality it is a bright yellow building next to a Japanese restaurant whose owners look more former Yugoslavian then Japanese or even Austrian for that matter. As I departed Hotel Mozart to explore and meet up with Rosie, the weary backpacker on my plane trudged passed me. I guess my instincts were right.

The area around Friendsbrucke is anything but busy. The wide streets held a smattering of locals buying groceries, a couple of kids dodging around rickety café tables with kebabs and cans of coke and local men mooching over espressos. The store windows had large fluorescent cardboard signs with hand drawn percentages scrawled across in black marker, the universal sign for sale. Around the corner and if possible it was even more deserted. A woman yells out the window from the building above me in a language distinctly un-German. Looking closer at the few people that were milling around there was an eclectic mix of middle eastern and Eastern European, a real cross-road of the imaginary divide that is Western and Eastern European.

Never tell people to meet you at the exit of a metro station. There are many exits. I made that mistake twice in the space of two hours. I stood at the station trying to exude some sense of purpose, waiting for Rosie to magically appear out of one of the many exits hoping that I wouldn’t miss her. I didn’t miss the same infectious smile and curly blonde hair looking for the entire world relaxed and not someone who has pretzeled her way across Western Europe for the past month. We wandered around a semi-renovated garden park of no name we could decipher before succumbing to a beer garden for a 0.3L mug of the traditional stuff and a gossip session. It didn’t occur to me that I could make the most of my time in Vienna by visiting famous monuments, look at the palaces and museums. I was too happy to see someone from home, a reminder that my other life is moving on.

Before I knew it, Lisa messages me to announce her arrival at the airport thus giving me about fifteen minutes to finish off the beer (on an empty, 24hr sleep deprived stomach) and meet her at the metro station. Twenty minutes later and Rosie and I are scrutinizing the only possible exit she could walk out from. “Look out for a tallish blonde with a very large backpack and tired expression on her face,” I instruct Rosie. “Although, she can only come out of that exit,” I tack on, pointing to the big CAT sign. Fifteen minutes later and I spy my best friend looking rather exhausted trudging out from where I had earlier came. “Lisa!!!” I screamed and gave her a huge hug. Well attempted to, she was cradling her daypack across her front as per Lonely Planet Safety Tip. “What took you so long?! I’ve been waiting for ages!! Oh and this is Rosie. Rosie, Lisa, best friend from high school, Lisa, Rosie, friend from work back in Newcastle,” I babbled a mile a minute.
“Well,” Lisa sighs. “I came out of the CAT, out of the exit and I was there waiting in the square wondering where you were and the metro.”
“Wrong exit.”
“I figured,” she sighs again. “I couldn’t see you or anything remotely like a metro and figured there had to be another exit.”
“Why didn’t you just follow the M sign - M for metro? Makes sense.”
“You said exit! It looked like an exit and I didn’t see the M sign.”
“Should we go to the hotel?”
“Please!”

Five minutes and already it felt we were never apart. Rosie could be forgiven for thinking that we may not actually get along.

It was so orange. Bright orange and it was everywhere. Even the ceiling did not escape the touch of early 80’s kitsch. I am talking about our bathroom. I would imagine it would be like taking a shower in a pumpkin, not that it would be possible. With the combination of a hand held shower hose over a bath with no shower curtain or screen, it only takes one wayward spray to douse the entire luminous orange plastic bathroom in drinkable Austrian water.

For the sake of first impressions, I recharged my social abilities with caffeine and apple strudel an hour before the group meeting. I think Dan, our group leader, had a similar strategy. He gave a rather perky hello and happily announced he had just been on a train for eighteen hours. I knew I had at least one coffee drinker in the group. A round of introduction later and not surprisingly the Australians dominated the group again.
“I’m Caroline and I’m from Swindon,” my backpacker friend introduced herself. Apparently she had a tough day’s travel.
“I know, we were on the same flight,” I acknowledged.
“Really? I don’t remember you,” she said matter of factly.
“I helped you to buy your CAT ticket at the airport,” I reminded her.
“Really? I don’t remember.” Ouch, I guess I am not at all memorable. That dented the ego.

I cornered Dan after the meeting. “Where are we going for dinner? I have a friend from home and would it be alright if she joins us after dinner?”
“Sure, we are going to Schweizerhaus, a beer garden restaurant another tour leader recommended at The Prater,” he said happily unfolding a map and turning it every which way.
“Okay, I’ll tell her to meet us at about 8ish? We’ll be finished by then,” I reasoned.
“It is a bit of a dodgy area. I can go meet her at the metro if you want,” he offered. ‘That is so sweet,’ I thought. ‘But how was he planning to find her? He doesn’t know what she looks like!” My instincts tells me that he will make me laugh the entire trip and I always look forward to a good laugh. It definitely put a smile on my face. I managed to keep my smart comment in check and declined his offer, instead rope Lisa into walking through a packed Austrian fair to meet Rosie who is an entirely independent and experienced traveller in the relative safe time of early evening.

“I’ve forgotten everyone’s name already. Oh except for the Australian couple - Wendy and Keith,” I muttered to Lisa as we later walked back down to reception.
“The English girl is Caroline; I have no idea about the Americans.” Oh dear.

The Prater is a giant Ferris wheel. A rusty, squeaky 60m high, 430 tonne Ferris wheel built in 1897 in the centre of an amusement park that opens all year round. I squinted at it with apprehension. The boxy carriages resembled train cabooses and the structure was peeling with rust. Some may call it historic, I am thinking along the lines of condemned. Groups of teenagers, families and couples were milling around the amusement park amongst the flashing lights and whirls of rides. Hissing steam floated around the neon flashes of the dodgem car ring and screams came from looping, swinging rides. Dings and rings, buzzes and mechanical laughter continuously filled my ears as we wove in and out of the crowd. A giant medieval bell whooshed through the air back and forth. I couldn’t decide which was more alarming, the bell whooshing centimetres from the electric cables or centimetres to the tree. To be zapped or impaled, that is the question.

Raucous laughter and chatter floated out of the Schweizerhaus amongst the clinks of half litre glass steins of beer. Pork knuckle the size of a baby’s head was being served on a wooden board and I was chin height to the bar tables. It was the Lilliputians meeting Gulliver.

The menu was helpfully decoded for us by Dan and I entertained the thought of having a pork knuckle for a brief insane moment before settling on the Weiner schnitzel. Our lone vegetarian spent an entire thirty seconds perusing her options, fried cheese, potatoes and sauerkraut. I had barely managed to make a dent in the foamy head of my beer before a Weiner schnitzel the size of a serving platter was placed in front of me. In comparison to Lisa’s twin pair of thin sausages, I clearly had the fat man’s feast. There are no real hidden surprises when it comes to Eastern European fare. If it says sausages, expect a plate of sausages, if it says fried cheese; expect a slab of fried cheese. A piece of tomato maybe on the side to give it a half hearted bit of colour, but the focus is on the crumbed and deep fried block of cardiac arrest.
I did it again. I told Rosie to meet me at the exit of the metro without stipulating which exit. In the end we found each other by the questionable giant Ferris wheel. “I’ve been wandering around here for about half and hour,” she comments as we walk back to the restaurant. “It’s not that dodgy, ooh now THAT is dodgy!” She spies the giant bell. I get a nervous twitch even thinking about it. The real test came when I had to introduce her to everyone else.
“Um, Rosie, this is Margo, Dan, Daniel, I don’t know, Keith, Wendy and Caroline. Uh, Rosie.” Six out of seven isn’t too shabby.

After dinner, the amusement park crowd was far from fading. “Who wants to go on the bell with me?” Dan asked, just a little too enthusiastically. Not surprisingly there were no takers. “I say we do the fun house!” I figured there were small kids running around, it can’t be all that difficult. “Last one out buys a round of drinks!” and with that off we ran, or stumbled or slid or climbed away around the fun house. It was slightly disorientating and I quickly ran by the distorting mirrors, aren’t I short enough without having to make my hips ten times larger? I burst past a bewildered Caroline right at the end to be the second last person out. Not that I was slow, just getting value for money.

The bar service in Austria is a tad slow. Actually, let me revise that. Christmas came and went before my cocktail arrived. Busy night you say? No, we were one of three groups that were in the bar. The bar girls stood a bit, poured a drink, delivered a drink, washed a glass, lit a candle, poured a drink and repeat. The area is called the Bermuda Triangle because half the population of Vienna become lost after drinking copious amounts of alcohol at the numerous bars. Unfortunately for us tonight, the service was floating away in limbo instead of us. Never mind, there is plenty of time in life to sit back, chat by tea lights and look expectantly at the silent blender.

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Photos

Fun & Games at The Prater
Rosie hurtling down at full speed in the fun house.

Lisa Striking a Pose
Lisa's turn, a little bit more refined?