Grüße von Wien

Guten Tag, dear readers. We arrived in Vienna this morning for the TV shoot. Home for the next two weeks will be the Levante Parliament Hotel, a design hotel which seems pretty cool so far.

What the hotel rooms look like. Yes, there are orange accents everywhere.

My recent international travels have taken me to Sri Lanka and Colombia, places where I stood out because of my physical appearance. But in Sri Lanka everyone spoke English, and in Colombia, everyone spoke Spanish (but I got by with my basic French and Sesame Street Spanish). Ironically, I’m now in a place now where I look like the locals, but unfortunately I only know 4 German words/phrases. German is very intimidating, no Romance language derivatives for me to work with! So it should be an interesting couple of weeks.

Today at lunch I enjoyed the first of what will surely be many schnitzel on this trip and was able to order a couple of grosser brauner (big coffees with milk) to combat jet lag. For dinner we had a great crepe with mozzarella, ham & basil as an appetizer. I ate an entrée special - chicken with a rich mushroom crème sauce (got this dish by chatting up the waiter, definitely not by navigating the menu). And of course, wiesbier.

I had a little free time this afternoon so Nicole and I walked around, did some shopping and visited Votivkirche, one of Vienna’s big cathedrals. The locals we encountered today were fairly friendly. Good, since we needed a lot of help finding our way back to the hotel. Even with map(s), Vienna seems challenging to navigate. Really hoping this improves as we spend more time in the city.