Saturday, March 31, 2001

Vienna: City of Perpetual Pastries. Apfelstrudel with coffee, on the trendy, shoppy Kartnerstrasse. Topfenstrudel, also with coffee, in the storied Cafe Landtman. A marzipan roll in the U-bahn (subway) station—just because they freaking sell pastries (lots of them) in the U-bahn station, and that marzipan was just looking out the glass at us with big puppy eyes. A mind-wrenchingly rich kaffeetorte that assaulted us on the street in broad daylight, when we were innocently walking home from the market. Days before my arrival, via e-mail, Erin warned me that she had gained weight from eating pastries in Vienna. At the time, it sounded like a convenient, regional excuse. Having spent two days in Vienna, though, I can solemnly avow: no one here is safe from the pastry blitzkrieg. Pastries rule Vienna.

But, like my waistband, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Tuesday afternoon, in California, I took my last train ride, for weeks, out of the bowels of Silicon Valley. Gazing out the window, watching the geeks go by, I was of course filled with elation—but also with a vague unease. Bye, bye, routine, thought I. Bye, bye, regular paycheck. I guess there is something nice about having somewhere to go everyday, and a very large coffee cup there with my name on it. It's always the little things.

Back in Palo Alto, with a day to kill before my flight, I immediately set out to be one of those annoying people who sit on cafe patios in the middle of the workday, visibly not having to work. After a bit of this, and a few annoyed glances from the working stiffs (muhahaha), I caught the last bit of sun from a park bench. Reclining, arms on the benchback, spectacularly dark shades in place, I began to have another one of my "perspective" moments. Come on, I admonished myself. Here you are. You've got perfect health. (Or, at any rate, perfect health care, which is much the same thing). You enjoy complete freedom from want. You're not being drafted into Napolean's army to go slog through the muddy battlefields of Austria. It really just doesn't get a whole lot better than this. As for any remaining misgivings I had about taking this trip, and all this time off, well, it occurred to me to bear in mind that THIS is the living that I do all this working to pay for. THIS is the whole damn point.

"The end of labor is to gain leisure." - Aristotle

Deservedly or not, I have clearly gained some. I should probably put a sock in my misgivings and enjoy it.

Unlike my luggage, I arrived in Vienna late Thursday evening (23 hours after departure). Erin dutifully waited outside the international arrivals area, while I heartily and foully abused the female relatives of some unlucky representatives of SwissAir, in their lost luggage office. When I finally emerged, eyes lolling in happy catharsis, we two embraced and made tracks (me feeling sprightly, with only a small satchel in hand) for Erin's intown abode. Though, we went by way of her favorite watering hole, Cafe Einhorn. As we settled down to a hefeweizen, and a house red, respectively, I became conscious of the fact that I knew less of the local language than anyplace I'd ever been in. (Normally, I can at least get around pubs okay.) I began the first of my questions to Erin about German (not propitiously, as it turned out):

M: "What does 'Einhorn' mean?"
E: "It's just a name."
M: "Like 'Bob'? Cafe Bob?"
E: " . . . "

We dropped that, and went on to discuss food. As it turns out, Erin and I are both flirting with veganism. We've learned that milk, cheese, and eggs aren't just bad for humans, they're pretty bad for others: Milk supports the veal industry—in order to keep the cows lactating day and night, they must be kept pregnant; and the calves go off to the veal pens. The chickens that do all the egg-laying spend their hormone-addled days packed six to a 3x2x2 foot cage.

M: "Let's do it. Let's go vegan."
E: "I think we should."
M&E (in perfect two-part harmony): "After Italy."

That night, nine hours behind the curve, I lay in bed awake for one, two, (God save me) three hourly beeps of my watch. In the dark, I silently fretted about my incognito luggage, about my lack of German, about my job back home. Finally, I said to myself, "Self—dammit, you are just going to be HERE, lying in a bed in Vienna. You're in Vienna!" [Ed: Henceforth referred to as Wien, which is what this city is actually named.] Since I still couldn't sleep, I retrieved my mini maglight, and Fodor's German for Travelers, and learned to count, as Erin had (sensibly) been urging me to do.

First thing next morning, the phone rang. It was SwissAir; my bag was on the way.

Up and showered, we took the ubiquitous trolly (or Strasse-Bahn) past the Vienna Opera House, to Kartnerstrasse—one of the main drags, a bit of a shopping mecca and see-and-be-seen kind of public area. Our first business of course was a coffee/pastry break, and we landed at Leopolds. The Leopolds (he and she) have been operating this joint since 1950. Herr Leopold works days, guarding the door from his stool, and Frau Leopold works nights, which arrangement they claim is great for their marriage. The tables are kind of communal, and Frau Leopold is rumored to dabble in matchmaking when she seats people. Erin and I both have ein "melange"—the first of the large number of diverse Viennese coffees I'm to sample. It's basically coffee with milk. And yummy.

Nearby is a landmark church, the Stephansdome. We explore inside, and climb to the top for a view of the city. We trek from there to a much grander church, Karlskirche. We decide to pony up a few schillings to go in, and are glad we did. The altar and the high, frescoed dome and oculus are beautiful. Though, unexpectedly, Erin and I begin to get some misgivings about what we see. All of this immense effort and money spent for God's glory—and there are children starving in the world. (Then again, I'm blowing several grand on a European vacation, and there are children starving in the world. Then again, Larry Ellison is sinking $40 million into a new ranchero, and there are, well, you get the idea.) Erin notes that her friend Anna, on her recent visit, made the same point. Her suggestion was: Melt down the gold.

Sitting stilly in the pews, I quote for Erin the opening lines from John Woo's The Killer:

"Do you believe in God?"
"No. But I like the peace in here."

That night, we attend a lovely, exuberant, social dinner party thrown by some of Erin's academic colleagues—more Americans on junior year abroad. (Was I the oldest person there? Let's not think about it, or by how much.) Someone has brought along a Norwegian she picked up somewhere. Out of the blue, he asks me, in a thick accent, "Did you lock the doors?" "Should I have?" I counter drolly. Eventually, it comes out that what he said was, "Do you like the Doors?" (Jim Morrison et al were playing.) Erin and I guffaw into our pasta at great length (the Norwegian wasn't laughing—and forbidden, offensive laughter is always self-stoking). We also get mirthful mileage out of this for days; whenever things get slow, someone will drawl, "Di you lahk the dooors. . .?"

Morning, and—after passing by the Hofburg (the Hapsburg's year-round palace), and the attached Burg Theater—coffee today is at Cafe Landtmen, which was Freud's favorite hangout. Over a Groser Brauner (a large coffee with lots of milk), and then a Portion Kaffe mit milch (a coffee with milk), I ask Erin, the student of psychology, if she thinks that Freud has been thoroughly discredited. She indicates that his theories of defense mechanisms are still quite valid—though these mainly got fleshed out by Anna Freud. I segue, perfectly predictably, into evolutionary psychology. Lately, we've been discussing the vital importance of understanding our genetically programmed adaptive behaviours—so that we can overcome the (numerous) ones that don't serve our ends. Jeremy Kassis has pointed out that we can only even begin to thwart these programs when we are aware of them. In this way, Freud's major, greatest-hit, nut-shell contribution to humanity (theory of unconscious) is still quite germane. Erin asks for examples of these troubling adaptations, and we discuss evolved ethics as mere adaptation for advantage. (A troubling intellectual path followed elsewhere.) Erin—who is a prodigious community service volunteer of long standing—makes the courageous claim that it's important we admit to ourselves that we are getting something out of helping others. In certain (nameless) outreach programs with which she's been involved, she'd perceived a palpable focus on "how wonderful we are for our community service." This she does not like.

Caffeinated and intellectually exercised, we take the streetcar to the enchanting Upper Belvedere Museum. This is Erin's top museum pick—and I'm suitably impressed when we enter the first gallery, and in the first tiny corner, we immediately find two Monets, two Renoirs, a Manet, and a Pissaro (and a Van Gough opposite). "We must be in Europe," deadpan I. The big draw, however, is the Gustav Klimpts. I'd never seen him before, but we take in a lovely bunch at the Belvedere—and later see a Klimpt print at our next cafe. "Klimpt must be big here," I suggest. Erin: "Huge." One other highlight of the museum trip is when we pass a James Ensor painting—and Erin and I share a spontaneous chorus of the They Might Be Giants song of the same name: "Meet James Ensor / Belgium's famous painter / Pick him up and shake his hand / Appreciate the man / badadadump." On the way out, we admire the truly impressive Belvedere back yard.

As we trolley back, I go ahead and start worrying that, "by the end of this trip, priceless art might start seeming kind of cheap." Erin: "And churches." The trolley connects us to the U-Bahn (subway). [Public transit here, by the way, and while I'm thinking about it, is just dandy. At ubiquitous public terminals, you can buy a (cheap) ticket good for 1, 3, or 7 days—on any form of public transit in the city. Also, ticketing is done on the honor system. You just hop on, and once in a blue moon (E: "I've been here since August and never been checked.") a ticket guy comes on and asks to see tickets. I really like a town with a civic sense of honor.] Aside from an opportunity to eat our pastry, the U-bahn ride is to take us out to . . . Schonbrunn—the Hapsburg's summer palace.

Circling around the side, we hit the back yard. This consists of several acres of manicured, sloping lawns, fountains, and a hill-topping, baroque end-piece. We climb the paths to the structure at the top, which houses one of the more ornate cafes we've ever seen. I order a Kanne Kaffee, which I discover to be a small pot of coffee with a small pitcher of warm milk, and Erin poses the rhetorical question, "Isn't Vienna great? (I love fishing for compliments for this place when I have visitors.)"

The money shot of Schonbrunn, though, we discover on emerging, is the view back down the hill. With all Vienna laid out at their doorstep, one can imagine how the Hapsburgs probably thought of Vienna: OURS.

Reposing in a side garden, Erin listens to me agonize about prevalant attitudes toward travel: We (being me, and many, many of the people I know) routinely spend a great deal of time, energy, and money on travel—in fact, a level of exertion well beyond, I think, our ability to articulate WHY we're doing it. There just seems to be a very settled and self-congratulatory tone that comes up (myself included) when we discuss travel, with the unstated subtext being: "Travel is a thing that is always, self-evidently, emminently worth doing." Is that so? I suppose it's just the part of me that chafes at unexamined motives, begged questions. But (with Mark Pitely, I think), I'm curious to know WHY we have to go all the way around the world to enrich ourselves, to expand our cultural horizons. Aren't the important things supposed to be internal (our immortal souls) and close by (our loved ones)? Whence this assumption that travel is the end-all/be-all? It just seems a little presumptuous and pat to me, lately.

Depending on your viewpoint, a guy on a month-long European holiday is either a really good, or a really bad, person to pose such questions. In any case, Erin and I leave them unanswered and get on with the serious business of navigating the streets and dodging malevolant, glowering pastries.

After a brief siesta, we meet Erin's friend Lisa (late of the dinner party, and a fellow veg) for a meal at Vegemania. Unfortunately, we discover it's a European restaurant before all else, so Erin endures getting brought nothing, firstly, then handed some arbitrary dish, secondly and, finally getting enthusiastically harangued by our server. I try to remember where we are, and hold my tongue as I pay the tab—without so much as rounding up. We grouse our way out, trying to regain our good humour about it all.

Finally, the women indulge me in a night walk around the city center, where I am keen to photograph some of the stunning night-time structures that I passed up the night before. For starters, we pass an extravagant memorial to one of Vienna's most prodigal sons (note the cherubim making out on the right (we did, and laughed to the point of pain)). Then, the Parliment Building, a magnificent structure which is sadly betrayed by my shoddy photography. And then, the Rathaus, or city hall—one of the grandest lit-up structures I've ever seen (also not done justice here). I literally ran, and ran, across the front courtyard, to get different angles—and this thing pivoted slowly around me like a 10,000-ton freighter. See the dark figures in the foreground, to get some sense of scale. The detail was marvelous as well, larger-than-life figures manning the battlements.

And thusly did I say goodnight to Wien; and thusly do I say goodnight to all of you. Tomorrow: Budapest.

Michael