Thursday, November 3, 2011

How Many Austrian Men Does It Take To Help Brooke and Lauren Make It Down the Danube?

Answer: 3

So Sunday morning Brooke and I had planned to take a little bike excursion down the Danube. Brooke has done this twice before: once with a group from the Flow House and once with her parents, so we knew the basic logistics of the trip. One thing we did not take into account: absolutely everything going wrong. Two things to keep in mind as you read: 1) Brooke and I had tickets to see a production of "Romeo and Juliet" at the Burgtheatre at 7pm, and 2) pretty much everyone Brooke knows in Austria was out of town for the long weekend (the family, Joe, Joe's aunt).

The general plan was to drive to the Westbanhof station in Vienna (about 45 minutes from the house) and from there take a train to Melk, a small town west of Vienna, then ride our bikes along the Danube north/east as it heads back toward Vienna (see picture I took using GoogleMaps). Brooke would ride her new and quite spiffy road bike and I would borrow the father's mountain bike. We would stop for lunch at a heurigen somewhere along the route, and then make the 5pm train back to Vienna from the Krems station. Seems pretty simple, right? Wrong!

So although we pumped up the tires before leaving the house, we neglected to fully check out the father's bike, which ended up being the source of pretty much all of our woes (but not quite all!). We were running a little late in the morning, but managed to make it to Westbanhof in time to make our 9am train. The trip to Melk took a little over an hour, but that too was uneventful. They also had these nifty little plastic ties to secure your bike -- why hasn't anyone in France thought of this?


When we arrived in Melk it was chilly, but with a few rays of sunshine! Hooray! Melk is a really cute little town with an enormous baroque-style abbey which (Wikipedia tells me) is one of the world's most famous monastic sites. Brooke informed me that you have to take a 2-hour tour to see the mangificent frescoes and other decorations inside, so unfortunately we didn't have time for that. At the Melk train station we tried to adjust my bike seat (the father isn't exceptionally tall, but he is taller than I am) and realized that the bolt securing the seat height was stripped. Uh oh. We had the right tools, but they were useless with the stripped bolt. So Brooke suggested we walk down to one of the places which rents bikes, because they might have more tools. So we moseyed on down to the trail, only to find that all of the rental places were closed (of course, it was a Sunday). So, new plan: we headed to the BP gas station nearby. They did have a giant multipurpose tool (like a Swiss Army Knife on steriods), but none of those helped either. Brooke and I were starting to wonder if we were going to need some brute strength to overcome the stripped bolt. Our instinct was to ask the gas station attendant, but she didn't look any stronger than we are. So, when a relatively-fit looking man walked by (heading into the station to pay), we way-layed him. Luckily he both spoke English and was a cyclist, and was willing to help. He told us he didn't have any tools with him, but if we would wait he would run home and grab his toolbox. We felt badly for inconveniencing him, but he insisted and sped off. He returned 5 minutes later with an enormous tool box, and with the help of an L-wrench and a rubber mallet, was able to adjust the seat. Success!! We thanked him profusely, offered to buy him a beer (which he declined, it was only 10:30am at this point), and he drove off.

It turns out our "Mission Accomplished" came too soon. I hopped on the bike, only to discover that the pedals spun around and around without any pressure; the bike was in the highest gear. So I tugged at the gear shift. Nothing. Uh oh. Brooke hopped on to give it a shot. Nothing. Upon closer inspection, it appeared that not only were the gears disconnected (shifting produced absolutely no result), but the derailer was also nonfunctioning. It wouldn't click into place, so even if we manually set the chain to a lower gear, the derailer would automatically force it back to the highest. In that condition, the bike was inoperable. So, the thinking caps came on. Eventually we wadded up a bunch of paper-toweling from the dispenser near the gas pumps and jammed it inbetween the bike frame and the derailer. Probably not the most technical solution, but, miraculously, it worked! Now the bike was in a medium gear, still too low to move at a quick clip, but ride-able. Determined not to miss this experience, I hopped on and we set off.

Pedaling turned out to be harder than I expected. Although we had inflated both tires that morning, the back tire of my bike was already low and that created a certain amount of bounce with each pedal stroke. The bike frame itself was actually too large for me, and in order to reach the handle bars I had to lock out my elbows. But I had a more-or-less functioning bicycle, so I was game.



The scenery itself was absolutely gorgeous! The sun kept peeking out from behind the clouds, giving us really pretty views of the river itself and the hills on each side. The trees were at the zenith of their autumnal colors and the path wound through some cute little towns and vineyards. There were lots of other people on the path, but not so many that it felt crowded. Since we got sort of a late start, we stopped for lunch after only an hour or so of riding. The heurigen was in a tiny town called Aggsbach-Dorf and when we entered around 2pm we were the only patrons. We decided to order weiner schnitzel and cordon bleu and split them both -- an excellent choice because I ordered the weiner schnitzel but preferred the latter. Our server asked if we wanted fries or salad (in German, he didn't really speak English) and when Brooke asked for one of each I was excited for some leafy greens. It turns out that whenever salad is advertised in conjunction with weiner schnitzel, they mean potato salad: No leafy greens for us! Even if it was gloriously unhealthy, the food was absolutely delicious. Which made what happened next even more embarrassing...

When our server brought us the bill I offered to pay with my French debit card. No luck, they don't take cards. Brooke anticipated this and so we brought cash... but it turned out not enough. There was an extra fee to bring the bikes on the train, which we paid with cash when the conductor came by to check our tickets. So while 30 euro would have been plenty to cover our bill (22.50 euro), 20 euro was most definitely not enough. Brooke asked where the bank-o-mat could be found. "Melk." Yup, the nearest ATM was back in the town we had just come from, an hour's ride. So, with very plaintive and sheepish looks, we asked for the server's name (the restaurant address was on the receipt) and promised to mail him the rest (plus, of course, a bonus for the trouble). He was definitely irked, but he let us leave (which makes him Austrian man #2).


So, back in the saddle, Brooke and I were both feeling chagrined. We continue riding along, marveling at the scenery, and laughing about how many things had gone wrong.

After another hour or so I was really struggling with the bike. I was trying to tough it out but Brooke insisted on switching (she is shorter than I am, so I was sure it would be even more difficult for her). We had only gone another 10 or 15 minutes when Brooke stopped abruptly. The rear tire, already low, was entirely deflated. Brooke, afraid of damaging the wheel, hopped off and we continued along the trail, on foot. We knew that it was still another 15km (about 9.3 miles) to Krems. At this point it was about 4pm and because of the time change (western Europe did Daylight Savings Time last Saturday), the light was already fading. Based on the time it would take to run a 5K, Brooke and I estimated it would take us upwards of an hour and a half to walk all the way to Krems. We're both in decent shape, and I know we could have done it, but I was worried both that it was getting dark (although the path is right by the road and there are towns every 2km or so) and that if we didn't get to Krems by 5pm there might not be more trains back to Vienna. We were hopeful that we'd come across a smaller town with a train station where we could catch a train before we had to walk all the way there, and someone we asked led us to believe there was just such a town a few km ahead.

We had been walking for probably 25 minutes when another cyclist passed us, stopped, and circled back. He asked us if something was wrong and offered us his spare tire. Unfortunately it was for a road bike, so it wouldn't do my bike any good. We told him about our predicament and he expressed some skepticism about the plan of walking all the way to Krems. He told us he had another 45 minutes left for his ride, but that afterward he could pick us up in his car and drop us off at the Krems train station on his way to check out an apartment in Vienna. So here was the dilemna: accept this gracious offer from a stranger (who seemed nice enough, but I guess the bad ones don't usually care around signs) or politely decline and walk all the way to Krems, which could be more or less dangerous. After some careful consideration, we went with option A. The man (late 20s, silly-looking facile hair but otherwise quite pleasant, named Christian) told us he would meet us along the route between that point and Krems, by a ferry stop. We exchanged phone numbers and set off. Before he left though, Christian informed us that unfortunately he only had room in his car for 2 people and 1 bike or 2 bikes and 1 person but not both. He left it to us to figure out how we wanted to arrange it.


So this left us with another set of choices: Brooke could ride her functioning bike to Krems and be there by the time Christian dropped me and the broken bike off at the station. That would mean Brooke and I wouldn't have to come back for the second bike. But it would also mean leaving the cell phone with me, so I could get in touch with Christian, and if something happened to Brooke along the route she would have no way to contact me (or vice versa). In the end, we decided to stick together and leave the broken mountain bike. Too many things had gone wrong already to leave this one to fate. So Brooke and I waited on this cute little picnic bench, and an hour later Christian showed up, driving exactly the same car as the first guy who helped us at the gas station (a silver BMW station wagon, 3-series size but without any labels so I'm not sure). We had already locked the broken bike to a fence and so we loaded Brooke's bike into the back. 15 minutes later Christian was dropping us off at the Krems train station and we were thanking him profusely (Austrian man #3). We had missed the 5pom train and none of the later trains going to Vienna were going to Westbanhof. So we took the next one to Vienna, then took a few different metro lines to get back to the car. We got some cash from an ATM and promptly got back on the road, headed to Krems to pick up the bike. After that, we drove a little further to the heurigen and left our receipt with a note and 10 euros stuck inside the front door (it was closed, and would be closed Monday and Tuesday). Then, finally, we headed home. We had already missed the play, of course, but I was happy just to get back in one piece (and with both bikes!) We got back to the house at 10:30pm, more than 13 hours after we departed. What an adventure! Brooke and I were both very grateful for those 3 Austrians who helped us, we most definitely couldn't have done it without them!

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

A Few Thoughts on Vienna

Quick note: in the last entry I wished you all a happy Toussaint without explaining exactly what that means. It's a holiday (originally Catholic) to celebrate all of the saints and it's a public holiday in France because in the past, the period around Toussaint was when the French peasants (and their children) would harvest the potato crop. In recognition that many students would be absent, the school system found it easier to just have a vacation, and the tradition has stuck. Schoolchildren get a full 10 days, but today, Nov. 1, is the federal holiday.

So this trip to visit Brooke was very different from any other trip I've taken while in Europe. First of all, I was there for a full 6 days, so there was less urgency to use every single hour for sightseeing. Also, Brooke has a car, which meant that we didn't use public transportation nearly as often as I would normally when visiting a city. She's also very familiar with the city, having lived there for about 6 months total at this point... so I think during this visit I spent less time being lost and/or figuring out how to get places than I have in the past. But Brooke's schedule was a bit restricted because she had to work on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (Wednesday was a national holiday, so she had that day off). We had to wake up early so she could take the son to school (about an hour trip, in total) and then be back in the afternoons through mid-evening. This limitation meant we got to see fewer things than I would have otherwise, but in exchange for a free place to stay and lots of time hanging out with Brooke, I think it worked out for the best :-) In this picture Brooke is standing on the steps of the Albertina, an art museum right near the Staatsoper. Last time I was in Vienna they had just opened an exhibit on Impressionists and apparently they made it something of a permanent exhibit, because it's still there. They also added this mural to the steps, and it looks great!

One of the first things I noticed as we were driving from the airport to Brooke's family's house was that Austrian stoplights are different from American or French ones. They're still red, yellow, and green, but the yellow light comes on for both transitions (red to yellow to green, green to yellow to red). You can go as soon as the light turns red to yellow, so I guess that's not a huge difference, but the green lights also start blinking before they turn yellow, so you know when the light is about to change. I'm not sure if it's a better system or not, but it definitely gives you more warning.

This is apparently the smallest cafe in Vienna (the name literally means "Small Cafe"). Brooke and I tried to go here on Wednesday afternoon, but these two girls snatched the last open table from us. We waited for a few minutes, but no one seemed close to finishing, so we left.

Running: since I'm still working towards a marathon, I wanted to get in at least a few runs while I was gone for 10 days. Luckily the afternoons when Brooke had to be home to watch the kids were a perfect opportunity for me to get in some kilometers. The family lives in Bisamberg, a village/town north of Vienna. There's an entrance to the highway relatively nearby, but once you get outside the town it's mostly farmland. Unfortunately it was quite gray in Vienna this past week, so the landscape wasn't quite as pretty as it could have been (during at least two of my runs I spent the majority of my time looking down, head bowed against the wind). But it really is quite magnificent. I'm sure the leaves changing colors only helped, but the rolling hills and the mountains in the distance were pretty neat. [Note: this picture was taken during our ride along the Danube on Sunday afternoon, not in Bisamberg, so it was never this sunny while I was running. But it gives you an idea of how pretty the country can be!] I realized during these runs that I have no ability to identify crops based on their foliage. I saw at least four different types of leaves/plants, but I couldn't tell you what was growing in the fields (and Brooke couldn't tell me). I can identify corn, thanks to Ohio, and soy beans and tobacco, thanks to North Carolina, so I can definitely say they were not any of those three... Another neat thing I saw while running: lots of cool birds. I saw multiple pheasant running through the rows of crops -- their long orangey-brown tails were beautiful! I don't think I had ever seen one in the wild before. This well-outfitted bird on the right is not one of the ones I saw in the fields, but rather part of a Swarovski window display. Apparently they partnered with the natural history museum and borrowed these beautiful stuffed birds to show off their latest jewelry.

A challenge I experienced in Vienna: German. Luckily between Brooke's basic abilities and the proliferation of English-speakers in the city, we got along just fine. But, as I anticipated, it was very humbling to spend time in a country where I knew so very little of the language. But I expanded my repetoire, and at least once was able to complete an entire transaction without depending on any English (okay, I said three words/phrases, and I was buying postcards, but still, this was progress!)

Some words I learned:

Grüß Gott! (hello)
Tschüs (goodbye)
Entschuldigen (excuse me, pardon)
Bitte (please)
Lightenwasser (still water)
Schlag (whipped cream -- but theirs isn't sweetened so it's not quite like ours)
Schönes Wochenende (have a good weekend)


I know, quite the list, right. As funny as I find German (how seriously can you take yourself if you have a word like fünf [five] as part of your language?), I really am going to try to learn some once my portable CD drive arrives. I haven't been able to make use of the German for Dummies CDs, nor the software they have at the teachers' library because I don't have any way to play them. But I think I'll be able to pick up the package that contains my CD drive from the post office tomorrow, and I can get to work. Not only is Brooke working on German, and I plan to visit at least a few cities in Germany while I'm here, but I know a couple of people in Besancon who are native-speakers (Franzi from the Ultimate team and Candice and Laurie's Austrian roommate Kati), so theoretically I could get some real practice in if I wanted. I let you know if I make any realprogress.

So what did I think of Vienna, overall? This time I got to see it much more from a local's perspective, and I would say I liked it just as much, if not more than I did last time. The people were very friendly, the architecture, history and art is really interesting and superabundant (I think you could spend days just wandering around the first district looking at the architecture of the regular buildings, even without spending time looking at the monuments and the really famous ones). Take, for example, this beautiful mosaic above a totally generic shoe store (picture on right). It is sort of a shame that I still have not seen Vienna in the spring/summer though, because I imagine it would be even more beautiful and pleasant. But I would recommend it wholeheartedly -- probably second behind Prague, but possibly before Paris. And Brooke deserves a lot of credit for making it such a great stay!

One Week in Vienna: Overview + Pictures

Happy Toussaint everyone! I got back from Vienna yesterday evening after spending a wonderful week visiting my friend Brooke. We got to do, see and eat lots of cool things, but as you can probably expect, an spending an entire week there means that I have lots and lots to tell you about and lots of pictures (425 to be exact, including the ones Brooke gave me). So this entry is going to be a quick list, plus some photos, and then I'll write another entry with some general thoughts, fun stories, etc.


Tuesday, Oct 25 (Dienstag)
  • Military History Museum with Joe (Brooke's friend she met here in Vienna)
  • Tour of the 1st district of Vienna by car (all of the buildings around the Ring, the road which traces medieval boundaries of the city of Vienna, and is now lined with most of the city's important buildings and monuments)

  • Lunch at Cafe Sperl (one of Vienna's more famous cafes, apparently it was Hitler's favorite, and will most recently be featured in a movie about Freud called A Dangerous Method which comes out in the US on Nov. 23) -- my dish was something like a risotto meets polenta, very creamy and delicious

  • The Sucession Gallery -- the building constructed to house the art of the Succession Movement, a group of Viennese artists at the beginning of the 20th century, led by Gustav Klimt. The part that interested me was the Beethoven freize, which unfortunately you're not allowed to photograph at all. The rest of the museum was ultra-contemporary exhibits, like a room full of mirrors. 
  • Drinks at the Bisamburg heurigen (East-Austrian wine tavern, their version of a pub, but with very specific regulations as to when it can be open and what they can serve -- usually the most recent year's wine). This night we had red wine Sturm, a beverage made of wine which is not quite fermented and thus is sort of in between grape juice and wine. It's sold during a short period of the year, typically September through the end of October.
Wednesday, Oct 26  (Mittwoch) -- Austrian Independence Day
  • Parades and fair at the Hofburg Palace with Anna Butler, a friend from Wake who is currently the graduate advisor at Wake Forest's house in Vienna, the Flow House (this is the job Brooke did this past summer). -- So technically the Austrian restoration of sovereignty happened during the spring of 1955, but the treaty didn't go into effect until Oct. 26 of that year, so that's the day they celebrate. This event was sort of a weird combination of a fair (lots of food stands) and an exposition. There were parades of soldiers, but also exhibits with helicopters and military convos where little kids could sit inside and there were displays of information about the various aspects of the Austrian military (such as the medical corps, the emergency rescue teams, the HAZMAT units, etc). It was sort of a strange mix, and a little funny to see all of this set up in the courtyard of the Hofburg Palace. Brooke is holding up a langos, which she and I split. The fried dough had a delicious garlicky flavor (I thought it was going to be sweet, but this was even better).
  • Lunch at Cafe Central with Anna too -- I had a potato soup (not worth photographing), but we all got pastries for dessert and I thought mine merited a photo.

  • Karlskirche -- They're currently restoring the frescoes on the dome and so there's an elevator set up which takes you all the way up to the top! I've never been so close to the paintings on the top of a church before. You could see how the pictures were slightly distorted, so that they would appear normal from way down below. And at the very, very top, the "pillars" of the dome weren't actually marble, just painted to look that way! You can sort of see on the picture of the angel holding the laurel wreath how the "shimmery gold" bits were actually a completely different color, so that from all the way at the bottom it would just look like natural highlighting.
  • Stephansdome and a candlelit mass -- Brooke and I stopped in Stephansdome just to look around and happened to arrive right as a candlelit mass was starting (probably to celebrate the Independence Day). It was really cool to see the cathedral all lit up and full of people!
  • Dinner at a little Italian restaurant and then a coffee afterwards at Aumann (Joe joined for both)




Thursday, Oct 27 (Donnerstag)
  • Brooke went to her German class, I got some coffee at Cafe Mozart (across from the Albertina) and then went to the Museum of Vienna -- this museum was really interesting and well done, but I found it strange that the third floor did not have English translations for the German signs on the exhibits. I only went through floors two and three (Viennese culture from 1500-present), so maybe the first floor didn't have translations either. But it seemed odd that the second floor would have them while the third wouldn't...

  • Lunch at an Ethiopian restaurant (I promise I didn't twist Brooke's arm, she really wanted to try it and was pleased to discover I love Ethiopian food)






  • Walking around Stadtpark




Friday, Oct 28 (Freitag)
  • Quick coffee at Aida (a bakery chain in Vienna)
  • Walking around the 1st district (the picture to the right is me in front of a giant greenhouse which currently has a butterfly exhibit)
  • Wurst break! -- According to Brooke this wurst (sausage) stand by the Albertina is the best in Vienna. The Kaiserkrainer was quite tasty!

  • National Library -- I'm really surprised I didn't see this last time I was in Vienna -- it's absolutely magnificent. Totally Baroque and very much over the top as far as decoration goes, but how much would I love to belong to a library like that! It also had an exhibit on the different regions of Austria, which was really helpful for me because people would mention them (or I would read about one) and have no idea where it was located.
  • Dinner at Do & Co. with an awesome view of Stephansdome



Saturday, Oct 29 (Samstag)

  • Lunch at Kim, a restaurant at the Naschmarkt (Vienna's most popular market)

  • Art Fakes Museum by the Hundertwasserhaus (a house designed by contemporary Austrian architect Hundertwasser. He has a couple of buildings around Vienna)

  • "La Sylphide" (a ballet) at the Staatsoper (Vienna Opera House) -- it was awesome!

  • Salzburger Nockerln: an enormous dessert that Brooke absolutely insisted we get while I was in Vienna. She described it as "souffle-ish" and while at first I complained that description was unhelpful, it was actually quite accurate. I think the vanilla sauce was what made it so yummy. The whole thing is supposed to imitate the mountains around the city of Salzburg.

Sunday, Oct 30 (Sonntag)
  • Bike ride down the Danube that turned into quite an adventure -- this one will get its own blog entry!