That’s a drug store.  I needed more salt packets for rinsing my nose.  It is so DAMN smokey in Vienna.  Everywhere, people are smoking.  Cafes, restaurants, on the street.  So I’m being diligent about rinsing.  But… I mis-calculated how many packets to bring.  Doh!  So we went in search of a Walgreen’s, CVS, etc.  Well, they have McDonald’s, Burger King and a hundred other American stores and brands here.  But pharmacies work differently.  And maybe better too.

An apotheke is a pretty small store staffed by pharmacists, although I doubt they use that word.  It looks way too small to have much in stock at all.  It’s really like the part of the Walgreen’s behind the pharmacy glass, not the department store in front.  The pharmacists each have their own little counter and computer.  You tell them what you need, discuss the options, they enter it into the computer, and the product pops up out of a hole in the desk!  I don’t know if they have people in the basement or trained squirrels that can read computer screens.   But it works. 

So today, Saturday, was supposed to be rainy.  Instead it was a little overcast but otherwise very pleasent and mild.  We ate at a different hotel than the one we are staying because we read their breakfast was ‘superb’.  Well, it was good, but not at good as the breakfast where we are staying.  It was cheaper.   Only thirty-something dollars (20 euros each.)  Something is whacky when you start thinking breakfast is cheap at only thirty dollars. 

When I used to travel to London a lot, the rule of thumb was you’d pay the same number of pounds as you paid dollars in the US.  So if breakfast in the US was, say, 14 dollars, you’d expect to pay about 14 pounds.  Pounds cost a bunch more than one dollar each so you were paying a lot more.  Now, at least in Germany and Austria, things cost way more euros than dollars and euros cost way more than a dollar.  The breakfast that costs 30 euros here would  not cost 20 dollars in the US.  So we’re finding things are mostly 1.5 more euros than dollars and euros cost more than 1.5 dollars each.  And yet this city is packed.  But not so many Americans.  Which is not too hard to understand.

We went to the Kunstforum today to see the exhibit of Monet, Kandinsky and Rothko.  It was a bit of a rip-off in that they have one Monet, three Kandinsky’s and one Rothko.  We’ve been staying just three nights per city until now.  This is our first four night stop.  Not sure what we’re going to do Sunday, probably see one or two museums.  We’d really like to sit in a cafe and read,  but we get smoked out too quickly.

Sunday is supposed to reach the 70’s temperature-wise.  Finally shorts weather!

First things first, it’s not a hot dog; it’s a frankfurter.  In Vienna.   Everywhere else in Germany and Austria, it’s a wiener (pronounced vee-ner.)  But for some reason it’s a frankfurter here.  You buy them at stands like this one. 

They cost two-and-a-half euros, about four dollars.  Unless it costs three euros.  At the same stand.  But from the window with the short line.  Long line, 2.5 euros, short line, 3 euros.  I’ll never figure out Europe…

Anyway, for your 2.5 or three euros you get two ‘hot dogs’ on a cardboard tray, a blob of senf (mustard) and a slice of bread wrapped in a napkin.  If you want to eat like a local, you grab the hot dog, sorry frankfurter, with your bare (yes) hand, dip it in the senf and take a bite.  Then you take a bite of the bread.  Then hot dog, then bread.  Repeat as necessary.

Interesting.  I’m not sure which would confuse people in Vienna more;  our hot dog buns or the fact that hot dogs come in packs of eight and buns come in packs of six.  Anyway, we ate our hotdog(s) the local way.  I’m sure no one noticed that we were Americans.  Well, maybe our colorful coats (everyone seems to wear gray here), my white sneakers or the camera around my neck told them, but not our hot dog eating skills!

Speaking of money, everything in Europe has a price.  We were a little surprised that it costs 50 cents (half a Euro or eighty American cents) to use a restroom.  We were more surprised in the grocery store.  Using a cart costs 50 cents.  Bags cost between 18 and 21 cents depending on size.  So many things we use for free cost something here.  At the same time, they don’t appear to care if you actually have a ticket for the street car or not.  And tipping is pretty much non-existent.

Today was a great sunny and mostly warm day.  We took a street car counter-clockwise around the ring road.  The cars are nearly identical to the Green Line cars in Boston.  Both the old cars and the new cars.  Afterward we followed a walking tour from Rick Steve’s book.  Along the way we got our hot dog(s).  Nicer was a break at Demel, a cake and candy company and cafe.  Sacher Tort is the canonical dessert of Vienna, named after the (apparently) famous Sacher Cafe.  At Demel we had their version plus coffee melange which is pretty much the same as cappuccino.  It was nice to sit after a few hours of walking.

For dinner we tried out a new restaurant (heck, they’re all new to us!) Italian restaurant near the hotel.  We really liked it; good food, plenty of it and a very friendly owner/waiter.  Everyone smokes in Vienna and non-smoking sections are few, small and right next to smoking anyway.  As more people came in, we finished up and hit the street for some relatively fresh air.

While on our walk-about today, we saw a sign for the Kandinsky exhibition at the Kunstforum (Kunst = art) Museum.  Turns out it’s nearby.  Tomorrow we expect rain, so we may have breakfast and then head over there.  And maybe another hot dog now that we know how to eat them…

Whoa, Vienna is  BIG city.  Not NYC big, but bigger than Boston, Seattle or San Francisco.  And after Salzburg, it seems huge.  We started the day in Salzburg and took in the Mirabell Garden.  Just something one of the emperors cooked up for one of his girlfriends. 

If you look at the photo, we’ve re-created one of the classic Salzburg postcards.  Gardens in front, Fortress in back.  We even got a corner of the municipal building where we researched birth certificates yesterday.  Well, those buildings pale in comparison to the palaces that are just all over Vienna, at least in the old city.  More about that in a moment.  But first… car!

We took our longest drive in the car so far.  About three-hundred kilometers.  I’m pretty clueless about speed limits.  I figured out Germany pretty quickly, but I understand Austria does not have any unlimited speed zones on the autobahn.  So mostly I tried to pick out someone hauling you-know-what and basically shadow them.  Which worked great except every once in a while, that person would slow down for no obvious reason.  So I’d slow down, only to be blown away by some other guy hauling you-know-what.  So I’d take off behind that guy.  No tickets, but no understanding either.  The car goes great. It’s very comfortable at speed, tracks great, goes where you point it and stops very, very well.  We listened to David Grey and a KMTT compilation disk.  (The Seattle people know what KMTT is.)

So, Vienna, or Wien as it’s written here.  Things get pretty darn urban quite a way from the center, or Zentrum.  Tight streets, lots of people and traffic, and slow going.  Then you hit this super-wide ring road where the walls to the city used to stand.  And everywhere you look is some palace-like building.  And not small ones.  Huge buildings that span blocks in some cases.  We spent a little time walking around and then grabbed dinner.  Tomorrow we plan to take the street car all the way around the ring and then walk around in the center to see the sights, take some pictures and get the lay of the land.  Saturday looks like rain, so we’ll save the museums for then.

If you’re still reading the blog, let us know, either in a comment or in email.  Hope your enjoying it!

Only in Europe would you see this sign. 

We saw this one in Hallstatt, Austria.  I’m sure it’s unofficial, but funny anyway.  Hallstatt is about 50 miles from Salzburg, we did this as a day trip.  More fun driving the car!  The town is quite pretty, even though it was a grey, cold, rainy day.  Why did we leave Seattle?  We imagine it’s quite beautiful in the summer.  It’s nestled between a lake and a very steep mountain in the Alps.  So the whole town can’t be more than a few hundred feet wide.

We arrive in town ready for lunch only to find out it’s mostly closed during the off season.  Lot’s of construction going on and several signs saying things would open on April 30.  But we did find a ‘TI’ (Tourist Information) where a woman kindly called around for us and found an open cafe.  We had a nice, relaxing lunch.  Then walked about some more and took some more photos. 

The drive to and from Hallstatt was amazing.  The views are unbelievable, matching what you imagine about the Alps and then exceeding that.  Lush green fields dotted with Tirolean houses.  Huge snow-capped mountains.  Plus little towns every few miles apart.  On the way back we went to a grocery store to buy water and snacks for the drive to Vienna tomorrow.  Seems like fewer and fewer people are instantly picking us out as Americans.  I think mostly because we’re keeping our mouths shut as long as we can!

As cool and fun as Hallstatt was, we had a perhaps more interesting and fun experience in the morning.  We had heard that S’s mother was born in Salzburg and decided to check the hall of records to confirm.  The hotel pointed out the magistrate on a map; it was nearly next door.  When we got there, the directory of office, fifteen in all, was in German, of course.  So we picked one and started asking people if they spoke English.  In Austria we’ve found somewhat fewer people that speak English, outside of the hotel, the larger restaurants and of course the stores.  We did find a gentleman who pointed us in the right direction.  Then a woman who pointed our the right door.  And then a nice guy who was waiting his turn and explained a little bit about what to do and expect. 

When we got in the office, the fellow we spoke with hardly spoke any English.  But S got the point across, we were looking for a birth certificate for her mother, born on this date in 1922.  Once he saw the year, he told us, in English and German, that they only have records from 1939.  All the records before that are held by the church.  Which suddenly made a lot of sense.   For a long time many countries had a combination of religious and secular government.  In 1939 the Germans overran Austria and probably imposed more record keeping by the government.  He did point us to another office that might know which church in Salzburg would have the records.

We went there.  It was a re-trace of yesterday’s route, but we didn’t mind; we feel like natives now!  At that office we were directed to the Archdiocese of Salzburg.  We found our way to their archives office and met a very nice secretary there who volunteered to search the records of all twelve Salzburg parishes.  Alas, no luck, she was not in any of the micro-fisches.  Still, we had a great adventure navigating three goverment and church offices.  While we were at the archives, we spotted a sign on a bulletin board with a list of web addresses useful for researching family trees.  Once back at the hotel, we were able to trace S’s Mom’s trip through Ellis Island.  We think she was born in a town in the Ruhr Valley.  We may go there later in the trip.

So, all-and-all, another great day.  Something really interesting, a great drive and and cool Alpine town.  Tomorrow, Vienna!

Austria sure is different than we imagined it!   🙂  Actually, you do see shirts, for sale, all over that say, No Kangaroos in Austria.  Haven’t seen anyone wearing one…  So far we have not bought a lot of souvenirs.  I did get a Mozart T-Shirt that I liked while we were at the Fortress yesterday.  Speaking of Mozart…

Wow, they sure play up their native son here.  Everything in Salzburg is Mozart.  You’d think he was famous or something.   We did go to his house today.  It was quite interesting.  Everyone knows he was a child prodigy.  What I didn’t realize is that he was the Brittney or Lindsey of his time.  That is, he had a stage parent.  His father Leopold, himself an accomplished musician, composer and teacher, carted poor Ludwig’s butt all over Europe putting on concerts, more like exhibitions, for, well, cash.  And boy did they cash in.  It was the family business.  And it had its ups-and-downs.  Anyway, the tour of the house was interesting.  And of course they sell Mozart Balls (not what you are thinking!) in the museum store.  Mozart balls are all over here; they are chocolate balls wrapped in foil with guess-who printed on them.  This is truly a tourist town.

Yet, we’ve enjoyed it quite a bit.  Today we walked quite a bit including repeating all of yesterday’s walk plus much more.  We did the same in Munich.  You see so much more, and learn a lot more, on the second day.  Once you know your way around a bit, it’s more fun.  Today was cold and rainy, like Seattle in February.  So we paced ourselves and took two rest breaks for coffee and pastry.  Good thing we walked the rest of the time.

We also saw the Panorama of Salzburg.  It’s a 360 degree painting of Salzburg and the surrounding area circa 1829.  It’s about eight feet tall and maybe 60 feet in circumference.  They also have a cool high-tech version where you manually place a touch screen over a large (flat) wall-mounted version of the panorama.  It reads the x/y coordinates of the screen and shows the 1829 and 2003 versions of that spot.  Really cool.

Alas, our (or my) German is not fooling anyone.  I bravely ordered tickets to the Mozart House in German (zwei Erwachsene, bitte/ two adults please).  The woman at the booth looked at me and said, “Oh, English”.  Of well, I tried.

Tomorrow, more driving.  We’re taking a road trip to Hallstatt, about 80 km away.  I brought an iPod adaptor over.  Yesterday we were listening to Sprinsteenin Germany and Austria.