Today my mates were planning on going to mass in Karlskirche. They ended up going elsewhere, but in any case I overslept. I was talking to Marielle on Facebook and we were both getting kind of hungry. I convinced her to accompany me to Café Möbel, a place I’d wanted to visit since reading about it in the guidebook before I left for Europe. Möbel is German for furniture, and all of the tables, chairs, etc in the café are handmade by local artists. So they all look really cool and nothing is boring mass produced furniture. Apparently it’s all for sale, too. The light fixtures are also really cool. They had a few that were made out of plastic buckets. It was overall a really cool place, and we totally loved it. We thought it had a kind of San Francisco vibe. It seemed to be friendly to young liberals, I thought, and we also got the distinct vibe that it was very gay-friendly. Based on the previous description of furniture, it was also obviously very artist-friendly. I got the impression it was a gathering place for young, hip artist, poets, and intellectuals. Like I said we really loved it and wished we’d discovered it early in the month so we could have visited a few times. There was also free wi-fi and outlets in the walls, so it would have been perfect to get work done. We discovered that downtown is totally within walking distance of the apartment. We walked to Möbel, which is in our district but on the edge, near the Innere Stadt. After the café we ended up walking to the Museumsquartier, which is really really close to the café. Anyway, regarding food. Marielle tried to order a coffee (melange) but the waitress misunderstood and brought us Bananenschnitte instead. At first we were really confused. We realized that we had misordered, and wondered if we should send the Bananenschnitte back, but upon closer inspection, it looked really tasty. We decided to eat it. It turned out to be AMAZING. Best mistake we’ve ever made. It was this kind of multilayered cake with bananas and chocolate. It was one of the most delicious things we’ve had in Vienna. Totally lucky stroke that we were brought it by accident. Also when we were looking at the menu there was a word I didn’t understand, so I pulled out my pocket German-English dictionary. The guy working there noticed and kindly asked us if we wanted English menus. They didn’t seem to mind at all that we weren’t tourists. Also, going back to the liberal, San Franciscan vibe: I asked the lady what was good, and described the quiche. She was totally recommending the vegetarian quiche, but I ordered the ham and afterwards felt guilty for disappointing her. The way she was describing vegetarian versus ham, Marielle and I were both pretty certain that she was vegetarian herself. Also the salad my quiche was served with was completely delicious, which really good, juicy tomatoes. It was hands down the best salad I’ve had in Europe. Very delicious. Anyway so the café Möbel is also very vegetarian-friendly, which traditionally is a liberal thing. Anyway we totally loved the place.
After Möbel we took public transit to the western edge of Vienna to visit the Otto Wagner Spital (hospital), a kind of complex for the care of the mentally handicapped designed by Viennese Jugendstil architect Otto Wagner. It features a church he built, which looks very much different from the classic churches in Vienna, but I think is still very beautiful. The church was designed with the care of the mentally handicapped in mind, and has a bunch of features meant to accommodate them.
What I assume is a light-producing chandalier-thing. I liked these a lot.
I went to Café Griensteidl to read the International Herald Tribune and drink a Fiaker – espresso with cherry liqueur and whipped cream, with a few chocolate sprinkles on top. Needless to say it was delicious. Unfortunately I was uncertain of the espresso to whipped cream ratio and when I first tried to drink it I FAILED and kind of spilled a bit of it all over the table. But, the mess wasn’t big, I didn’t waste much of it, and I don’t think very many people noticed. I continued to drink my Fiaker and read my paper with as much dignity as I could muster.
Notes on Café Griensteidl: it used to be, under a different name, the meeting place of Vienna’s intellectuals: artists, musicians, professors, and the like. It is located on Michaelerplatz, which is adjacent to the Hofburg. Habsburg emperors used to always exit their imperial residence on the Michaelerplatz until the Loos-Haus, the “building without eyebrows,” was built and Franz Joseph declared it too ugly for his imperial eyes to look upon, and began using a different exit. Anyway, Griensteidl was the favorite coffee house of Vienna’s intellectual and artistic elite until it was closed, and they moved down the street to Café Central. Griensteidl was later reopened under a new name and caters now mostly to tourists. However, it is a traditional Viennese coffee house, famous and near the Hofburg, with waiters in vests and newspapers on wooden reader things and expensive, albeit delicious coffee. Café Central was also eventually closed and reopened in the 1980s as a tourist trap. I do not know where Vienna’s intellectuals currently meet.
Anyway, I whiled away the hours at Griensteidl, then made my way back to the apartment, where I checked my email and discovered I was half an hour late to the Heurige. I got directions and got on the U-Bahn and bus, and finally arrived at the Heurige about 90 minutes late. However, I managed to chase away this bee that was enamored of the ham, and get some bread with goose fat and other disgusting-sounding but actually delicious spreads, along with some great authentic Austrian Heurige wine. We also had some stimulating discussion. As soon as I entered the Heurige, before I’d sat down, I was asked whether I’d ever consumed marijuana. This information went into the class statistic, which apparently was fueling a discussion about the upcoming 2010 California ballot, and whether sale of marijuana should be legalized. All in all a good summer night for a university student.
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