Water, Zwickl, and other delicious things...

A quick blog about three of my favorite things here:

Act 1: Water

Das Wasser in Wien ist gut! I have no idea if that is a grammatically correct sentence or not but I will repeat it again and again. The water in Vienna is good. Very good. For those of you fact nerds out there, here's one for your next party: Vienna has the best big city water in the world. It comes directly down from the mountains along various pipelines some of which were built back in the 19th century. That's right folks: I wash my dishes and flush my toilet in fresh, mountain spring water. How cool is that?

One of the coolest (yet slightly inconvenient) things that stems from this is the absence of water fountains. There are no water fountains anywhere. Why bother? You can just drink directly from the tap of any WC (bathroom) and since there are no chemicals in the water, there is nothing to corrode the pipes. As a singer, and water drinker extraordinaire, I must admit, I am getting S-P-O-I-L-E-D. Compared to the chlorinated mess that is Tacoma water and arsenic mess in Urbana, this aspect of life is pretty sweet.

Act II: Zwickl

"Ich möchte klein Zwickl," was the first phrase I successfully used auf Deutsch. Zwickl is an unfiltered beer which means there is still some of the grain and yeast left. Most Austrian brewers will have both a filtered and an unfiltered version. Best. Thing. Ever. It tastes like beer should taste--rich and the beer flavors suddenly make sense. I did not really like beer before coming to Austria. My second night here we went out to a place near our orientation spot and grabbed a beer with some of the Student Services staff. I was sitting there drinking my first glass and thinking "Hey, this is a lot better than American beer but it's not that great." Then Kyle let me try his zwickl and it was love at first taste. The bitter flavors that are usually too sharp suddenly had depth to them and the acidic watery taste was completely gone. Plus, it's healthier--right?

Needless to say, if you are going to come out to the real beer-making lands. Get a zwickl. It's SO worth it.

Act III: Cafe Culture

There is no such thing as bad food here. Okay, yes, almost everything that can be fried, is fried but other foods are amazing. This evening my roommates and I went out to grab desserts at a coffee house. We wandered down Linke Wienzweile for a while and ended up going to the Naschmarkt and sitting at one of the little cafe's there. We ordered the best desserts ever.

Anyway, the point of the entry: cafe culture. I love how much time the Viennese take with things. If you want your check you have to literally hunt down a waiter, not because they want you to buy more but because it is expected that you will sit and talk for hours and hours. Here, bringing the check right away would be rude. It would imply trying to hurry someone out which is not at all the culture. I love that. It can be tad inconvenient when you are in a rush but still so nice and wonderful. Noelle and I experiences this a little bit our first morning in Vienna when we sat down in a cafe to waste the morning away before it was time to meet our orientation. I intend to go it alone tomorrow morning and do my German homework at a Cafe. I am so excited! Hopefully one of the free WiFi cafes will be open and serving breakfast.

Finale:

Time for bed. My bed is very strange. It has what feels a bit like box springs on the bottom but on top is very dense foam. It is a bit hard but I actually rather like it. What I don't like are how flat our pillows are. They don't offer much support. I might have to remedy that if my back keeps acting up. Oh well. The one thing I really like is a the shared disdain for top sheets. As a restless sleeper, I appreciate the lack of limb rending, bunching, twisting, top sheets. So much easier to sleep with and SO much less to make in the morning.

How beds relate to food/liquids--I don't know. But either way, speaking of my bed is making me crave it.

Happy Kaffee-ing!