And….they’re gone.

Was that two weeks?  Seems to have gone by mighty fast.  I suppose time does really fly by when you’re having fun.  Having good guests usually does help to pass the time. 

There was some question about the “catastrophe” in Bled,  and I’ll get to that.  One of these days.  It’s not that all fired serious,  as it has only to do with desert.  Mind you,  I do suppose it depends on ones point of view.  Having a “desert catastrophe” could do irreparable harm to ones psyche.  Couldn’t it?

Anyway,  Travelling Companion and I were up at dark thirty this morning so that we could get her to her office early enough for me to then get back here to take our company to the airport.  Sucks to get up that early,  but the traffic was awesome.  That’s what I tell myself at least.

Most recently,  we’ve had a somewhat busy weekend here in Wienerland,  as I had secured tickets to one of the “Mozart Concerts”  at the “Musikverein” for Saturday night.  

You’re probably wondering just what the heck that could be, and suffice to say it’s one of the local concert halls,   and in spite of what is spelled out in that Wiki article in that link above,  there are actually six different halls within that one honkin’ huge building. (Not five.  Wiki is sometimes wrong you know?) 

I had ordered the tickets on Thursday to be picked up on Saturday night before the concert.  The next ever so slight challenge is to find the correct venue within the building.  It’s not an entirely self explanatory endeavour,  but we found our way after asking a couple questions. 

 

Here are our guests just before the start of the concert.

 

We were in the “Brahms” hall,  which is a fairly typical ornate kind of place.  Nothing new here.

So,  you have to understand that,  having been here in Wienerland this long, we’ve seen this particular performance either three or four times.  I think it’s three,  since the one at Schönnbrunn involved some dancing,  and since there was at least one guy prancing around in tights,  I've mostly blocked that experience from my memory.  I think I can safely say, “three”.

I try therefore to look on the whole experience with the same sort of “newness” that the musicians and conductor must try to have,  since they’re doing this gig every freakin’ night. 

This is one of the concerts that is done in “period costume”.

I just grabbed a pic from the net,  since I don’t seem to have anything decent of my own to offer.   Just so you get the idea.

Really though,  I mostly feel sorry for these poor buggers,  since they’ve all studied for years and years,  only to now put on some great heavy set of drapes straight out of “Gone With the Wind”,  along with some stupid-assed white wig.   Even my own head was starting to itch.

Of course,  these heavy costumes are a little bit more refined than the version portrayed by Carol Burnett,  but it did truly look to me like proper drapery fabric.

 

I think you get the idea.

It’s mostly done for the tourists and well, our guests had been touring around,  and they did enjoy themselves.  It was all good.

 

Even though we had had plenty of meals in restaurants,  it’s never a bad idea to take guests out to Plachutta,  which was on the agenda for last (Sunday) night.   All the vegans can look away at this point, since this is most definitely a “meat and potatoes” kind of place.  As a matter of fact,  a group sat down at a table nearby,  only to get up and leave before having ordered anything,  and since I’m slightly nosy,  and asked our waiter what the deal was, he told me they were looking for chicken.   Ha!Nope.  Sorry.  Only beef.   They even have a big diagram of an animal on the menu with all the various cuts and what they’re called.  Sort of a road map to yumminess. 

The dish that Plachutta is famous for is, of course,  Tafelspitz,  and we’ve gone to this place often enough that it feels like I’m Norm from Cheers.   Well,  it’s not exactly such that “everybody knows your name”,  but at least they now spell it correctly in their reservations program.  Small steps.

 

Above, Margaret is trying to decide if she instead wants to have Schnitzel,  but we steered her in the direction of the house specialty.  There were no regrets.

Oh,  and speaking of feeling like Norm,  when we left the waiter shook all our hands,  and thanked me for bringing our guests to Plachutta.  Too funny.  Never hurts to suck up a bit I suppose. 

That,  and having decided to eat desert first when we were in Bled a few days ago,  are a reasonable representation of the highlights for me over the last little while.  I’ll take these little boosts whenever I can.

 

Tomorrow,  I promise to hack up something on the subject of the desert “catastrophe”.   Really.  I’ll do it.

 

Thanks for looking. 

 

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