Notes of Concern….
……Jackson Blair
Vienna and Christmas 2009
My wife and I planned to spend the Christmas holiday this year in Vienna, Austria. We made our plans months in advance and were to be met there by another couple of our friends.
We were to leave home on Sunday and drive to Logan Airport to catch a flight to Washington, DC. We planned to spend the night at a hotel at Dulles Airport and catch a flight on Monday to Vienna.
On Saturday night we found ourselves listening to weather reports that were not at all encouraging. A nor’easter was heading our way. Announcer after announcer said driving would become hazardous, if not impossible, after midnight. I interpreted that to mean that driving to Boston the next morning from north central Massachusetts would be a nightmare.
So with a brief sixty-minute warning to the wife, and a quick call to the driver who planned to take us to the airport the following morning, we were instead en route on Saturday night. Even the driver was pleased at the thought that he did not need to fight the predicted weather disaster the next morning but could drop us off at an airport hotel and be back in his own home before the snow would begin to fall.
Well, the last part was a safe bet. I was in a hotel at $169 that I hadn’t planned on needing, my driver was indeed home safe in his bed, and whatever snow was predicted for north central Massachusetts failed to arrive at all. I should have seen this as an omen!
Undaunted, I decided not to let this ruin our trip. So we ordered up some room service (burgers and fries!) and watched a movie we had wanted to see when it was playing in area theaters, Julie and Julia. It was great fun and the hotel only charged me $15 for the privilege of watching it.
I must admit we had a room facing the city of Boston. We looked out over the river where the city was proclaimed to be on the other side. Out our window what we saw were dark clouds, wind whipping trees, and the bare outline of a city. For this fabulous view the hotel clipped us another $20 above the normal room rate. At least if we had been looking out the other side (the cheaper side) we could have watched the skies over the airport where all flights had been canceled. Now that would have been a view worth $20.
Snow did come in Boston but nothing even close to the hysterical predictions I heard on television. In fact, I was so suspicious I went back in the newspaper to try to see if Hyatt was the sponsor of the weather report. They certainly benefited from it.
The next day dawned and as we had expected almost all morning flights had been canceled. Aha. We had a 6PM flight that was the first flight to Washington’s Dulles airport that had NOT been canceled.
A conundrum presented itself. Hyatt wanted me to vacate my room with the fabulous view at noon. That would leave me six hours to kill before flight time. I knew that Boston's Logan Airport was jam packed with thousands of stranded passengers, many of who had slept on the floor, and none of who were happy.
The plan: avoid spending six hours with an angry crowd. The problem: how to convince Hyatt that a late check out gesture would be a nice thing, in the Christmas spirit and all!
Right.
They generously suggested it would be extraordinarily gracious of them to permit me to stay in my room with the view until 1PM. After 1PM I could stay as long as I wanted for the generous fee of $25 per hour (I didn’t even mention the view for fear the price would escalate as you could actually make out a few buildings by that time in the morning).
I calmly suggested that wasn’t a very gracious response. In an effort at more graciousness they edged check out up to 2PM. Feeling particularly successful at negotiating I sweet-talked them to a 3PM check out and promised I would close the drapes and not enjoy the view. They might as well have screamed “checkmate” when they smiled and said chwck out one minute after three would result in a full additional charge of $169 (plus taxes of course).
Who knew there would be such a demand on the rooms at the Hyatt in the middle of the afternoon? Perhaps they had a “day rate” about which I did not know. You know, for those short meetings that sometimes occur midday in hotels around the world.
So at precisely 2:59PM my wife and I dragged all our baggage to the lobby and plopped down in two comfortable chairs, facing the reception desk, as I fully planned to stare at the clerk for another complete hour. At 4PM, my eyes were watering from all the staring; we took the shuttle from the hotel to the airport.
What a surprise! No charge for the shuttle. The Christmas spirit had grabbed the Hyatt staff. Things were looking up.
We entered Logan airport and went to the check-in desk for Jet Blue. We had our reservations for two months and I had called to confirm two days earlier. Airlines like you to call and confirm because they may have forgotten you were flying with them even though they had your money, earning interest, for sixty days. They also like you to call because it helps tie up their lines so they can appear to be a very popular carrier. They know every time someone tells a story at a cocktail party about how long they held online for an operator at Jet Blue all the other guests make a mental note to purchase their next ticket on that classy carrier.
After joining in what could best be called a “cattle call” line that stretched back and forth three times in the airport lobby, my wife and I made our way to an agent. This agent was not cheery. She had been beaten and assaulted verbally for well over twelve hours by stranded passengers and she didn’t care who we were, where we were going, or what question we might have.
She took both our passports, weighed the luggage, and began stapling baggage tags to my ticket.
This was the first clue.
Four baggage tags stapled to only one of the tickets when the airline only permitted you to check two pieces per person. My wife was oblivious to all of this but she doesn’t travel much. I saw it as a flagrant abuse of her right to have her own two luggage receipts when she landed in Austria.
The second clue.
Our cheerless clerk said “excuse me, I will be back in a moment” and departed the ticket area. I mean: gone, vanished, invisible, outta there! The second clue something was amiss was her using the phrase “excuse me”. Seasoned travelers know that all airlines have outlawed the phrase “excuse me”. Not done. Never. Unquestionably unacceptable. I was beginning to sweat. My wife was reading a book on her Kindle.
The third clue.
The aforementioned disappearance of the ticket agent. This was no “potty stop”. Something was amiss. Meanwhile, I had an idea of how Marie Antoinette must have felt as she was hauled through town in a farm wagon while villagers through tomatoes at her. What did she think. The tomatoes were slowing up the process but on the other hand the guillotine awaited at the end of the road. She probably hoped for more vegetables.
Behind my wife, who is still reading her Kindle, three full lines of unhappy people, waiting for their turn with my ticket agent, saw that we had seemingly driven her away from her appointed rounds. They were not happy. I was not happy. I think the wife was reading a sad novel because she didn’t look very happy either.
Just before the crowds rioted the erstwhile ticket agent returned. She handed me my ticket. She pointed out the baggage claim stubs. She told me at which gate I would find my plane. She told me my seat number.
This was the fourth clue that something really dire was going to happen. Everything she said or did was directed at me.
She then turned to my wife and asked her to please accompany me, the ticketed and checked in passenger, through security to the departure gate because, and she was so sorry to have to say this, my wife was on “standby”.
Standby!
Dear readers, that was the end of any further Kindle reading. The wife was in assault mode. The only question was whether I was to be assaulted or whether Sally Sad Face was going to get it. I voted for Sally because she was behind a very secure looking counter and I didn’t think the damage would be life threatening. Maybe just a short trip to the hospital.
Upon arriving at the gate I took a seat and started to read the newspaper. Evidently, in the handbook for Knights who rescue Damsels, this is not what you do when a damsel is in distress. I was supposed to go up to the check- in counter where some relative of Sally Sad Face was working. I missed the clue. The wife decided to tilt at this particular windmill herself.
The best response she got, not the first or second try, was “if he is going you will be going so please take your seat”. My wife was partially assuaged. Now she at least knew they were not going to let me go without her. I was not assuaged as I, the one with the ticket the seat, and 100% more baggage stubs than the law allowed, was now faced with being left behind, too.
When the situation was finally resolved my wife was permitted on the flight but was no longer sitting with me. To this day I continue to marvel how Sally Sad Face knew that nine hours with an angry wife sitting beside you was simply too much damage to inflict on a frequent flier.
Obviously Sally looked around for someone who had abused her over the many flight cancellations and arranged for my wife to sit beside him. My faith in Karma was building.
The flight from Washington’s Dulles airport to Vienna was very nice. The food was good and the movies interesting. Please keep in mind that I was sitting six rows in front of my wife and therefore unable to serve as the recipient of her thoughts on the lovely check-in procedure we had just completed.
As I anticipated, nine hours later when we met up in the Vienna airport she was rested and back to her usual wonderful personality.
When we landed and went through customs we were met by a car and driver the hotel had kindly arranged. I was impressed he was driving a lovely and very clean Mercedes wagon. As my time in Vienna lengthened I came to realize almost all taxi’s were Mercedes Benz cars and I had not received any special treatment at all. It was of interest to us that cars considered luxury vehicles in our country are pretty commonly driven in Europe by people in all socio-economic levels.
On arriving at the hotel, we were met by the assistant manager who presented us with a gift one of our son’s had arranged and then took us to the club floor for check in. I was particularly pleased that they had our room ready at 9AM. After an overnight flight, I really like to take a couple of hours of sleep to get my body cycle back on track.
So while my wife got ready for bed and I took a shower I had thoughts of a great nap followed by lunch somewhere in Vienna. As I came out of the bathroom in my undershorts and a tee shirt ready for bed I found a strange man on the floor hammering on something. I looked around and found my wife sitting on the edge of the bed in a robe. She was exhausted. I was exhausted. The guy on the floor was not exhausted. In fact he planned on replacing the built-in refrigerator.
My hope that this would be a simple event, over in a few minutes, was not to be realized. It seems our refrigerator did not want to be replaced. So he hammered, jiggled, bounced, swore, and was a general nuisance for almost 45 minutes. He sweat enough that I actually thought about offering him the use of our shower.
So much for the quick nap to replenish our energy. Eventually, we were able to catch a nap. Well, I thought we could. I had only been asleep for a short time when the telephone rang. It was the Concierge Desk letting me know they were planning a fire alarm test. They were nice enough to say I could participate in an evacuation, or not, if I desired. Take a guess!
I had done some studying and gotten some recommendations on restaurants. Two months earlier I had made reservations at a restaurant that was famous for outstanding Viennese cooking as well as the ambiance of the restaurant and the beautiful oriental rugs. Their specialty was wiener schnitzel.
“Wiener schnitzel!” Who would ever name a food wiener schnitzel? Who would eat a food called that. Not me. They can schnitzel a wiener any way they want but I am taking a regular old hot dog on a bun with ketchup!
We went by taxi and entered the restaurant full of great expectations. It looked a lot like a bar to me, but they were pleased to see us and took us immediately to our table. They didn’t even have to check the reservation list.
I was surprised that we were the only people in the restaurant, as I understood the reputation to be outstanding. We ordered and as we began to eat my wife mentioned there were no oriental rugs. Since they had made such an effort to include them in the restaurant description, we both thought that a bit odd. Being a cynic I just assumed it was another example of untruth in advertising.
You may be wondering why anyone would select a place to eat based on a description of their rugs. I was wondering that, too.
As we finished our meal, which was quite good, and departed the restaurant, we noticed another door in the anteroom. It led to another restaurant downstairs. As we looked down the stairs we could clearly see a beautiful oriental rug. We had just dined in the wrong restaurant. So much for planning. And now I more clearly understood why they mentioned the oriental rugs in the description I had read.
I made a reservation in a restaurant that had, among other qualities, oriental rugs.
I entered a restaurant that was without, among other things, oriental rugs.
Hello! Why did I remain clueless? I choose to attribute it to jet lag.
Friends from Winchendon arrived the following day and we had lunch at the Sacher Hotel, famed for the Sacher Torte dessert. A very nice restaurant made all the more memorable by being the place we were supposed to be.
And not an oriental rug in sight.
That night we had tickets for the opera Hansel & Gretel. My wife and I were pleased it was showing because it was an opera we had taken our own children to on Christmas in New York City many years before. We had tickets purchased about thirty days in advance.
Our seats were so far to the right of the stage it was impossible to see half of the action on the stage. So we settled in to our "limited view seats" to enjoy 100% of the music and 50% of the action. They should have called them "Doofuss seats" in honor or people crazy enough to pay for them.
Since it was Christmas Eve we went to St Stephan’s Cathedral for the midnight mass. The Cathedral was dark and dank. The only seats we could find were on a bench against a cold wall. I estimate there were about 2000 people in attendance. Whoever said that body heat could warm a room never set foot in a European cathedral. The heat from 2000 bodies provided no relief at all.
They had television screens on various columns in the Cathedral and I could clearly see that the choir was not in beautiful robes but rather most of them were in ski jackets.
The ladies who spoke or read during the mass all had on their winter coats.
So the four of us found ourselves in one of the world’s most famous cathedrals. One of us was Jewish. One was Bapt"ist. One remembers people from a previous life. And one was pretty much a "depth charge Christian! We had previously discussed whether it would be appropriate to take communion if it were to be offered. Two of us decided it would be OK if confession was not required in advance.
On a more serious note, the service was really beautiful because thousands of people were there to celebrate the birth of Christ. The voices reciting the mass or singing the hymns, bouncing off vast columns and high ceilings, provided such a rush of good feelings that everyone seemed moved.
It was easy to see why the great cathedrals, and the mega churches that have grown popular in the U.S. have touched so many lives. The sheer magnitude of the experience is incredible. A vast community of worshipers is a mighty powerful force.
Add to this the sonorous bells peeling from the steeple prior to the beginning of the Mass and the depth and volume of the massive organ in the cathedral, and it would be hard not to find this a very special experience.
The next night we had tickets for the Nutcracker Ballet at the famous Vienna Opera House. These tickets had been purchased on the day ticket sales began, about a month before.
The opera house is a fantastic and historical place where so many of the great composers actually presented their works for the very first time. The opera house has seven tiers of seats, all organized in a horseshoe arrangement. We were seated in tier seven!
We were also seated completely on the right and could see only about one third of the stage. It is one thing to see 50% of an opera and quite another to see 33% of a ballet. Imagine watching one toe shoe, or the hemline of a tutu and never getting the full effect. Then there are the glimpses of bodies flying through your vision, when you haven’t seen the launch. It was all a bit surreal.
When we arrived at the opera house and were checking our coats a seemingly brash young couple came up beside me, pushed in front, and twice rammed a tennis racket into my side. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would bring a tennis racket to the opera. He seemed quite boorish. So I made a fast judgment about him that would later prove wrong.
After climbing to the seventh tier and being seated three rows from the ceiling, where I fully expected an oxygen mask to drop at any time with instructions for me to affix it to my face before trying to help any children, who should come down the very steep aisle but the tennis pro! He couldn’t find his seats. He was in need of help! An opportunity for the fellow from America! Carpe Diem!
He approached me and asked for help. Just when I was preparing to tell him what he could do with his tickets, and his tennis racket, he explained that he was from Cypress and that this was his first time in Vienna.
I cut him some slack.
After all, he presented me with the opportunity to show him I was not an “ugly American.” I looked at his tickets and informed him that he had the two seats right in front of me. He was very grateful. After taking his seat he explained that he loved America. I watched while he took a picture of his wife in their seats and then as she took a picture of him. I felt so great to have been able to help.
He had attended undergraduate school in Ohio and had a doctoral degree from Duke. We had a great chat.
When the lights went down and the curtain went up, I sat back to enjoy the ballet. Quickly I remembered that if I leaned forward I could see 1/3 of it, so that is what I did. Sitting back in my seat I could see none of it. For those of you who hate ballet and have a wife who loves ballet, get seats in the peanut gallery. She will spend the entire night leaning out over the rail and you can sit back and enjoy a snooze.
At about that same time a very Germanic looking lady usher came down the aisle with her flashlight. She spoke a few words to my friends from Cypress, and then moved them out of their seats, pushed them up the aisle, and as I watched she reseated them in an area with an even more limited view.
My status as a nice American turned quickly to that of the “ugly American.” I could only hope he thought I had retaliated against his tennis racket behavior rather than that I simply did not know what I was doing.
Relationships between Cypress and the United States may be seriously in jeopardy.
On Christmas morning we got up quite early to go and hear the Vienna Boys’ Choir at Christmas Mass in one of the palace churches. I should mention here that for three of our party of four we were setting a new record for church attendance.
I did not realize that Mass in a palace meant that you sit in different small rooms and listened rather than in one large room where you could listen and watch. Only the palace owner and his family would actually sit in the room where the Mass took place.
Fortunately, in a bow to the modern era they had installed a large screen television in our little room so we could actually see what was going on. It did occur to me that I would be better off in my recliner at home watching on a big screen television! Alas, not one of the choices.
The Vienna Boys’ Choir had an orchestra of thirty players and the entire Mass was very impressive and beautiful. For all my complaining I must admit I truly enjoyed it.
The afternoon of Christmas day we went to see the Lippanzer stallions. This was not a performance. We went to see them “exercise to music.” That was a nice way of saying that we would pay to sit in a balcony seat in a riding arena while the horses trotted around below us.
There will be no bank failures in Vienna!
People pay to watch horses exercise. People pay for seats so high that oxygen might be required. People pay for limited view seats at operas and concerts.
With all this excitement, and in a city so beautiful what do you suppose we did for Christmas evening?
The four of us went back to our hotel.
We canceled our dinner reservations at a chic restaurant and we ate cheeseburgers in the hotel cafe! Some of us even selected diet cokes as the drink of choice. One of us stuck to a martini and a good Cuban cigar.
Guess who!
While it might not have been the best meal of our trip it certainly was the most reasonable. And we could see everything that was happening, we were seated a sea level, and we did not have to mortgage the house to pay the tab.
As our friends departed for a visit to Rimini, Italy, my wife and I headed to Virginia where we would spend New Year’s Eve with our children and grandchildren.
The airlines had some very special plans for our trip home. I have outlined those outrageous experiences in a separate column. I hope you had a chance to read it.
My New Year’s resolution is to give up international travel.
Like my resolutions in previous years regarding diet and exercise, this one will be forgotten about January 5th.
