Vienna, Day 3

*Whoops, my German isn’t as good (bad) as I thought it was. It’s Naschmarkt, not Nachtmarkt. My bad.

So today was the whole reason I’m on this trip: work. After all of our galavanting through Vienna, today we went to visit our supplier, buried ourselves in documentation, and worked until our fingers bled. We worked from sun up to sun down, hardly taking a break to breath some fresh air. As we toiled away in the dark room, piles of paper stacking up, animated arguments heating up, and garbage bins filling up, it seemed unlikely we would ever finish.

IT WAS AGONY.

Ok, just kidding. Work went well today. No major issues and we finished up at a perfectly reasonable hour. After we got out of our meeting we decided to head down to the Naschtmarkt*. The Naschmarkt is an open-air market where they sell all sorts of fresh produce, nuts, spices, and other random foods. Unfortunately we got down there as many of the stalls were closing up, so we didn’t get the full experience.

We did manage to find a place to eat though. The group I’ve been traveling with is great in that we’re all very enthusiastic about seeing Vienna and really trying to get the most out of our short time here. We’ve been eating at a lot of traditional Viennese restaurants and I’m not sure any of us could have anticipated just how much meat, pork, or potatoes we’ve consumed in the last three days. Finding cold drinks has been a bit of a challenge and today I ventured out beyond the usual Soda Zitrone (tonic water and lemon juice) to some Apfel G’spritzt which is apple juice and tonic water. They sure do love the bubbly water here.

Of course, beer here is actually cheaper than water. And if I drank beer, I think I would be in heaven. This is the beer Obi got. Doesn’t it look refreshing?

For dinner I decided to go a little crazy again and I ordered the Austrian goulash which came with the world’s most enormous dumpling, a crazy octopus shaped sausage, and an egg. The meat itself was pretty tasty, but the dumpling left a little to be desired. I didn’t want to waste it though:

Mom, aren’t you so proud of me?

Annie and Annette got some goulash too. Except their goulash came with spätzle. Spätzle is this sort of egg noodle dumpling things that usually get served with some sort of meat. The first time I had spätzle was with my German family the first time I went to Germany and I think I ate like half the pot because my German mother kept filling my plate I didn’t want to be rude and not finish it. It was delicious, but I think I was incapable of moving for the next 12 hours.

After dinner we decided we all wanted cake. So we went on a mission. We had been told the day before that during the summers, down by the Rathaus (the city hall) they played a video of some sort of classical music concert while people gathered and socialized and had some coffee and cake. So we thought that would be a perfect place to wind down the evening.

We’re slowly but surely (and just in time to leave) learning our way around and we made our way through the Museum Quarter on the way to the Rathaus.

We also walked by the Volkstheater (People’s Theater) which is the closest U-bahn stop to our hotel. We must have walked by this building a good 8 or 9 times before any of us bothered to take a picture of it. Apparently we’re a little too wrapped up in ourselves.

On the way to the Rathaus, we passed the Parliament building. It is an oddly captivating building and we all ended up spending a good amount of time there taking pictures, playing in the fountain, and just taking in the magnificent surroundings.

We finally made it to the Rathaus where the music was playing, the food was cooking, the people were mingling, and not a slice of cake could be found. I also realized that I really do need a tripod. After walking around for a while, we decided to head to a cafe across from the Rathaus and next to this theater:

I have no idea what this theater is, but I was just pretty darn proud of my ability to take a clear picture without the flash at night. So there.

The cafe we eventually found ourselves at is called the Landtmann Cafe. We were really on the hunt for Sachertorte which we were unable to find. Instead we all indulged in a variety of different cakes and strudels. Calvin got the house special which is the Landtmann Torte. It’s a layer cake with layers of marzipan and I think apricot jam. It was a truely beautiful slice of cake. And really really almondy. The taste was almost too overpowering.

I got some sort of wild berry torte which was quite excellent. The berries were a bit tart which went well with the sweet cream and cake. I’ve decided I’d like to find a nice Austrian cookbook so I can hopefully recreate some of these amazing dishes (maybe not the dumplings though).  After we were full of cake and coffee we made our way back to the hotel. Our feet were dragging. Three days in Vienna will take a lot out of a person.

Now I’m packing my stuff and getting ready to head to Salzburg. I think I might watch a bit of The Sound of Music to prepare myself. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have lots of fun updates and have located the elusive Sachertorte!