THE RETURN OF THE WANDERING STRANGERS

                 THE RETURN OF THE WANDERING STRANGERS

                                                              HE SAYS:

We have now returned to Ottawa and have settled into our old ways and routines. We have caught up on the laundry and unpaid bills, and have rescued most of our garden from the unseasonably scorching weather. Eleanor is now, blessedly, recovered from her illness and is further pursuing her sainthood.   She says: This isn’t something one pursues!  You either have it or you don’t, and since he doesn’t, you can’t expect him to understand, can you?

Upon our return we babysat my 20 month old granddaughter, Penelope, for three days while her parents played hooky and went off by themselves for some r & r before granddaughter # 2 arrives towards the end of September. I had completely forgotten, actually repressed, how active and completely exhausting the little buggers are at that age. I was completely wiped out, but St. Eleanor performed did her grandmotherly magic. There is a reason why parenthood is for the young!  She says: “Grandmotherly magic” is really just recycled motherhood.  It’s like riding a bicycle: once you’ve done it, you never really forget, but it’s much more fun when you’re a grandparent and you can return them when you get tired.  But his difficulty getting back on that bike makes me wonder just how much quality parenting he actually did when his twins were small.  He says he did a lot, but….(HE: Obviously the"S" in sainthood is for snarky.)

Many people have asked us what the highlights were for us during our Danube trip. In the first instance we owe a tremendous amount of thanks to our travel agent, Ms Sue Fearon, Manager, at Advantage Travel in Ottawa, who helped us plan the trip and did the grunt work. As well, Viking Tours provided a great river cruise experience. The attention to detail (in most instances) was more than impressive, as was the gourmet food that added more than a few pounds. The tourist part of the cruise was interesting and good fun, but I don’t personally react well to be shepherd around. Tours of any kind have their advantages and disadvantages; it is all a matter of what one wants and the trade-offs involved.   She says:  Given the short time we had in each port, I can understand why we were “shepherded”.  I appreciated the guided tours and the way the company managed to squeeze so many sites and activities into such a short time span.  Yes, there were times when we weren’t able to spend as much time as we’d liked at a specific site, but at least we saw them, which we could never have done on our own!  That said, I have to admit that I’d expected to have more time just to sit and relax on board the boat than we actually did.  Some people chose to stay behind to have a leisurely day on board every now and then and others chose to go ashore and wander through a town on their own, but we took advantage of the incredible guides to learn as much as we could about every place we visited, and I’m glad we did. 

For us one of the highlights was meeting and getting to know our dinner time companions – the two Southern Belles and the two California Babes – who were not only good fun and progressive, but were the antithesis of “Ugly Americans”.

In terms of the trip’s highlights there are a number of places that stood out for me; Eleanor undoubtedly has her own list of high points. In short, the highlights were Vienna, Budapest by night, Prague and Castle Alley.  She says: Yep.  My list is a little different.  The cities were lovely, but after a while, all cities start to look alike, and with the heat we were facing as we moved further inland, all that baking pavement and the crush of tourists started to become way too much for me.  I loved what Richard calls “castle alley”, a beautiful 4 or 5 hour stretch of the Rhine with dozens of castles and vineyards hugging the hills.  Arriving in Budapest at night to see the city blazing with lights was memorable, too, but I preferred visiting the small German towns with their half-timbered houses, cobblestone streets, and overflowing flowerboxes.  Even better was just sitting on the top deck enjoying the sun and the scenery.

Vienna’s culture, architecture, and political history put it right up there with other great capitals of the world such as Paris and London.  And the lighted entrance into Budapest at night on the Danube was spectacular. Prague however has a gentle beauty and charm which is unforgettable. The cuisine in both places was amazing. Castle Alley as we call it was a stretch along the Rhine River where there were some 30 castles with vinegards, in varying states of collapse, on either side of the river. The view was breathtaking and it was like being transported into some fairy wonderland.

Unfortunately, Amsterdam, Bratislava and Budapest were done, from a tourist perspective, in a very superficial and cursory fashion which was quite disappointing. This sojourn is now over. But in truthfulness, as much fun as it was, it is also nice to be home.  Throughout this endeavour I have been blessed with Eleanor’s company, good will, wicked sense of humour, and smiley and saintly disposition, as well as her ability to put things in their proper perspective. Eleanor in the next little while will hopefully add photos to our Danube blog.  She says: but don’t hold your breath, ok?  You know what I’m like: a very saintly procrastinator.

We are already planning our forthcoming three week trip in February 2013 to Habana and Cuba (my 14^th trip to the Emerald Island), as well as a few weeks in the Algarve in southern Portugal early next summer.  She says:  NO CITIES!!  Well, Lisbon and Havana aren’t mega-cities, so they’ll be ok, but both anticipated holidays involve more beach-walking than museum-slogging, so I’m ok with a few big buildings.

Until then happy trails, or is it happy sails? Stay tuned.

Edifice Complex to Red Vienna

FROM EDIFICE COMPLEX TO RED VIENNA: HISTORICAL AMNESIA

                                                     HE SAYS:

Greetings and farewell from Vienna.

Austria and Vienna both suffer from historical amnesia, but for different reasons. The Austro-Hungarian Empire with its Edifice Complex fractured after 600 years, like the Czarist Empire in Russia, under the weight of WW I. Geo-politically the Austro-Hungarian Empire was a shell of its former self and considerably smaller. Fredric Morton’s marvellous book, The Nervous Splendor, about Austria and Vienna more specifically, during the 1890s captures the spirit of that stratified and sexually hypocritical and ossified middle-class society.

Since the 1880s there has always been an ugly racialist anti-Semitism that has permeated Austrian, and especially, Viennese society. Some cultural and social historians have argued that anti-Semitism was more pervasive in Austria that Germany.

Few people know or remember that between 1900 –1938, Vienna was known as Red Vienna, and with good reason. Vienna in that period had elected the first serious left-wing Marxist municipal government in all of Europe.  These were not just slightly red pinkos, but were serious Marxists affiliated with the revolutionary Second International. They had a vision of the future and the role of the working class in that future.

Vienna was the first city in Europe to provide municipal hospitals, as well as municipal housing; social services and culture flourished and were meant for all people. Red Vienna was viewed as a model city for progressive social programming.

This came to a brutal end with the rise of fascism in Europe, and Austria’s own native Nazi party. Things came to a head during the so-called February 1934 revolution when the left wing of the Social Democratic Party, left socialists, fought it out with the Nazis in the streets of Vienna. For the first time people were prepared to use armed force to prevent the Nazis from taking power, unlike Germany. The Schutzbund was the armed resistance league, the army units of the SDP. They made their last stand against the Austrian Nazis in the Karl Marx Hof housing project in the Ottakreig, the working class west end of Vienna; they were shelled into submission. And the Nazis took power.  All this is recounted in Lillian Hellman's famous novel, Julia, and the marvellous film with Vanessa Redgrave and Jane Fonda.

Today the Karl Marx Hof is a small park and no one seems to know about or remember the February 1934 revolution or the Schutzbund.  

People here do not want to remember their willful support and collaboration with Hitler’s Third Reich. There is no doubt that German Austrians supported the incorporation of Austria into the German Reich. Look at the adoring crowds that greeted Hitler here in Vienna. Austria provided the German army with over a half million men. And the grim fact remains that the Austrians, and the Balts, did the German’s dirty work in the camps. A death camp could be run with 7 SS officers, the rest were Austrians.

Austria, like Japan, has never undergone a formal de-Nazification program as happened in Germany. And people still openly condemn those who fought in the anti-Nazi underground because they sabotaged the German war effort. Kurt Waldheim, who became president of Austria (and later head of the UN) was a SS officer.

Here in Vienna no one that I talked with knew of Red Vienna or of the Schutzbund. Evidently, they are not studied in high school history courses. That history is off limits, and is best forgotten. History has been air brushed. Those events did not happen because they are not remembered. History has been sanitized. Have another strudel….

These are the ghosts of Vienna. In the morning we walked down part of the Ringstrasse. It was fun to imagine all the famous people who also walked down these same streets, everyone from Mozart and Beethoven, to Freud, to Brahms and Mahler, to Adler.  Vienna is an historical museum. It was quite a thrill. Ancient Athens, Renaissance Florence and late 19^th century Vienna are the pivotal lynchpins of Western European intellectual history. When I return I want to study the history of salon and café society and their role in disseminating ideas in 19^th and 20^th C society.

Vienna is a city of culture, coffee and good food. One feels safe here. But beneath the  veneer of glitter and polish it suffers from historical amnesia.

Farewell Vienna….This has been a busy and exhausting holiday, but not quite the relaxing vacation we expected.  We will file our summary blog from Ottawa. We fly tomorrow morning.

                                                      SHE SAYS:

Our last day in Vienna!  After 5 days steeped in the history and all the “shoulds” of Vienna that the guide books directed us to, we decided to spend our last few hours away from the usual tourist haunts and end on a much lighter note.

We’ve already mentioned the Film Festival that’s being held at the Rathaus, or city hall, a short walk from the hotel.  We visited it

a few nights ago and drooled over the fabulous food stalls, but went to a restaurant nearby for our dinner because the crowds and the lineups were crazy.  Last night, we decided to fight the crowds like everyone else, and went back for dinner.  For me, the most interesting thing about the food was that there was very little of what we think of as fast food: no French fries, burgers, pizza, nachos.  Instead, they had meat stews, interesting salads, huge sausages, schnitzels, giant pretzels, all kinds of African, Japanese and Chinese dishes, Austrian specialties that we’d never heard of before made with noodles, meats, and chopped veggies. The booths were sponsored by local restaurants, and we would have happily managed to find something great to eat at every one.  Since we had to make up our minds eventually, we decided on a huge fresh salad topped with fresh grilled garlic-infused calamari, and a “Tyrolean plate” of dumplings, sauerkraut, and what looked like hunks of roast pork and ham in a sausage casing, washed down with Austrian beer. 

As luck would have it, a table emptied just as we got our food, so we grabbed it and started to work our way through the two gigantic plates of food. Fabulous!   A young Korean tourist asked if he could share the table, so as we ate, we talked with him.  He’s spending 6 weeks travelling alone through Europe, getting home just in time to start his final year of university.  I asked him if it was lonely travelling alone.  “Sometimes,” he said, “but it is good for me.  When I travel alone, I get to meet myself.”  Well said, I thought.

 This morning, we took the Vienna subway for the first time to visit the Riesenrad, a giant ferris wheel that’s over 100 years old.  It’s probably the model for the London Eye, which is larger and obviously much newer, but the one here has been well-maintained, and it gave us a great view of the city.  Instead of little 2-seater cars like a regular ferris wheel, this one has red wooden cars that hold about 10 people.  You can sit on the wooden bench in the centre of the car or stand up and walk around to see a lovely 360 degree panorama of Vienna.  Just like on the London Eye, people are apparently able to book private cars for celebrations of different kinds.  We saw one car filled with silver and white balloons, and a couple of them had tables with white cloths, ready with glasses and champagne bottles for the guests.

The ferris wheel is set in the centre of a permanent amusement park with all kinds of great rides, but I didn’t even suggest a roller coaster or bumper cars afterwards; the ferris wheel (along with the café visits) was my thank you for the culture overdose I’ve been exposed to in the past few days.  I wasn’t going to push my luck!  We walked around the park and ate ice cream, and that was almost as good as more rides, especially since it was such a great place for people-watching.  Just like at home, the kids ranged from the ultra-hyper ones who want to do everything at once, to the quiet ones with the huge eyes and wide smiles who are just so thrilled to be there that they don’t have a clue what they want to do…with a few contrary ones thrown in for fun, who won’t be happy no matter what they do. 

Of course, there were all kinds of souvenirs for sale at the fair grounds: everything from cheap plastic toys to pieces of crystal and fine china.  One t-shirt stood out: a picture of a kangaroo with a line through it and the words NO KANGAROOS IN AUSTRIA.  I asked the saleslady if people actually come to Austria thinking they’re visiting Australia, and she said, “Oh, yes.  More than you’d believe.”  Weird!

We took the subway back to our hotel to pack, with a side trip to have our last Viennese coffee.  OK, I admit it: we shared an apple strudel, too.  Dinner tonight will probably be another of those dinner-plate sized schnitzels, and then it’s home tomorrow to do laundry and get serious about our diet.

It’s been fun!

From Vienna With Love

                        FROM VIENNA WITH LOVE: KULTURE, KAFFEE, AND KUCHEN

                                                          HE SAYS:

Vienna is party central, notwithstanding its seemingly conservative and traditional image.  My enthusiasm for Vienna grows. It is my type of town!  I am more than impressed by the level of culture and civic mindedness, as well as pubic civility.   

Last night we went to the weekly Vienna  summer food festival, and found to our delight that it was right next store to the Vienna Film Festival. Both were free and sponsored by the City of Vienna. Listening to a number of guides and other people, it is clear that culture is intended for the masses and people of all backgrounds; it is supported accordingly. A ticket for the State Opera (Stationer) starts at $5 !

And as an aside, education at all levels is free. Culture and education are viewed as a collective good and an investment in human capital, to use the economic jargon. It was embarrassing listening to an American woman on our earlier tour trying to argue the contrary.

The food festival was held in the Rathaus Park, that is, the large park adjacent to the massive and ornate city hall. There were about 5-10, 000 people. It was a warm evening and the people were milling around eating, drinking and laughing. The place was packed and there was barely enough room to walk. There was food and spirits of every type. The mood was jovial. People were dressed casually, but well; no tuxes, but no slobs in t-shirts and undershirts.   

I was struck by a number of things. In the first instance, there is a very real sense of proper public conduct and not violating other people’s space.  In other words, there is a reciprocal sense of propriety. No loud, abusive or aggressive behaviour; no one shouting “Fuck you” or pushing. Here in Europe (excluding UK  football hooligans)  public space is viewed as a collective good to be shared by all, not as an extension of oneself or one’s individuality . Thus, civil conduct promotes the broader collective good.   

At this large and crowded public event there was absolutely no visible police presence.

Of related interest is the fact that people were drinking – beer and wine - from real glasses, not plastic or paper cups; and some food vendors served up their delights on real ceramic plates. Everyone brought their glasses and plates back. There was no trash littered about, and no broken glass.

We didn’t stay for the film festival which had seating for about 1-2, 000 people, and opted for dinner in a nearby restaurant instead. We sat for a while at the film site drinking our dark (dunkel)  beer from tall glasses. The film was to be projected up on a gigantic screen on the wall of city hall. People didn’t push or jostle others to get good seats. Again I was pleasantly surprised by the lack of loud and aggressive behaviour, compared to what I have seen among the young people  in Ottawa movie theatres.

The food portions here in Vienna are  humongous! The other night we each had a schnitzel that was so large that it literally was bigger than the plate and could have fed 4 people. And people here like their food ! Food  prices, depending on where one eats are not unreasonable, $15 pp with spirits. Unless, of course, you want to eat in a big hotel.

One of our real discoveries is Austrian RED wine, which is absolutely fantastic !!! Their white whites are well known, but I have  never heard of Austrian RED wines. Super- distinctive, full bodied, with a strong finish, and just a whiff of bullshit (just checking to see whether you are still awake). A good bottle of Austrian red costs $6-7. Unfortunately, the LCBO only carries two brands, both of which are terrible plonk and taste like cool aid.

The serious sport in Vienna, right up there with sex, is the coffee and pastries. Eleanor seems happy with her Vienna Melange (really a cap), while I take a double espresso with whipped cream called a Neumann (a single shot is an einspanner); there is the mandatory shot of water on the side. The other day we had a Mozart torte: chocolate cake with marzipan, and today a Mozart Bombe, very similar but with marzipan-laced whipped cream and a pale green marzipan crust. And of course a sachertorte is classic Viennese and , of course, had to be sampled for the experience. J

This morning we went to visit the State Art Museum (Kunsthistorische Museum) which houses the largest art collection in the world. This museum, the V&A in London and the New Prado in Madrid are my favorites. The Habsburgs, the Vatican and Versailles sponsored, bought and collected the largest art holdings in the world. The building itself is so massive, large and ornate it is difficult to describe. The interior literally took my breathe away. Fortunately, I had already made my “Must see list” of 8 halls with their paintings to see. The social realism of Breughel and his pithy peasant , and the sensitive Rembrandts were certainly the high point for me. Thrilling.  Yet, I found that there were scores of minor Italian and Northern German Renaissance painters that I had never heard of. One could spend a life time in this museum. Eleanor, being the good sport she is suffered almost silently….

I fantasize about staying in Vienna for a few months to absorb the atmosphere. Eleanor says to send her a postcard.           

The massive and ornate architecture that characterizes Vienna that goes on for block after block, and mile after mile, has served as a monument to the Habsburgs’ 600 year conservative Reich. But after a while its beauty becomes imposing or oppressive; some might say, even boring.  These buildings are indeed a monument to Emperor Franz Joseph’s  edifice complex.

Tonight we went off to a Mozart and Strauss concert recital with the Royal Vienna Orchestra at Beethoven Platz. In reality it was held at a warm music conservatory , not some imperial concert hall. Nevertheless the concert was lively and well done and was good fun.

Tomorrow we slow down and do fun things like going on the giant Ferris wheel, similar to the London Eye, and go to Herr Dr. Freud’s office. And we may possibly go on a Third Man film walking tour.

Saturday:

We have returned from the Freud office apartment –museum which was really interesting and nicely curated. One had a sense of his new status as a solidly upper middle class liberal professional. He certainly was an egocentric, grumpy old fart. Personally, I think Adler and Reich have more to offer in terms of an analytical framework since they tried to situate individual problems in a broader social context. Freud was anti-socialist, while Adler was a socialist and Reich a communist.

Before coming home we stopped off at the Café Landtsman. It was home to Freud , Trotsky and Lenin. Trotsky is known for having skipped out on his last four bills.  Never trust a Trot ! Eleanor had a round grapefruit sized chocolate and marzipan pastry called a “marzipan potato” with an einspanner coffee, while I had an apple strudel with 3 “ of whipped cream and a double espresso with whipped cream and laced with a  liqueur.  To DIE for !

This is our last installment from Vienna for a while ….We are really tired, our legs and feet hurt from walking everywhere; but having walked this city, it is ours. Vegging sounds good….

More later….

                                                           SHE SAYS:

Now that our holiday is almost over, I’m starting to feel as if I’ve almost completely recovered from my Near Death Experience and wish we had time to go back and see Prague again.  It’s a beautiful city with so much to see and do, but it seems to me that we didn’t really do it justice.  I blame much of that on the way I felt, but I think part of the problem was where we stayed.  It was a huge Hilton hotel with all the Hilton amenities, about a ½ hour walk from the old town, but there wasn’t much in the general area that was interesting, and by the time I’d coughed my way into the town, I just didn’t have much energy for anything else.  We find that the best way to really get to know a city is to take a tour at the beginning to get an overview of what we want to see and then to wander and discover the interesting parts for ourselves, and we missed the wandering in Prague.  What a shame; we’ll just have to go back and try again, I guess.

Here in Vienna, we’re staying in a nice little European hotel, with a nice mix of tourists from all over the world, but most are German or Austrian.  There’s no big American-style breakfast included in the room price, and we’ve balked at paying 16 euros (about $20 pp !) for their breakfast buffet, which consists mostly of fabulous-looking cakes and pastries, so we’ve enjoyed searching the side streets nearby for cafes that serve what they call the Viennese small breakfast: boiled eggs, warm rolls, unsalted butter, jam, and that fabulous coffee we’re becoming addicted to. Cost: about $12 for two people.

We’re near a subway stop and I guess we’ll have to start using it soon, but everything we’ve been to so far has been within walking distance.  We have our routine down pat now: breakfast, sightseeing, café break, sightseeing, back to the hotel for a break, and then out again for dinner and to explore further.  To be honest, we’re just about castled and cathedralled out, (Why is Spellcheck telling me that isn’t a word?  If it isn’t, it should be!)

I did let him drag me to another art museum.  I’m a saint, I am!  To his credit, he had done his research and knew which rooms held the paintings he most wanted to see, so we didn’t have to spend the whole day there.  To my credit, I knew it was air conditioned, there were comfortable couches in most rooms where I could people-watch while he examined yet another bleeding Jesus or ten, and the museum café is mentioned in the guide book as one of the best places to go for Viennese desserts, so St. Eleanor got her chocolate and coffee rewards at the end.

Back when Franz Josef designed Vienna in the 1880’s or so, he must have decided that the place would be about the buildings and not the people.  He built street after street of massive brick and marble buildings, all fabulously adorned with plaster statues and gold trim: impressive, but overwhelming and very repetitive after a while.  The poor man really did have an edifice complex!  Wherever we walk, everything looks massive and square and orderly, and until you have a chance to see them on the inside, you start to feel that everything about them is cold and sterile.  But even in what look like the poorest restaurants and shops, we’ve found there are soaring, beautifully decorated ceilings and interior courtyard gardens -proof, I guess, that you can’t judge a building by its bricks. J

A couple of nights ago, Richard came up with a brilliant idea: let’s move to Vienna for a few months every year.  There’s so much art and music and theatre that there’d always be a lot to do.  No, thank you.  It’s lovely, and I’d be happy to come back again, but we’d find just as much being offered in any large city, and I’d hate to live in a large city.  I’d much rather find a nice little country town (any country!) on the water and spend my winters there. (He says: The Wicked Witch of The North Pole)

In the past few days, we’ve covered many, many miles in this city.  We’ve seen the palaces and the churches, the cafés and the restaurants, the museums and the street festivals.  We’ve been to visit Mozart and Freud.  Neither was home at the time, but we still got to walk through their apartments and see their personal photo albums, which is more than they’d be able to do at our house if we weren’t at home. 

We thought Freud might be at his favourite café, and we went there to find him, but no luck, so we drowned our sorrows in more coffee and pastries.  I think this coffee tradition is one we should continue at home.  My coffee came in an insulated glass: a shot of espresso topped with a mountain of whipped unsweetened cream (although there’s a tiny hole in the centre of the cream where you can pour a tube of sugar without messing up the cream topping.  You sip the coffee through the cream, resulting in fabulous flavour and a whipped cream moustache.  Richard felt the need for a little vitamin C, so his coffee had a double shot of espresso and a shot of orange liqueur, and had orange zest sprinkled over the cream on top.  Yum.  I’m thinking it would be a great way to start every morning when we get home!

Prague

                                      THE GOLEM OF PRAGUE AND COMMUNISM WITH CAFES

                                                               HE SAYS:

Prague is a beautiful and civilized city. It is rightfully called “The Paris of Eastern Europe.” Prague is lithe and elegant in an understated way. Paris knows that she is a beautiful woman; Prague is the ingénue. Prague is charming, like Quebec City. The sense of culture - history – as well as a lively café and street life belies a real vitality. It is truly a sophisticated and poly-lingual city.

Prague is affluent in a way that people in Bratislava and Budapest can only dream about. Interestingly, people in Germany and in Prague have good cell phone manners and don’t abuse other people’s space, as in N. America and Japan, with their electronic toys.  (She says: It’s true that here, people seem to be able to walk down a street without having phones glued to their ears, and they do put the phones away when they’re not being used, but there’s still that need to feel plugged in; cell phones are still everywhere, and it’s not uncommon to see 5 or 6 young people sitting at a café table, drinks in front of them, all playing with their toys and ignoring the ones sitting beside them.)

But as I look out the window of my Hilton hotel I see a large neon sign for KPMG, a major international management Kulture (read US) consulting firm. They are the new commissars.

With garish billboards, Hooters, Burger King, and Cartier (not for the locals or for most of the tourists, either) blighting every block, can the internationalization and homogenization of) be far behind? Consumerism is the new opiate of the masses. To paraphrase Descartes, “I consume, therefore I feel good.” 

Food is embarrassingly cheap, and the portions are more than large, the plate flows over with food. Yesterday the duck lunch for TWO, including spirits, cost C$11; and last night for dinner we had traditional Czech cuisine for TWO with beer and wine which cost C$20. And today we had large Czech crepes for two on the street for C$7. Don’t eat in hotels, which cost a knight’s ransom.  (We always ask the locals where they’d eat and haven’t been disappointed-or poisoned-yet)

There are two well-known Deaton indices by which to gauge a country’s quality of life and level of economic development: first, the number and size of cars; and two, the amount of tagging and graffiti. In the first instance the number of small European style cars clearly indicates a mass consumer market; as well, there are also a large number of luxury cars, BMWs, Audis, and Mercedes. This distribution of consumer goodies obviously reflects the increasingly bi-polar distribution of income and the new market driven social stratification.

I would argue that tagging and graffiti, as distinct from street art, are directly related to social problems and alienation. This conclusion is further re-enforced by the amount of tagging and graffiti that can be seen in many parts of Prague along with the piles of beer bottles and mounds of garbage. While Prague has history and culture, like Bratislava it has a soft underbelly. But tourists see what they want to see, especially if they want to be arty.

SHE SAYS:  Maybe I’m one of those “arty” types mentioned above, but I disagree with the last paragraph!  I don’t think the tagging we see here is a reflection of deep social unrest at all!  It’s just the way kids all over the world these days try to express themselves and try to be like kids everywhere else.  Yes, it’s vandalism and expensive to remove, but the tags are works of art, and if we’d talked to kids in the know, I’m sure they’d have identified the tagging heroes who choose the toughest places to work or the toughest shapes to make.  There’s no “Down with pigs” type stuff; it’s all elaborate, brightly-coloured names and initials. (He says: I bet she flunked Soc 101)

We toured Prague and saw the magnificent Prague Castle which is beautifully maintained and offers a spectacular view of the city. Later we went to St. Vitus Church which is stunning and even outdoes the major Spanish churches. For myself, its gorgeous and intricate stained glass windows excel those of the Cambridge colleges. Walking around the Old Town, which is also now the tourist part of town, with its café life, has a real sense of vitality, including an international selection of entertainment ranging from jazz to classical to rock.

Today we went to the Old Jewish Quarter. (SURPRISE!!) Jews have been in Prague since the 10^th century. Today there are 5 synagogues, and the famous stratified Old Jewish cemetery. The throngs of Jewish tourists who were buying religious ritualistic gear suggest that we have gone from the running of the tourist, to the shearing of the faithful. It was really bloody embarrassing watching tourists line up and pay homage at the Old Jewish Cemetery. It was like a revival meeting; all we needed was Rabbi Elmer Gantry. Our rabbis will no doubt soon sell indulgences and splinters. It says something about something that in order to enter the Old Jewish Quarter we had to go through an intersection, and on the corners, there were Rolex, Cartier, and Armani and Prada stores. The stetl  Jew is dead, but his children and grandchildren have credit cards.  Oi, vey….My grandparents would be spinning in their graves.

SHE SAYS:  He isn’t exaggerating!  From the old town square, take a left at Cartier.  Walk to the corner of Rolex and Prada…it was a bit much.  And when you finally get to the historic sites, the fees are enough to make you wish you’d stopped at Prada for a cheap little bag instead.  Still, the commercialization of “our precious heritage”, to quote a sign at the old graveyard, is no worse than what goes on around the world’s cathedrals.  I’m sure it’s the same in Mecca, too.  In fact, when I get home, I should have a word with MY church leaders and see if the United Church can’t jazz up Toronto a bit more with historic sites for us.

Went to a classical music recital last night at the Spanish Synagogue; both the music and the venue were beautiful.

Czechoslovakia has always has a small “l” liberal tradition. Importantly, the Communists were the only seriously organized and effective anti-Nazi resistance; so-called “democratic resistance” groups were ineffectual and spent more time fighting amongst themselves. Only the Czech communists (CP) had the necessary organizational and personal discipline, thus gaining a considerable amount of public support at that time.

Studies have clearly shown that those Jews or Jewish groups that worked with their respective local communist parties had a higher survival rate, as in Czechoslovakia.

Lidice stands as a monument to the heroism of the Czech resistance and the viciousness of the Germans. Reinhold Heinreich was head of the SS and one of Hitler’s favorites. He was appointed Governor of Czechoslovakia; he was also known as the Butcher of Prague. The British SOE trained a Czech resistance assassination team and parachuted them close to Prague. After many operational difficulties, and with a good deal of luck, they assassinated him. The SOE considered this to be a suicide mission and the Czech team wasn’t even provided with an escape route. They hid in a Prague church and shot it out with German troops for a few days before they ran out of ammunition; some were killed while others committed suicide before capture.

In reprisal for Heinreich’s assassination the Germans surrounded the village of Lidice and executed every man and school boy regardless of age; all the women and girls were sent to the death camps. It was then torched and leveled to the ground. Not since the bombing of Guernica during the Spanish civil war had there been such an international outcry. Lidice, Illinois, outside of Chicago, with its large Czech population, is named after this village.

In terms of post-war economic policy, Czechoslovakia, like the former Soviet bloc more generally, had to allocate economic resources (national income) between heavy industry and consumer goods. Economic policy at that time held that the priority should be heavy industry in its various forms. One can only hypothesize or speculate about how political history might have been different if the emphasis had been on consumer goodies, or if there had been more of a balance between the two.

That was what was meant by “liberalization”. Would this have placated people? Mystery writer Martin Cruz Smith, one of my favs,  in his Polar Star (he also authored Gorky Park) dealt with this precise issue and understood the politically seductive lure and destabilizing nature of consumerism. But the role of the consumer and retail sectors has always held an uneasy, and neglected, place in Marxian economic theory. But “What’s it all about, Alfie?” Is unbridled consumerism the same thing as democracy?

SHE SAYS:  Getting’ a bit heavy here, aren’t we?  I may not be 100% back to my normal critical self, but lighten up, already!

Someone once said that every country and society must find its own way towards socialism given its own history and traditions. The slogan for any future serious left-wing candidate here in Czechoslovak should be, “Communism with cafes.”

As we travel back to Vienna from Prague I am struck by the grim and dilapidated Czech countryside spotted with small red tiled villages. This stands in stark contrast to the urbanity and sophistication of Prague. And on houses, factories, stores, apartment buildings, and trains, there is graffiti and tagging that goes on for block after block, after block, after….Interestingly, this social malaise continues across the Czech countryside all the way up to the Vienna train station. Nothing subtle here….

Yet, the sunlight in the Czech countryside on our return to Vienna reminds me of Tuscany with its soft Vermeer cream white quality.

Alas, Eleanor has served notice: No more train travel with all of its schlepping of luggage. And as I struggle and sweat and swear as I lug our large overstuffed suitcases up the stairs of another overcrowded, frenetic railway station, I know that she is right.

SHE SAYS:  I know he must get SO tired saying those words so often…..  :>)

Next stop, our return to Red Vienna, as it was once called .

SHE SAYS:  Vignettes from Prague

1.     Having breakfast in the hotel one morning, I hear the woman a couple of tables to our right.

 “See that couple over there?” she bellows.  I look over and realize that everyone at the table is staring at us.

“Ssh” says one of her friends.  “They might hear”.

“It’s ok”, she says. “ They’re not American.”  (True, but we might be British, Australian….even Canadian.  Or maybe we’re from just about anywhere in bilingual Europe.)

``Look at them and find two ways to tell they`re not American`` I can feel them staring, so I start a stimulating conversation with Richard about the eggs.

After a bit, the others give up, so our cultural expert continues,. `` Number 1, look how they use their knives and forks.  Obviously European.  Number 2, they`ve been talking to each other all through breakfast and I haven`t been able to hear a word they said.  Obviously not American.  We`re louder than that.``

I chose to take it as a huge compliment!

2.    Same breakfast restaurant.  I`m in line at the buffet behind a nice couple from Philly and we talked as we walked.  There was a huge leg of Prague ham with a carving knife and fork.  Wife sliced some for herself and offered to cut some for her husband.  She was just finishing when a big ol` Texan sauntered up, stuck his plate in front of the husband`s and said, I`ll take a couple of slices, too.``  She was so shocked, she reached over to start carving again.  I said, Ànd I`ll take a couple, too.  Why don`t you just spend your whole morning here serving the rest of us.  Maybe someone will leave a tip.`` Jerk took the hint and got to the back of the line.  Husband muttered, `Damn Texans`` as he walked away.

                                                                                           

3.    Richard and I were walking on the old town square.  Fabulous place!  A young girl passes, wearing the shortest pair of cut-off jean shorts I have ever seen.  Admittedly, she would have looked good in anything she wore, but these were almost non-existent.  I looked over to see if Richard was still breathing.  His jaw was on the sidewalk and his eyes were definitely bulging.  When he saw I was watching, He picked his jaw up off the ground, assumed his usual `stern daddy`` expression of mild disapproval, and said, `What an appalling waste of a perfectly good pair of jeans.`` I laughed so hard I thought my pants would never dry!

We're now off to explore Vienna.  Our final blog will be ready in the next couple of days.

Budapest: Edifice Envy

                                         BUDAPEST: EDIFICE ENVY

                                                         HE SAYS:

If Vienna competed with Berlin for political and cultural grandiosity, Budapest tried to mimic Vienna as part of the dual monarchy.  Today Budapest is a poor man’s Vienna.  Its buildings are grandiose, large, and ornate, in some ways more so than in Vienna. It reminds one of the fading glories that were once Venice’s. But Budapest, like Venice, is now like an old whore without any makeup.

Our entrance into Budapest by boat was truly spectacular: a gorgeous light show that lit up all the massive buildings, with their spires and domes, along the Danube. Amazing!

Hungary, and more particularly, Budapest, is the land of my forefathers. They were modern Orthodox Jews who went to Pittsburgh in the 1890’s. My grandmother repudiated her Judaism when her synagogue refused her entrance for the High Holy Days during the 1930s and couldn’t afford the ticket fees. My mother always said that there was a status hierarchy within the European Jewish community, with Hungarian Jews (and then German) at the top, of course; Polish Jews were peasants. After my grandmother repudiated her Judaism she became a communist and sold copies of The Daily Worker in front of steel mills. I cannot escape my family history, and recently I have had to confront the reality that in many ways I am my father’s son, too.

That was in another era, and the world, for better or worse, has changed. But I feel no sense of exuberance or any sense of “return” as I walk the streets and hills of Budapest. I feel nothing . I do not believe in the American notion of “roots”, nor do I believe in hyphenated Canadians. Families and history move on.

At that moment, Budapest is just another large city. And the weather in Budapest that day is as hot (34C) as the chili-paprika that it is famous for. 

Budapest is really two cities: Buda and Pest. Buda is the hilly, political, rich section of town on one side of the river, whereas Pest is flat, newer, and middle class section of town on  he other side. We go to the castle at the top of the hill overlooking the Danube.  And where the three rivers meet there was even a flash of blue. Looking down, Buda is on the left and Pest is on the right. It is truly a magnificent sight. I take it in; it is a feast for the eyes, rich and lazy.

It is stinking, viciously hot. Like NYC in the summer. As we walk across the Bastion for another overview of the city we are baked and make our way towards a self –service restaurant. We collapse in the AC. As we walk back I duck into a tourist store and buy three canisters of paprika and resolve to learn something about Hungarian cooking and try some recipes. 

After lunch I go off on my own since Eleanor is literally sick and tired. I go to a memorial on the Danube River about 10 minutes from our docked ship. It is the Shoes Memorial. It is where the Arrow Cross militia, native Hungarian Nazis who the Germans, ironically, didn’t trust like, killed off their political opponents – Jews, trade unionists and communists. This bank along the Danube became the killing grounds for opponents of all ages and creeds. The victims were forced to undress and were shot and then thrown into the Danube; it is said that the blue Danube turned red. Today the victims’ shoes are bronzed as a memorial; the shoes are placed on top of a 20 foot concrete retaining wall.  There men and women’s shoes; and, pathetically, the small shoes of young children.  Truly a sobering and unique memorial.

Historically, Hungary’s economy was at best backward and distorted. It was governed by an ossified landed nobility and had virtually no middle class. Interestingly, Jews were granted full civil rights and civil liberties by Queen Maria Theresa in 1774, before the French revolution, and a Toleration Act was passed in 1780. Generally, Jews were well integrated into Hungarian society. Until 1949 half of the population lived in the rural countryside, literally without electricity or schools. It was a one city country – Budapest.

Today Hungary, notwithstanding its membership in the EU after the fall of the wall, is extremely right wing, autocratic, and xenophobic; it is attempting to pursue a policy of economic autarchy. There have been a number of high publicity trials related to the murder of Romas (Gypsies). The native Arrow Cross movement is again on the march. The transition to a so-called “market economy” is creating new stress points and social fissures. The market economy is not paying dividends. 

Afterwards, I decide to walk about 20-30 mins in the heat and go to the celebrated and trendy Cafe Gerbauld (1853), where the beautiful people now gather. This was an exercise in social stratification. The people-watching was good. I had a $5 coffee with whipped cream but gagged on a piece of strudel that would have cost $13. There were a few locals and some tourists, and a fair number of Germans.  What intrigued me was the number of well- dressed young women in their mid-late 20s with seemingly expensive wardrobes and hairdos and a definite sense of confidence and entitlement. Sociologically, were they the daughters of the new economic elite, daughters of former party officials, or working girls? My educated guess was that they were well heeled frauleins on vacation,slumming it with the Slavic peasants.

We are beginning to feel “toured out”, as well as “castled” and “churched out”. Poor us. Off to Prague, and our return to Vienna. Ho, hum, another city….Sitting in a café watching the world go by is our idea of a vacation. Ho, hum…

                                                SHE SAYS:

I see that my improving health hasn’t improved someone’s mood an awful lot, has it?  Or maybe he’s thinking back to the mood of that day, which really is mostly a fog for me.  After Bratislava, Budapest was a breath of fresh air: blazing hot, humid fresh air, maybe, but still…

We reached port at 10:30 at night.  We’d been told that sailing down the river towards the city was the most spectacular way to be introduced to Budapest, so most of us trooped up onto the upper deck to see the view.  The entire city was lit up, highlighting the mountainous Buda on one side and the flatter Pest on the other, with the Parliament buildings, major cathedrals and monuments all outlined in lights. We all snapped away with our cameras at first, then finally realized that there was no way the photos from all but the best cameras would ever do the sight justice, so we put the cameras away and just enjoyed the view.  Truly spectacular!

The following morning, I felt worse than ever despite the antibiotics.  For the first time in my life, literally, I had no appetite, and two days later, it still isn’t great.  Don’t tell HIM, but I consider this a huge plus, to tell you the truth.  Maybe it’ll help balance the 2 weeks of fabulous cruise food.  Stop frowning.  Yes, I’m eating yogurt, fruit, and the few vegetables that don’t make me feel as if I’m grazing. And protein, too, although at the moment, the thought of beef or pork is repulsive.  (Stop smiling,Mike.  I’ll get over it.  A life of beans and tofu just isn’t in my future.)  And a bite or two of all these fabulous desserts is enough; I leave the rest, along with the whipped cream mountains, for Dr. D.

I managed the air conditioned bus tour of the city, but found a shady spot to sit for most of the walking part, appreciated the café stop for a cold lemonade at the end, and headed for bed as soon as we made it back to the boat, falling asleep to dire warnings of the doctor I’d be forced to see in Prague.  Not surprisingly, I guess, I had a terrible dream about a Czech-speaking surgeon who couldn’t understand what I was saying and was preparing to operate to remove…what? A cough gland?  I don’t know, since I don’t speak an awful lot of Czech, but somehow I knew that his hospital didn’t believe in anaesthetic.   Luckily, my coughing woke me up before the surgery began.

As much as I hated to, I even skipped the last dinner and a chance for a final farewell to the great group of people we’d enjoyed eating dinner with since the beginning of the tour.  I’ll do it by email when I get home, or maybe I’ve already done it by writing this.  You guys were great!

Next morning as soon as I opened my eyes (and coughed for a while) I realized that Dr. D’s amazing pills were working.  I don’t claim a miraculous instant cure, but the fog was definitely lifting enough for me to block out more doctor threats, finish packing, eat a small breakfast, and settle in for our 7 (!) hour bus transfer to Prague.  The 22 others who were going on to Prague were the ones who complained that the large toilet-equipped luxury coach we’d been promised had somehow morphed into an older, more cramped bus without even a chamber pot.  This was the first time on the entire trip that we were disappointed (see how polite I am?) in Viking?  We’ll be registering our displeasure when we get home.  I, for one, was ordered by 3 doctors (2 medical and Dr. D) and one nurse to drink plenty of fluids.  Why would I knowingly do something like that when the next toilet is 2 hours away?  The tour rep promised regular “comfort” stops, and the others grumbled along with the good doctor while I settled in for a lovely day of sleeping and coughing out of the sun in air conditioned semi-comfort. 

 The journey continues….

The Bratislava Bust

                                       THE   BRATISLAVA BUST

                                                     HE SAYS:

Greetings, fan club.

This will be a catch up blog for a variety of different reasons.

First, I am royally irritated that the computer lost my last blog on the same subject. As well, St. Eleanor has been quite ill over the past few days, but has refused to seek medical care with a doctor or hospital, which has royally (no pun) pissed off King Richard.  And lastly, during our tour through Vienna and Bratislava the weather has been a beastly 34C!  We are now in Prague (a slightly cooler 31C) and will return to Vienna in two days for our final whirlwind. So there is a good deal to catch up on. But I am not in a witty mood.

Today is Tuesday, so it must be Belgium, or is it Bratislava? We visited Bratislava for 3 hours, which says it all. Why the tour company bothered with this is a mystery to me. The city, which is a sunny industrial slum, is the capital of Slovakia. Market capitalism has not been generous or good to the people here. They are the flotsam and jetsam of the new European labour market. They are the new untermenschen – the trash used up and cast off by the capitalist labour market. For them freedom is a bottle of beer and the right to be skin heads. When we talk about “freedom”, we confuse form and content.

The Czechs tell Newfie jokes about the Slovaks. Now I understand why. The working class walks about town in their undershirts, baggy basketball shorts and flip flops. A more middle class woman with her child in a stroller is walking down the street wearing a white sequined see-through dress with a black thong. A real class place. To paraphrase the Canadian politician Jean Marchand, the best thing about Bratislava is the boat to Vienna.

The following day we arrived in Vienna for a full day of power tourism. It was a brutal 34C. Fortunately, we have decided to return for an additional 5 days of fun, great coffee and pastries, and high culture. The Austro-Hungarian Empire (or Habsburg) was one of the great political empires of the 19^th and 20^th centuries and lasted for nearly 600 years.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany attempted to rival the other’s accomplishments and excesses. And, in turn Hungary and Budapest, the weak sister of the Habsburg empire, aped the Austrians and in particular the Viennese. Viennese haut culture was, alas, founded on the edifice complex. The bigger, the better; and the more ornate are even better.  The massive and ornate buildings and architecture in Budapest  reflect this edifice complex; or, was it an inferiority complex ?

After the obligatory city tour we did our own thing. The first thing we did we was to go off to a famous café where 19^th and 20^th centuries revolutionaries hung out and fortified themselves with good pastries and coffees before they went off to change the world. We decided to do it right, and had one of the famous Viennese coffees – 6 main types and about 64 with variations. This was accompanied by a large piece of self-slimming sachertorte with a mountain of whipped cream on the side.

Later, St. Eleanor, attempting to imitate her rival St. Joan, decided that we should go off  and see the Lippinzaner foals that were running around under the watchful eye of their mothers in what is certainly the most ornate horse training ring in the world, complete with crystal chandeliers. The foals will receive 8-10 years of training and are treated royally. The show was full of pomp and was good fun.

Afterwards we went to the Archives of the Austrian Resistance. The small museum  was created in the early 1980s by an all-party agreement, ranging from Catholic Conservatives to Communists, and is beautifully curated. After the abortive February revolution of 1934, when the Schutzbund – armed workers units under communist party leadership fought the Austria Nazis in the streets and made their last stand in the Karl Marx Hof housing project where they were obliterated by artillery fire – there was never an effective anti-Nazi underground resistance in Austria, unlike in Czechoslovak where the communist resistance was highly organized and effective.

Our journey continues….

                                             SHE SAYS:

Remember a few days ago, when I wrote about deciding to walk back to the boat in the rain because I already had a cold and what else could happen?  Note to self: don’t tempt fate like that again!  Turns out that colds that aren’t treated with respect can crawl down into the bronchial area and/or the lungs and cause chills, heavy coughing, and general misery.  They also make it tougher for a fog-loving Newfie like me to adjust to long walking tours over acres of asphalt in high humidity and searing temperatures (for a Maritimer), no matter how beautiful the city.  I love this climate when I’m sitting on a beach beside the cool ocean with a pina colada in my hand, but I have to admit that the last few days have been tough on us both: on me because sweating and coughing are not my idea of a good time, and on the good doctor who sometimes forgets that his title does not refer to a degree in medicine, because my coughing kept us both awake most of the night.  If you’ve read this far, I think you have probably picked up on the fact that not having all of his medical directives followed instantly  makes him a little  ….um… touchy. (He says: Grumpy)

Despite recent accusations certain people have made to the contrary, I am not a difficult patient…as long as the doctor is making sense to me.  I don’t believe in chemicals for every ache and pain, but when I need medicine, I take it.  When travelling through a huge city in blasting heat, I insist on watching horse shows in air conditioned comfort rather than hunting down yet another cathedral or military statue, and I demand equal time to sample desserts and fancy coffees in air-conditioned cafes. 

I have to admit that since I’ve started teasing him and blogging about his travelling pharmacy, the good doctor has pared down his medical travel kit considerably, from roughly half his travel weight allowance to probably only ¼.  Of course, we’ve had to take extra precautions as a result, making sure our diets are balanced enough to ward off beri-beri, rickets, and scurvy, and being careful to avoid poisonous snakes and vicious dogs.  We trust that somewhere in these big concrete jungles we’ll find a pharmacy or two, and that our medical insurance company will help us hunt down a hospital in an emergency.  True, it adds a dimension of danger to our cruise through Europe, but on the plus side, it meant that Richard could add a pair of shorts, 2 pairs of jeans, and a few assorted shirts to his suitcase.

Even with his reduced inventory and our trip to the drugstore in Melk, he still found a dozen things to force upon me: remedies for everything from headaches to athlete’s foot, none of which would have helped me, but any of which would have made him feel better. I  kept refusing and he kept grumbling. Finally, in the bottom of the case, he struck gold: an antibiotic his doctor had prescribed for our last trip, that he hadn’t needed.  Two of our travel mates were doctors and one is a Nurse-Practitioner, so he got ok’s from all of them first, and then gave me my orders: the pills or a doctor at the next stop, and either way, I’d have to see a doctor in Prague.  I felt so terrible by then that I was happy to give in.  Bratislava was interesting, but my Slovakian is a little weak, and the city  didn’t strike me as the kind of place European ladies would choose to visit for their cures, so I decided to avoid it, too.  I’ve been on the pills for 3 days now and am happy to report that I think I may survive.  Even better news: the good doctor is a lot less irritable than he’s been, so on we go.

 “Cough”  “Grumble”  “Cough”  “Grumble”…

(He says: a bad patient)