Vienna, design city

TRAVEL, Vienna, Austria –The Bristol is a great hotel, and I find the room’s very inspiring.

No two are identical, or certainly of the many I have stayed in none are the same.

Breakfast at Cafe Tirolerhof, Wiener Frühstück: large bread basket, plus beautiful schinken (ham) and Kase (cheese). Great Espresso, not as strong as Melbourne, but perfectly done. Inspires my writing talents, and I start.

Walk down through Hofburg Palace, taking a new route, always worth a look, but my most inspirational museum is the Kunsthistoriches Museum.

Walk over to my friend the owner of mens’ store Malowan on the Opernring. Malowan has excellent suits from Germany and Italy and I look and chat.

I ask him about tie and shirt combinations here, interestingly the sort of suit/shirt/tie combinations used in any countries worldwide are different.  We diverge into art, creativity and topics, he is a good artiste and jazz musician himself.

I mention that Americans respond better to me in solid navy and conservative shirt/tie than any other combination.

In Australia, combining checks/colours/stripes is a sign of taste.

My friend affirms that Austria is discreet, muted, well-tailored and conservative. I buy a nice navy tie.

I have been doing quite a lot of writing by this stage, and I head out for a walk further afield. Lunch is a late affair, and actually rolled into dinner.

I consider Imperial Hotel foyer, but return to Frauenhuber, and order a Pork Cordon Bleu with roast potatoes – Pork Schnitzel folded over with ham and cheese, and breadcrumbed. Local Mineral-water, aquarelle which is very good.

Then work on a little walk up Kartnerstrasse, and end up in Bristol Bar in foyer.

Use a half-price drink voucher on a pricey Armagnac Janneau. I have recently acquired a taste for Armagnac, after a dinner with a friend in Sydney.

There are some rather loud nouveau-riche Russians, who make the waiter stand there whilst they order enough drinks to start a war and debate the finer points of alcohol, the Hungarian waiter normally a decent chap, apologises about my 15 minute wait.

I have a Weingut Jurtschitsch, Langenlois rather drinkable, with some almond flavours, that are killed by the fact it is by the glass. I won’t order a bottle as I won’t drink it all now.

Meanwhile these Russians make a racket like they have no etiquette.

For a Cold War parallel ‘double-act’, some loud mid-west Americans were swearing in the bar itself. Decorum is dead. Sounds like they are on about ‘Dancing with the stars’.

I like Austrians, as they have a strong culture, and they are trying to protect it against homogenisation. People are often different home than abroad.

On a disparate track — I often ask the very Freudian question why are people piercing and tattooing themselves, is it self-harm, reclaiming or revenge against baby boomers?

I’m about to leave the Russian group to clear the bar, and retire to sleep, instead I go to the room and write until 3.00 am CET.

Oh, dear. Inspired…

Christopher

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