Today is the last day with Jeff for me and Scott. He leaves tomorrow for a water polo tournament, and we won’t see him for the rest of our stay. We meet tonight for a final dinner.
Class today is short. We talk about cameras, drawing, and bikes, in preparation for our weekend trip to Horn. I feel somewhat excluded from the discussion, as I will be traveling to Ireland for my brother Will’s wedding on Saturday. I am profoundly excited about the wedding, but I can’t help but suppress a tinge of disappointment as the buzz generates for the bike trip.
We finish up class, and don’t have anything scheduled in the afternoon, we are extremely tired, and it is unbearably hot, so we do what any reasonable person would do in this situation: travel a ways out to the Danube to go swimming. It is important to remember there are three iterations of the Danube in Vienna: one is the Donaukanal, or Danube Canal. This is closest to the city and moves quickly. No good. The second is the Danube proper. It is fast, and thus somewhat inappropriate for a leisurely swim. The right choice is the third, the Danube preserve, which moves more slowly and is a popular watering hole for Viennese looking to cool down. That is where we strike.
Upon arriving at the Donauinsel U-bahn stop, we walk along the banks of the Danube about a half kilometer to series of grassy terraces. We set our stuff down and proceed to slide into the river. Swimming across, we realize that the width of the river at this point is much farther than it appeared when we first surveyed it from the banks. It is interesting when I get to the middle of the length; I begin to panic a little. Of course, I’m too far out to really turn back, so I might as well relax and keep going, so I do. The important thing to remember is that we are naturally neutrally buoyant, but become positively buoyant when we inhale. It’s strange, but it’s interesting how being out that far makes you freak out.
After a refreshing dip in the Danube, we dry off and decide to go home to rest. I go with Margaret, Holly and Naomi to Kleines Café, a café designed by Hermann Czech in the city center. Kleines Café is one of the Viennese cafés like the Hawelka, the Eiles, and the Sperl where the great thinkers, artists, poets and artists like Karl Kraus and Leon Trotsky came together to meet and discuss whatever was on their minds at the moment. We have wine spritzers and crostini and gazpacho and wax intellectual. As the name implies, the café is quite small, but still comfortable.
I come home and get ready to go out again. I meet Jeff, Scott and Kevan at the Institute to go out to a beer garden called Schweizerhaus for Jeff’s farewell dinner. Schweizerhaus is in Prater Park, an amusement park home to the famous Riesenrad (Ferris wheel). It is famous for a cardiologically devastating dish called “stelze,” or roasted hog’s haunch. Basically, a pig leg. The skin is cooked to a salty, crispy crust. The fat is left on for you to enjoy. You don’t have to eat it, but you take a good ribbing from the locals for not doing so.
Naturally, Scott and I share this dish. Traditionally, it is eaten with krautsalat, senf (sort of a deli mustard) and kren (shredded horseradish). Slice off a bite of hog, dip it in mustard, dip it in horseradish, stick into mouth. Between Scott, Kevan, and myself, we could barely finish it. Absolutely delicious, though. We washed it all down with cold Budweiser (the superior Czech variety), the perfect antidote to the unrelenting heat.
We are joined by some of Jeff’s friends. He knows quite a few characters. One is named Vlad, a Croatian/Viennese. Everything out of his mouth is somehow absolutely hysterical. “I have seven hobbies. Food & sex.” Later in the night, Scott makes the mistake of ordering lemonade, which has no alcohol. Vlad is dumbfounded. “It does not function!” he shouts.
Among Jeff’s other cohorts are another American expat, Gregg; a Bosnian woman; and a Viennese man who could pass for Albert Einstein. The conversation is lively, to say the least.
After we finish dinner and pay the check, we wander back. Along the way, Kevan points to two tall towers pointing slightly away from each other. Attached to the two towers are two cords. We can’t see what is attached to the cords, as there are trees and other rides obstructing our view. All of a sudden, a twinkling ball attached to the cords shoots into the sky at a frightening speed. Screaming is heard.
“I am so doing that!”
Reluctantly, we all follow Kevan to the ride. It is every bit as tall and scary as we first deduced. Kevan, of course, is first. The ball is more of a spherical steel cage, and there are two seats in it, each with five-point harnesses. Scott, in an attempt to retain his masculinity in front of Kevan, volunteers to ride with her. They walk up to the cage and are strapped in by the ride attendant. The attendant starts the ride. The ball tilts back, a set of springs tighten, and they are flung like a stone from a slingshot into the sky. At the apex, they fall back down, then bounce, up and down, up and down, spinning, a sparkling ball of g-force excitement. They get off, and their smiles are huge, and sinister.
“Your turn!” they declare.
“Oh, no,” say Jeff and I, simultaneously.
I walk the twenty or so steps like a death row inmate walking the green mile. I sit in the seat, Jeff sits beside me. We are strapped in, one by one, and we immediately begin to grip the handles attached to the harnesses with titanic force. How painfully insufficient.
The ball tilts back suddenly, slowly, stopping at a 70º angle facing up towards the night sky. Behind us, we hear a giant set of springs parallel the buildup of tension in the air as they gather potential energy, tightening, expanding, making horrific twanging noises. Jeff and I exchange curses as we face the inevitable: rocketing toward the sky, strapped to a seat in a spherical steel prison, helplessly subjected to the forces of gravity and inertia, with two stupid little vinyl handles our only comfort. I detect Vlad, Scott and Kevan standing back, lest beer and stelze come raining down out of the sky upon them, but not so far that they cannot bear witness to our every terrifying moment on a nearby video screen linked to a camera mounted inside the sphere.
All of a sudden, with a deafening ca-ching-CLACK! the springs are pulled taught. The silence is torturous, the anticipation is killer. Every second lasts five minutes. Too late to back out now.
The ball is released into the air and we are at the mercy of the laws of motion and two little bungee cords.
We must go four or five hundred feet into the sky, spinning, falling, bouncing, hurtling like a basketball on a trampoline. Jeff is freaking out, and all the words I can muster are, “It’s so pretty up here. I can see our house!” The whole thing doesn’t last more than two minutes.
I have never been so happy to be back on the ground in my entire life.
After that, Vlad rides with Kevan, and Jeff rides once more with a stranger to “balance things out.” Clearly he doesn’t want to be upstaged by a girl. I watch both times, loving life, feeling the rush of the air over and over again, playing back the whole ride in my head. I have no idea how I got talked into doing it, but I am extremely happy that I was. A battle is won.
We continue on, and Vlad offers to pay our way on the Riesenrad. Initially, I had some anxieties about riding, due to my crippling fear of heights. I am happy to find that it does not rear its ugly head. The view is spectacular. Vienna at night is some majesty to behold, and the Riesenrad provides a wonderful experience. There is a charm to the ride. By today’s standards, it is not intense or thrilling, and it will never invoke someone’s gag reflex. It harkens back to a simpler time, when our senses did not require such stimulation for a little bit of pleasure. I fall in love with the Riesenrad.
We say our goodbyes to Vlad. He is sure to be unforgettable. Kevan takes my picture with Scott and Jeff. It has been a great night, and a fitting way to remember Jeff’s boundless generosity and convivial, easygoing attitude. Check this guy out indeed.
Class today is short. We talk about cameras, drawing, and bikes, in preparation for our weekend trip to Horn. I feel somewhat excluded from the discussion, as I will be traveling to Ireland for my brother Will’s wedding on Saturday. I am profoundly excited about the wedding, but I can’t help but suppress a tinge of disappointment as the buzz generates for the bike trip.
We finish up class, and don’t have anything scheduled in the afternoon, we are extremely tired, and it is unbearably hot, so we do what any reasonable person would do in this situation: travel a ways out to the Danube to go swimming. It is important to remember there are three iterations of the Danube in Vienna: one is the Donaukanal, or Danube Canal. This is closest to the city and moves quickly. No good. The second is the Danube proper. It is fast, and thus somewhat inappropriate for a leisurely swim. The right choice is the third, the Danube preserve, which moves more slowly and is a popular watering hole for Viennese looking to cool down. That is where we strike.
Upon arriving at the Donauinsel U-bahn stop, we walk along the banks of the Danube about a half kilometer to series of grassy terraces. We set our stuff down and proceed to slide into the river. Swimming across, we realize that the width of the river at this point is much farther than it appeared when we first surveyed it from the banks. It is interesting when I get to the middle of the length; I begin to panic a little. Of course, I’m too far out to really turn back, so I might as well relax and keep going, so I do. The important thing to remember is that we are naturally neutrally buoyant, but become positively buoyant when we inhale. It’s strange, but it’s interesting how being out that far makes you freak out.
After a refreshing dip in the Danube, we dry off and decide to go home to rest. I go with Margaret, Holly and Naomi to Kleines Café, a café designed by Hermann Czech in the city center. Kleines Café is one of the Viennese cafés like the Hawelka, the Eiles, and the Sperl where the great thinkers, artists, poets and artists like Karl Kraus and Leon Trotsky came together to meet and discuss whatever was on their minds at the moment. We have wine spritzers and crostini and gazpacho and wax intellectual. As the name implies, the café is quite small, but still comfortable.
I come home and get ready to go out again. I meet Jeff, Scott and Kevan at the Institute to go out to a beer garden called Schweizerhaus for Jeff’s farewell dinner. Schweizerhaus is in Prater Park, an amusement park home to the famous Riesenrad (Ferris wheel). It is famous for a cardiologically devastating dish called “stelze,” or roasted hog’s haunch. Basically, a pig leg. The skin is cooked to a salty, crispy crust. The fat is left on for you to enjoy. You don’t have to eat it, but you take a good ribbing from the locals for not doing so.
 |
| stelze—a cardiologist’s nightmare. |
Naturally, Scott and I share this dish. Traditionally, it is eaten with krautsalat, senf (sort of a deli mustard) and kren (shredded horseradish). Slice off a bite of hog, dip it in mustard, dip it in horseradish, stick into mouth. Between Scott, Kevan, and myself, we could barely finish it. Absolutely delicious, though. We washed it all down with cold Budweiser (the superior Czech variety), the perfect antidote to the unrelenting heat.
We are joined by some of Jeff’s friends. He knows quite a few characters. One is named Vlad, a Croatian/Viennese. Everything out of his mouth is somehow absolutely hysterical. “I have seven hobbies. Food & sex.” Later in the night, Scott makes the mistake of ordering lemonade, which has no alcohol. Vlad is dumbfounded. “It does not function!” he shouts.
 |
| Jeff, the Bosnian, and the Croat |
Among Jeff’s other cohorts are another American expat, Gregg; a Bosnian woman; and a Viennese man who could pass for Albert Einstein. The conversation is lively, to say the least.
After we finish dinner and pay the check, we wander back. Along the way, Kevan points to two tall towers pointing slightly away from each other. Attached to the two towers are two cords. We can’t see what is attached to the cords, as there are trees and other rides obstructing our view. All of a sudden, a twinkling ball attached to the cords shoots into the sky at a frightening speed. Screaming is heard.
Video of the Ejection Seat (not me)
“I am so doing that!”
Reluctantly, we all follow Kevan to the ride. It is every bit as tall and scary as we first deduced. Kevan, of course, is first. The ball is more of a spherical steel cage, and there are two seats in it, each with five-point harnesses. Scott, in an attempt to retain his masculinity in front of Kevan, volunteers to ride with her. They walk up to the cage and are strapped in by the ride attendant. The attendant starts the ride. The ball tilts back, a set of springs tighten, and they are flung like a stone from a slingshot into the sky. At the apex, they fall back down, then bounce, up and down, up and down, spinning, a sparkling ball of g-force excitement. They get off, and their smiles are huge, and sinister.
“Your turn!” they declare.
“Oh, no,” say Jeff and I, simultaneously.
I walk the twenty or so steps like a death row inmate walking the green mile. I sit in the seat, Jeff sits beside me. We are strapped in, one by one, and we immediately begin to grip the handles attached to the harnesses with titanic force. How painfully insufficient.
The ball tilts back suddenly, slowly, stopping at a 70º angle facing up towards the night sky. Behind us, we hear a giant set of springs parallel the buildup of tension in the air as they gather potential energy, tightening, expanding, making horrific twanging noises. Jeff and I exchange curses as we face the inevitable: rocketing toward the sky, strapped to a seat in a spherical steel prison, helplessly subjected to the forces of gravity and inertia, with two stupid little vinyl handles our only comfort. I detect Vlad, Scott and Kevan standing back, lest beer and stelze come raining down out of the sky upon them, but not so far that they cannot bear witness to our every terrifying moment on a nearby video screen linked to a camera mounted inside the sphere.
All of a sudden, with a deafening ca-ching-CLACK! the springs are pulled taught. The silence is torturous, the anticipation is killer. Every second lasts five minutes. Too late to back out now.
The ball is released into the air and we are at the mercy of the laws of motion and two little bungee cords.
We must go four or five hundred feet into the sky, spinning, falling, bouncing, hurtling like a basketball on a trampoline. Jeff is freaking out, and all the words I can muster are, “It’s so pretty up here. I can see our house!” The whole thing doesn’t last more than two minutes.
I have never been so happy to be back on the ground in my entire life.
After that, Vlad rides with Kevan, and Jeff rides once more with a stranger to “balance things out.” Clearly he doesn’t want to be upstaged by a girl. I watch both times, loving life, feeling the rush of the air over and over again, playing back the whole ride in my head. I have no idea how I got talked into doing it, but I am extremely happy that I was. A battle is won.
We continue on, and Vlad offers to pay our way on the Riesenrad. Initially, I had some anxieties about riding, due to my crippling fear of heights. I am happy to find that it does not rear its ugly head. The view is spectacular. Vienna at night is some majesty to behold, and the Riesenrad provides a wonderful experience. There is a charm to the ride. By today’s standards, it is not intense or thrilling, and it will never invoke someone’s gag reflex. It harkens back to a simpler time, when our senses did not require such stimulation for a little bit of pleasure. I fall in love with the Riesenrad.
 |
| The Riesenrad. |
We say our goodbyes to Vlad. He is sure to be unforgettable. Kevan takes my picture with Scott and Jeff. It has been a great night, and a fitting way to remember Jeff’s boundless generosity and convivial, easygoing attitude. Check this guy out indeed.
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