If you are Japanese, I am sure you've heard of a coffee called "ウィンナーコーヒー (wiener coffee = viennese style coffee)." I remember I was around 10 years old when I first heard the name of this coffee. My father took me and my sister to a cafe near our house, and asked us if we want to try the coffee. I asked if a sausage is in the coffee :-) As the word "ウィンナー (wiener)" also meant "sausage" in Japanese. I suppose the original naming of the sausage was "ウィンナーソーセージ (wiener sausage = viennese style sausage)" and we started to omit the most important part of "sausage" and started to call the sausage "wiener."
Anyway, whenever I hear about vienneese style coffee, I remember this story.
Cafes seem to be deeply integrated into Viennese life. There are hundreds of cafes even just inside the ring, and they are full of people throughout the day. It is not only a place to drink coffee or eat breakfast, it is a place to read newspaper, relax, meet with friends and talk.
I would say the most famous drink is "Melange." It is topped with thick foam, which resembles Cappuccino. The wiener coffee that I mentioned above seems to be called Einspanner. Coffees are served with a small glass of water and a small chocolate. After taking a long walk around the ring, coffee definitely helped us relaxed.
Since we felt guilty leaving gG alone in a strange hotel room, we decided to take him to a city park across the street from our hotel. The park was huge (according to the wiki, it seems to have an area of 65,000 square meters) filled with lots of beautiful trees and flowers. Viennese folks were enjoying the sunny weekend afternoon in the park.
Surprisingly the dogs were banned from the park. We saw this sign and wondered if cats were allowed... (I guess not too many people take cats to the park :)
Anyway, we let ourselves in the park. gG is typically very adventurous, but he was uneasy with the huge open air. But, after all, he enjoyed the grass he hasn't seen since we left our home in Los Angeles.
One of the most famous monuments in the park is the gilded statue of Johann Strauß II, who is famous for waltzes such as "The Blue Danube." The park also has the Kurslon where Johann gave his first cncert on Oct 15, 1968. Since then, the Kursalon became a popular place for concerts and dancing.
Enjoy "The Blue Danube"!
There are several other monuments, such as the one of Franz Schubert, Franz Lehár, Robert Stolz and Hans Makart. But most of all, it is just a wonderful place to relax with your beloved ones!
One of my hobbies (!?) is to check out the pedestrian lights wherever I visit. Vienna's pedestrian light was just so artistic. I suppose there are lots of people riding bikes there, too.
Btw, when I was in Japan this time, I noticed that the bikers follow the same lights with cars instead of the pedestrian lights!! I did some research and indeed in Japan bikers are supposed to follow the traffic lights for cars unless the pedestrian light has a sign next to it saying "Signals for Pedestirans and Bikers" speficically. Hmmm.
Anyway, I liked this semi-meaty man on Brno's pedestrian light, too :)
