November 1996 (continued):
My flight from Rome brought me to Vienna, Austria.
As usual, I found myself visiting an interesting city for the first time but without much opportunity to experience it. I didn’t even have time to savor the taste of their water. FODOR’S guide book says the Vienna city water is among the best in the world… although you wouldn’t guess that from the habits of local residents, who routinely order bottled water in restaurants.
FODOR’S also informed me that in 1683, Vienna introduced three important items to the western world. It was in 1683 that the Turks were driven out of Vienna by the soldiers of King Jan Sobieski of Poland and Duke Charles of Lorraine.
When they fled, the Turks left behind hundreds of sacks filled with strange, brown beans. A Viennese merchant who had been to Turkey recognized them as the basis for the hot beverage the Turks called Kahve. He took the beans and opened the very first Viennese coffeehouse. (The drink didn’t become popular there, however, until he added milk to it.)
In that same year, Viennese bakers celebrated the military defeat of the Moslems by creating a bun shaped like the emblem of Islam. Austrians call that shape a kipferl; in French, it’s croissant. (In English, it’s crescent.)
Local bakers also introduced a new roll shaped like Sobieski’s stirrup. The German word for stirrup was BŸ gel; this was the birth of the world’s first bagels.
My first Vienna visit didn’t begin auspiciously; the taxi that was supposed to be waiting for me at the airport wasn’t there. But I managed to make it to the Radisson SAS Hotel, which was quite charming.
When she gave me the key my room, the desk clerk said, “I am sure you will like it. It is one of our inside rooms, so it will be very quiet for you to sleep.”
How nice, I thought. As I trundled toward the elevator I realized what she really was saying was I wouldn’t have a view of the city. (That’s a very good radio technique, repositioning the lack of access to fresh air and view as an aid to good sleep.)
Sure enough, the room’s windows opened onto the hotel’s interior, above the skylight. As lovely as the room was, I realized how much I depend upon fresh air (I often open windows even in winter) and visual confirmation of the outside world for a certain level of both physical and psychic comfort.
Once in the hotel room, I turned on the television. There is not a lot of English-language programming in Austria; on this particular night there was none. So I settled for the most familiar program I could find: The X Files, dubbed into Italian.
At the time, of course, that show was a huge hit in the U.S….for reasons completely unknown to me. Prior to that evening in Vienna, I had seen only one episode — a ridiculous, inane and clumsy story about million-year old insects escaping from an illegally cut tree and weaving huge cocoons around humans.
That one episode was dumb enough to convince me never again to watch The X Files.
But here I was, exhausted & alone at night in a strange land, wanting to unwind for a little while before trying to sleep. So I decided to give the show one more try.
It was the same insect/tree/cocoon episode.
And it was just as stupid in Italian as it was in English.
I spent the next day doing a seminar for Ö3, Austria’s national radio station. During a brainstorming session, in which I encourage on-air talent to use their own experiences for show prep, a great story was shared by their morning host, a mother of twin 9-year old girls who had celebrated their birthday the day before:
“They’re at that awkward age where they’re starting to argue with their mother about whether they should be allowed to wear make-up…but they still argue with each other over who gets to push the buttons in the elevator.”
That evening Ö3’s program director, Bogdan Roscic, and their BCI consultant, Stephan Halfpap, took me out for a quiet dinner at what they assured me was a typical Vienna neighborhood restaurant.
