Worst Brot?

Well, if nothing else, this definitely goes down as a memorable Christmas Eve, though truth be told it does feel weird to be spending it in a hotel in the middle of Austria, doing laundry by hand which is so awful and time consuming I don’t see how anyone survived before the invention of the washing machine. As if I didn’t need a manicure badly enough as is. Anyway, it has indeed been an odd day. First, we spent the morning panicking to try to find something to do on Christmas day and ended up booking ourselves on the Sound of Music tour, which should prove even more cheesy and touristy than our Mozart Dinner concert last night, which by the way, was way better than the opera. The singers were fantastic, the food was great, and it was fun to be in “central Europe’s oldest restaurant.” And we managed to stay awake for the whole thing which is more than I can say for the opera. But anyway, I do hope that on the Sound of Music tour we manage to run into the people who sat next to us at the dinner, a couple and their daughter who were from Indianapolis but living in Ireland, the daughter goes to Purdue, was traveling with her parents on break and was so awesomely whiny that I wanted to write a teen soap around her. Anyway, that’s what they’re doing on Christmas so we may yet see them again. But… as for today…

After frantically booking the tour, we set out in search of breakfast since this hotel charges 15 Euros a person, and we knew that Christmas day we’d be stuck doing that for lack of too many other options, so we decided to find someplace else. And we did, in the form of Café Tomaselli, where I received a TINY bowl of muesli (my new favorite thing) – literally like two tablespoons, and everyone else got eggs and ham on sizzling hot plates, which was, I hear, very tasty. The funniest moment though, was when we were just about finishing up our meal and the waitress yanked up our bread bowl, pulled out one that had been half-eaten, and took the rest away… to another table. I kid you not. Okay, it was bad enough that she decided we had had enough bread and that apparently we were done… but she BROUGHT IT TO ANOTHER TABLE. This was about ten hours ago and I’m still not over it!

Oh and on our bill there was 5 x 1 Euro for something called Semmel – was this the tiny glasses of tap water she brought each of us? The bread she yaked away? We couldn’t figure that one out either.

Anyway we spent the rest of the morning getting our shopping done, as we learned that all the stores were going to close at 1 pm for Christmas, and apparently they’ve never heard of Day After Christmas sales because that day’s a holiday too here… so no shopping again until Saturday. As if I needed more proof I was not in America!

After shopping till we dropped, buying some amazing looking pretzels to eat later, and regrouping a bit, the next task was to find someplace to eat an early dinner – though we were warned by our hotel staff that “everything” in the area was closed for the holiday, Cindy and I didn’t believe her for a second, and within a few blocks we found a nice and yummy Japanese restaurant, where we watched customer after customer come in because of the advertised Weinerschnitzel, only to learn that that was only a lunch special, and leave. Satisfied with the rest of the menu, we stuck around and had a great meal. By the way, the food here has been excellent and vegetarian options have abounded. Lucky me.

After lunch, Cindy, Marianne and co. headed to the Silent Night church in nearby Oberndorf. I stayed here, to get a little work done, get caught up, and in fear of the cold, since as Steve said about me, “you could roll her up in a cardboard tube, and put a lid on both ends, she’d still be cold.” Not if he mailed me back to L.A.

Anyway they took off and left me here to do some work, to do this awful laundry which about halfway through I decided I’d rather wear dirty clothes, and to scope out the fitness center and sauna here. The “fitness center” consists of a crappy elliptical trainer and an even crappier upright bike. And I would have gotten a better look at the sauna if it wasn’t populated by a group of Austrian men in their speedos, which was enough to send me back up to the room!

Tonight we’ll be eating our pretzels and watching god knows what on Austrian TV. Think they have the Yule Log here?