Chasing John Irving

SPECIAL GUEST BLOGGER: ANOUSKA.

The great John Irving.

One of my favourite authors, John Irving, features Vienna in most of his books (eg. The World According to Garp, The Hotel New Hampshire and Setting Free the Bears), because of this I felt rather familiar with Vienna and had memories of it before I even got there. I feared that I would be disappointed by Vienna in reality because it could not correspond with John Irving's depiction of it.

Magnificent Vienna.
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The Vienna I found was not the same as John Irving's Vienna. However, it certainly did not disappoint. Firstly, the place is overwhelmingly beautiful. Everywhere you turn there is impressive architecture or a magnificent sculpture. Even the apartment buildings have detailed facades. Coming from somewhere like Perth where most of our buildings are depressingly functional and modern I could not help but be charmed by the aesthetic of Vienna.
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An example of a beautifully adorned apartment building.
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That's not to say that Vienna is somewhere that is untouched by the ugly effects of globalisation. We found the main street is the same as most other cities' main streets in that it was marred by the neon signs of the usual collection of multinationals. The symptoms of globalisation became particularly apparent on our first day in Vienna when we wondered around trying to find a cafe where I could have an authentic Vienna coffee experience like those described by John Irving. This search went on for a couple of hours as we walked around the main avenues searching for a suitable cafe but all we found was the usual suspects (places like Starbucks). When we had given up all hope of finding anything reasonable we started wondering down small streets in a residential area and luckily stumbled across something resembling a genuine Viennese cafe. Inside it was chockingly smokey, a few people sat by themselves reading and the decor was a strange mish mash of ugly tiles, polished wood and gold rimmed mirrors. A gruff woman took our order of coffee with schlagobers (fresh whipped cream) and a strawberry cake. When she brought our coffee over and Daniel reached for the cup that she had begun to place in front of him she barked "Ladies first!" and gave the cup of coffee to me instead. I have been told that grumpy service is a given in Vienna and in this respect the cafe did not fail. However, I always appreciate when someone tries to teach Daniel some manners. We drank our coffee (delicious) and I most generously shared the cake (also delicious) with Daniel. I felt glad that I had a cafe experience closer to John Irving's description and totally unlike Starbucks.

The perfect Viennese coffee.

The only reason that I knew the word schlagobers was because it featured a lot in 'The Hotel New Hampshire'. Whilst I usually only manage to learn hello, thank you and sorry in most languages, my vocabulary in regards to food is by comparison is quite extensive. I cannot claim that this is due to any gift for languages, but rather stems from my talent for piggery. I do not know why guide books and their companion phrase books do not feature more words in them for food, but then again we have found guidebooks to be generally useless so this deficiency should not come as much of a shock.

Enjoying some delicious wurst. No "witty" lewd comments allowed.

But back to food, my favourite subject and pastime. We had been told that Vienna was replete with take-away joints (not entirely dissimilar to the fish and chip shops at home) where you could get a wiener schnitzel and chips rather cheaply. Whilst we found this to be the case we also found that the Schnitzel type places were outnumbered by Kebab Stands. Our Texan roommate, Chris, was rather fond of these places as he would at least thrice daily trot off to "Hit up the Kebab Stand!" as he put it. At first I thought that he was labouring under the misapprehension that kebabs were the national dish of Austria. We soon discovered that it was our portly friend's desire to eat as cheaply as possible that led him to kebabs because on his first day in Vienna he paid 10 euros ($20 aus) for a piece of Sacher Torte and had subsequently sworn himself off Viennese food. We, on the other hand, were blessed with common sense and avoided twenty dollar cakes in favour of cheap and plentiful street food - roast kartoffel, and the ubiquitous wurst. The Christmas markets in Vienna did not hold a candle to the magical ones in Olomouc. This is because the Viennese markets are erected purely to allow tourists to spend their money on useless junk (no sane local would pay 12 euros for a candle that looks like a glass of beer). The one redeeming feature of the markets was the plentiful and cheap (by Viennese standards) sweet treats that inspire nostalgia for one's childhood. Daniel and I spent an afternoon eating fairy floss and toffee apples and then running around like rabid children on a sugar high.

Daniel is dwarfed by a formidable stick of fairy-floss.

By the time we had got to Vienna, Daniel and I had worked out our approach to travelling. To summarise; we like to walk. When we first get to a city we spend a day just walking around. When we are a looking for a restaurant and there is nothing but expensive tourist traps we keep walking and walking until we find something reasonable. In so doing we feel we get to see more of a city and at the same time manage to entirely avoid the cost of public transport. Unlike most travellers, we have both lost weight, despite consuming large quantities of fried food and sweets. In keeping with this approach we spent a rather lovely (and exhausting) day walking to the Belvedere. I plotted our route on the map and estimate we walked around 16km that day - not bad for someone as unfit and unused to exercise as I am.

The upper Belvedere Palace - worth the walk.

The Belvedere Palaces contain the world's largest collection of Gustav Klimt's paintings, who is one of my favourite artists and most definitely my favourite Viennese artist. We frolicked in the gardens and admired not only the artwork but also the grand examples of baroque architecture that are the Belvedere Palaces. One of my unexpected favourites from this museum were Franz Xaver Messerschimdt's "Character Heads". Messerschidmt was a brilliant and non-conformist sculptor who in the last years of his life devoted himself to creating 52 "Character Heads". These works would be considered quirky even by today's standards, but they were amazingly created by him in the 1770s.

Character head - "The Lecher"

My favourite Klimt - "Danaë" 1907.

The evening following our visit to the Belvedere, Daniel explained to our roommates that the reason we were so tired was because of our wish to walk everywhere. One of them, Elliot, thought it was really stupid and said as much. Then he told us about how when he was in Amsterdam, all he did was smoke weed and drink and how now, as a result, he has a really great story to tell people. I'm still unsure what significance "the story" holds or why anyone would be impressed that you spent all your time in a city, rich with cultural and artistic treasures, in a drunken and stoned stupor. But this was probably the least repugnant idea that this charming fellow shared with us. When he then asked us where we had travelled to so far and we mentioned that we had been to India he said, "I'd never go there, there as so many Indians in England that there's no point". I laughed, hoping that this was a benign joke made in bad taste. However, I was sadly proven wrong over the next couple of days as the racist comments became more overt. I finally told him exactly how disgusting and pertinently stupid his ideas were, and thankfully as a result, he ignored me for the next day until he left. I am not sure why someone so clearly afraid of cultures different to his own would want to travel. But then again, clearly he was not particularly interested in exposing himself to anything cultural while travelling, unless local beer and hallucinogens count. Yes, we have met a lot of intelligent and culturally aware people while travelling, but by the same token we have met just as many, if not more, idiots like Elliot. Perhaps these people could somehow be segregated from everyone else? Or maybe not issued with passports?

John Irving's novels usually have a bear in them, particularly the ones set in Vienna. And did I sight a bear whilst in Vienna? Alas no, but I did see a ginormous dog that I thought I could pass off as a bear in a conveniently blurry photo. In 'The Hotel New Hampshire' John Irving laments about the ways in which Vienna has changed over the years and that the prohibition of bears on trams is one of the things he mentions along with the homogenising force of globalisation. Even tough Vienna has changed since the 1960s of Irving's novels, it is still an enchanting city, and I shall definitely return at the very least to try and see a bear.

What I imagined could be The Hotel New Hampshire.