Friday, June 30, 2006
Time away allows you to come up with solutions, and I have now single-handedly determined how to solve the economic woes of Western North Carolina. It is time for us to return to our roots, to dance with the one what brung us -- SOCKS. It seems there´s a great untapped market here for white athletic socks, because the quickest way to pick out an American tourist is to look at their feet. If they´re wearing white socks, they are from North America. If we could simply get all the people in europe to start wearing white socks there would be such a demand that our economy would undoubtedly improve dramatically in a relatively short time.
I´d prefer to be paid a flat fee for this insight, rather than creaming a percentage off the top. I don´t have a lot of faith that the powers that be wouldn´t take my idea and muck it up. It´s better to have my cut now, so if someone will just forward the check . . . . .
Last night our entire group went for a dinner at City Hall. It is a huge structure here, very ornate and beautiful. There´s a giagantic square in front of it, and they set up wooden folding chairs in front of a big movie screen hung out off the main staircase. Tonight (Friday) is the first movie. Of course, in the back are all kinds of food and drink vendors. I find it interesting that they don´t use paper cups, but will instead serve drinks in glasses, and there are lots of trays to run the dirties back through the dishwasher.
Anyhow, dinner was pretty good. I had a Weiner Schnitzel, the traditional Austrian dish. Other than the fact that it was pork, if they had put white gravy on top it would have passed for Chicken Fried Steak.
Our hotel room is on the first floor. This is both good and bad -- it´s good because there´s no elevator for the first couple of floors, so it´s less stairs to tote the luggage up. It´s a nice big corner room, so there are two windows. This is important, because THERE IS NO AIR CONDITIONING.
We´ll just open the windows, right? After all, they´re some 10 ft off the ground, so the woolie-boogers shouldn´t be able to get us even though there are no screens.
WRONG. There-s a significant amount of street noise long after we normally go to bed. It seems that the hotel is adjacent to the University of Vienna, and the last day of school is today. That means that students are finishing finals and celebrating.
We closed the windows. They gave us a fan at the front desk, so the air moved around a bit. We probably would have ended up doing that anyhow, since a cold front has gone through. It was 32 degrees Centigrade when we were there (about 90), and now it´s 18 (about 64) . Similar here in Vienna, except it has also misted or rained most of the day. It´s coming up on 4 o´clock in the afternoon now and has turned into a steady rain.
This morning we were up early, comparatively speaking. Each day breakfast for the group seems to be running about 10 minutes later than the prior day. Off we went to St. Stephens Cathedral, where SOME of us (guess who) climbed almost 400 steps to the top of the bell tower to take in the view. Whoda thunk there would also be a gift shop up there, along with the view!
We got down at just the right time. The stairs, which are spiral and only about 30 inches wide, were invaded with about 25 high school students just as we cleared the door.
After that Eddie and I went off alone and took the electric train around the RingStrasse, which is the major street that is where the original walls to the city stood. The Steve Somebody tour book gives you a play-by-play to ride around and catch the sights. Then we stopped at a traditional vienna coffee shop for coffee and a pastry for lunch.
Handicapped accessibility on public transit is non-existent here. As we were on the train, we saw this firsthand when one little grandma took a dive down some pretty steep stairs. A very nice college student with long hair and a pony tail tried to catch her and, failing at that, at least helped her up and to dust off. She, of course, was mortified but fortunately not hurt.
We caught the 1 o´clock english tour of the Vienna Opera House. What a grand structure! They do 700 performances a year, it holds 2300 people, and they are sold out 97% of the time. If you´re willing to stand in line you can get a ticket for standing room for just 2 Euros (about $2.50), or 3.5 Euros if it is in the middle under the Royal Box. The building was bombed during the war, but a substantial part of it remains as built between 1861 and 1880, and the remainder has been redone quite nicely. Tonight is the last performance of the season and, since the que for tickets was already forming and they don´t begin to sell tickets until 80 minutes before the show, we opted out.
Back to the hotel to take a nap and listen to the rain. Tonight´s plans include a return to the Cathedral to take in an organ recital. Tomorrow is our last day in Vienna, and there are still a couple of things we want to see. Overall, we have opted out of museums. Unlike some folks, we don´t have particular artists to which we are enamoured, so there´s no need to collect viewings of their works.
Larry & Eddie
I´d prefer to be paid a flat fee for this insight, rather than creaming a percentage off the top. I don´t have a lot of faith that the powers that be wouldn´t take my idea and muck it up. It´s better to have my cut now, so if someone will just forward the check . . . . .
Last night our entire group went for a dinner at City Hall. It is a huge structure here, very ornate and beautiful. There´s a giagantic square in front of it, and they set up wooden folding chairs in front of a big movie screen hung out off the main staircase. Tonight (Friday) is the first movie. Of course, in the back are all kinds of food and drink vendors. I find it interesting that they don´t use paper cups, but will instead serve drinks in glasses, and there are lots of trays to run the dirties back through the dishwasher.
Anyhow, dinner was pretty good. I had a Weiner Schnitzel, the traditional Austrian dish. Other than the fact that it was pork, if they had put white gravy on top it would have passed for Chicken Fried Steak.
Our hotel room is on the first floor. This is both good and bad -- it´s good because there´s no elevator for the first couple of floors, so it´s less stairs to tote the luggage up. It´s a nice big corner room, so there are two windows. This is important, because THERE IS NO AIR CONDITIONING.
We´ll just open the windows, right? After all, they´re some 10 ft off the ground, so the woolie-boogers shouldn´t be able to get us even though there are no screens.
WRONG. There-s a significant amount of street noise long after we normally go to bed. It seems that the hotel is adjacent to the University of Vienna, and the last day of school is today. That means that students are finishing finals and celebrating.
We closed the windows. They gave us a fan at the front desk, so the air moved around a bit. We probably would have ended up doing that anyhow, since a cold front has gone through. It was 32 degrees Centigrade when we were there (about 90), and now it´s 18 (about 64) . Similar here in Vienna, except it has also misted or rained most of the day. It´s coming up on 4 o´clock in the afternoon now and has turned into a steady rain.
This morning we were up early, comparatively speaking. Each day breakfast for the group seems to be running about 10 minutes later than the prior day. Off we went to St. Stephens Cathedral, where SOME of us (guess who) climbed almost 400 steps to the top of the bell tower to take in the view. Whoda thunk there would also be a gift shop up there, along with the view!
We got down at just the right time. The stairs, which are spiral and only about 30 inches wide, were invaded with about 25 high school students just as we cleared the door.
After that Eddie and I went off alone and took the electric train around the RingStrasse, which is the major street that is where the original walls to the city stood. The Steve Somebody tour book gives you a play-by-play to ride around and catch the sights. Then we stopped at a traditional vienna coffee shop for coffee and a pastry for lunch.
Handicapped accessibility on public transit is non-existent here. As we were on the train, we saw this firsthand when one little grandma took a dive down some pretty steep stairs. A very nice college student with long hair and a pony tail tried to catch her and, failing at that, at least helped her up and to dust off. She, of course, was mortified but fortunately not hurt.
We caught the 1 o´clock english tour of the Vienna Opera House. What a grand structure! They do 700 performances a year, it holds 2300 people, and they are sold out 97% of the time. If you´re willing to stand in line you can get a ticket for standing room for just 2 Euros (about $2.50), or 3.5 Euros if it is in the middle under the Royal Box. The building was bombed during the war, but a substantial part of it remains as built between 1861 and 1880, and the remainder has been redone quite nicely. Tonight is the last performance of the season and, since the que for tickets was already forming and they don´t begin to sell tickets until 80 minutes before the show, we opted out.
Back to the hotel to take a nap and listen to the rain. Tonight´s plans include a return to the Cathedral to take in an organ recital. Tomorrow is our last day in Vienna, and there are still a couple of things we want to see. Overall, we have opted out of museums. Unlike some folks, we don´t have particular artists to which we are enamoured, so there´s no need to collect viewings of their works.
Larry & Eddie
posted by me | 7:15 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home