As
petz was feeling rather ill from flu, we decided to call it a night.
Kyo and I decided to try our luck again at
Onyx and managed to get in. Surprisingly it was already winding down even though it was only 1am on a Friday night. It was certainly a rather stylish place, with pretty good music. They had a rather interesting take on several drinks we ordered. The crowd was a mix of the trendy set, as well as some suits.
We finally called it a night after several drinks, and I walked home to the LM which was actually nearer than I thought it was. Despite flying in from LA and feeling a bit spaced out before, the walk actually woke me up a little and so I ended up having a few drinks at the LM's
Shambala Bar which was still pumping.
Day 2
I'd forgotten to charge my camera battery so all pics on Day 2 belong to petz and are reproduced with his kind permission.
Kyo and I decided to have breakfast at
Cafe Schlutzenberg, an extremely traditional Viennese cafe. He was attempting to track down something which he saw on the IC Wien's video intro to Vienna which he thought was a huge omellete in a frying pan. Unfortunately he was unsuccessful, and the waiter was left extremely confused. We later discovered that it was really a pancake. Bubbly brekkies seem v popular in Austria, however it looked rather light food-wise. I had a traditional Austrian brekkies which consisted of a soft boiled egg, cheese, LOTS of bread, and a pot of coffee. Went a little overboard and drank the entire pot of coffee (3 mugs), though still felt ok at that time. I'd wanted a latte but they only had regular coffee along with the set brekkies I ordered.
I then met up with
florianwagner and
petz who decided to bring me on a little coffee tour, whilst
Kyo wandered off for a walk to see the sights. I had a latte at a contemporary cafe with rather IKEA style decor next to the LM. Non-soy alas, as v few places did them as
jjpb3 had warned. The latte was rather diluted and contained a lot more milk and foam compared to how we do them back home, though not quite as overflowing with milk like the US. That, being my 4th cup of coffee for the day, was when the caffeine buzz REALLY hit and I consequently felt rather ill for the rest of the day.
We then wandered up to a rather trendy cafe around the corner. Always interesting to observe the blend of old world, contemporary and trendy in Vienna. Apparently small talk isn't a thing you do with servers here; I'd asked the waitress how her day was only to be met by a startled silence, and was immediately enlightened by
florianwagner as to why that was the case. I decided some alcohol is in order to bring down the caffeine buzz, and had a glass of raspberry sparkling wine.
Lunch was had with the rest of the gang at
Demel where
jhm who'd just flown in that morning caught up with us. The decor of the place was a bit too high brow for my liking, but I could look past that for the food and dessert were simply sensational! I had a v yummy goulash, followed by a hazelnut cake.
phaleesy was clearly in heaven for such an ardent foodie as she enthusiastically attacked the cakes with v much impressive vigour.
I'm clearly not the only person who takes pics of my food
We then made our way to
Schönbrunn castle, approximately a 20mins subway ride out of central Vienna.
Kyo and
phaleesy went off exploring the castle, whilst the rest of us were more either more concerned about the overcast skies or couldn't be coughd and had more coffee and cake at
Cafe Dommayer, just around the corner from the castle. The coffee house is known for its Emperor's melange, which is the Austrian espresso with a special twist - mixed with rum and egg yolk. Now I am an obvious fan of both coffee and alcohol, but I'm not a fan of the 2 put together as they just taste too weird. Plus the egg yolk.... I passed and opted for something less adventurous - a latte. Any coffee then was a bad idea given the caffeine buzz but i didn't feel right coming to such a pretty coffee house and order non-coffee when I'm such a big fan of it. I was extremely stuffed and so had to pass on the cakes, nice as they looked. Now if I had an uncomfortable caffeine buzz before, I now had a full blown caffeine hangover - trust me, it's FAR FAR WORSE than any hangover from alcohol!
Guy Betsy and I then left to have a break back at our respective rooms at the LM (but not before he stocked up on enough macaroons to feed a small army), and I especially needed a lie down to recover from the excessive caffeine intake. That was more coffee than I've ever had in a day, and not as well spaced out either.
Dinner was at an Austrian wine tavern, a heuriger called
Wiltschko . It was at a rather suburban location, and for a while
GB and myself were quite worried that the taxi driver was lost. It was nice to catch up with
jjpb3 again, who'd just got in after severely delayed out of LHR due to fog.
phaleesy and
Kyo had gone AWOL in the castle and so
jhm had decided to stay back at the cafe to look for them - they appeared after a bit so everybody was relieved that they weren't spirited away by supernatural forces in the castle. I had fun sampling the different wines at the heuriger, accompanied by my dinner of deer stew. Austrian reds def have a different character to their Australian/NZ counterparts, I think I prefer the more berry/fruit-driven nature of the latter to the sometimes overpowering mocha flavours of the former.
After dinner drinks were at a v trendy bar at the
Raddisson, itself a pretty cool design hotel. I'd performed my promise of shouting everyone first drinks, as it was my bday the following Thursday and I'd had the festivities on either weekend before or after if my bday falls on a weekday. As with any FF event, much tips and tricks as well as interesting industry insider stories were shared. Some of the gang were delighted to find Singapore Sling on the menu but found it to be wanting - there was no pineapple juice in it. The bartender claimed that he was taught to make Slings like that!
florianwagner complained of fatigue and illness and left for home with
petz and the lurker. The rest of us continued with drinks at the LM which I'd hosted in my room, and
jjpb3 had shouted me a glass of champagne from
Shambala downstairs - cheers matey!
to be continued...
Apologies for the lack of pics in this update, next update will be much more pic-intensive.
