from Dublin to........Mirissa, Sri Lanka: Vienna

Can't say I really enjoyed the city of Vienna all that much. Didn't appear to be a great deal to do, I arrived hungover like a bastard, it looked like many of the cities I'd seen recently and it was friggin hot - too hot to walk around all day. But having said that I still managed to find a few good places to visit:

Tewa 672 (Naschmarkt) – Turkish cuisine in a café/market-style environment. Good healthy food which was once again a pleasant change from the deep fried meat and sausages. Plus the waitresses were rather attractive. Ordered the grilled chicken with hommus and salad – which everyone seemed to order after me??? Must be their specialty? It was stifling in Vienna, 35+ degrees. Order a limonana (lemon juice, soda and fresh mint). The market itself is a bustling array of hot food stalls, cafes, restaurants and Turkish delis. There are plenty of schnitzels on offer at the beisls (pubs/beer halls) and Asian food (although some weren’t too authentic). Li’s Cooking was ok, fresh but where was the sambal sauce in my saeafood sambal noodles??? The apple strudel from the bakery was excellent and would have been even better if it was warm and drowned in cream.

Bortolotti ice-cream – There are quite a few of these around the city, some so close together that you haven’t even finished your quickly melting ice-cream before you’re upon the next one. Despite being a chain, they make reasonably good ice-cream. Extremely tasty and reasonably priced, as most things were in Vienna (to my surprise). Eat it fast on a warm day as it isn’t super cold (served using a spatula). I heard someone in the hostel complaining about the price of ice-cream – they had been going to McDonalds instead for their ice-cream fix. Need I say anymore.

Viennese XL – not a restaurant but an eating concept. Look out for the odd restaurant that advertises an XL schnitzel. It will normally mean that if you finish it all you get a free shot of something. Read the fine print to confirm that is the case and more importantly make sure you are damn hungry before you attempt it. Why wasn’t this in Munich when I attempted it???

Wien Museum – Supposed to educate you about the history of Vienna. It does in a way but it felt like it was a random array of artifacts placed in chronological order that didn’t tell the story they wanted to all that well. Strange place. Admission fee probably better spent elsewhere….a schnitzel perhaps.

Travel Shack Bar – Ended up here after I’d just returned back from dinner to the hostel and the two American college boys who were staying in my dorm were just walking out the door. I joined them. There were in Europe to party hard and tick off as many cities from the bucket list as possible in three weeks. They were crazy…and marines. Staying at most cities only one day and travelling extraordinary distance between them during the day time. I couldn’t do travel that way.

The first thing I saw as we walked past the bar was a huge mural of Uluru on the bar wall. It was an Irish/English/Australian bar frequented by groups on pub crawls and contiki tours. It was bound to get loose. Fairly quiet to start with. 1L steins for €5.00 and Bulmers for €4.90…expensive compared to beer but I didn’t care so much. The barman from the previous night was there drinking off-duty – the American lads had been here the night before as well. The barman, Karl, was a character. Irish, loud and loved to talk (some, possibly a lot of it, shite). His poor Austrian girlfriend (who wasn’t there).

Before long we were chatting to a Kiwi, Aussie and two really nice German girls from Cologne. Everyone was speaking English at this bar. The Aussie and Kiwi moved on after an attractive Austrian girl joined us (and her loser “friend”) and the two German girls stopped kissing each other long enough to talk to us (we worked out there weren’t lesbian, just close friends – sorry Ivonne and Julika). Shots of vodka were being poured into people’s mouths, lit on fire and cinnamon sprinkled into the flames. Smelt like Christmas.

A few drinks in and one of the American boys had disappeared - called it a night early as he was massively hung over from the night before. His mate was in fine form again, hitting the steins hard. Engrossed in conversation, I didn’t realise that the place had filled up and most people were pretty drunk. Dancing was commencing. I assessed the rigidity of the table we were sitting at - concluded that all six of us could safely get on it. At 2am we were to get up and test my smarts. At 2:03am, slightly behind schedule, we were up. A rouge member of our group decided to jump on another table all for herself. Selfish. The bar staff didn’t care. Apparently this happens most nights. A drunken and fun night ended around 3:30am when the girls were too drunk to drink anymore. A good cue for all of us.

If you like folk music, check out Rascal’s Corner, Ivonne’s band that has just released its first few songs www.rascalscorner.de

The shaved side of the head is popular with the women here – works for some….just…not for many.