I’ve been in Vienna, Austria for the past two days attending the European Computer Audit and Control and Security Conference. I’m doing a presentation on the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard and generally soaking up knowledge about how auditors think. Mildly creepy.
Alas, due to work deadlines and conference schedules. I have barely had the chance to poke my head out the hotel doors so far. Until tonight.
Tonight I managed to do my first Austrian thing. I ventured out of the hotel and wandered a couple of blocks til I found a Viennese coffeehouse called the Cafe Prueckel. I wish I had the words to describe it. It was built in 1909 and had very high ceilings, maybe 15 feet high and you could tell that at one time it had been very elegant but now it was kinda run down and beat up. It had 1950′s era furniture, thread bare couches and formica tables. Weird. It was full of folks visiting and reading the newspaper and surfing the net from their notebook PCs. etc. There was a woman playing a piano. Like most such places, there were piles of freebie zines and newspapers to read. None of it in English alas. There was also a table full of lobby cards for various events coming to the area. Again. Nothing in English. There was modern art on the walls, which I can only characterize as pseudo-abstract-edgy-impressionist.
Unlike most coffee houses in the US, This one had waitstaff. And they were dressed in formal attire, which was kind of bizarre considering the slightly downscale feel of the place. Seeing the waiters running around, I figured that you had to wait to be seated. So I hung around the front door. After a few minutes it became obvious that no one was going to seat me so I stopped a waiter to ask what the drill is. I apologized for only speaking English and I asked him could I sit down anywhere and he said sure. So I picked out the a spot, near the piano, which turned out to not be the best spot for people-watching. But it was OK. The waiter brought me a menu, which alas, had nary a word of English on it. So I asked the waiter if I could have a cappuccino and he said of course. Then I asked him about dessert. Well, this pushed him past his command of English, so he motioned for me to follow him to the dessert case. I scanned through a bunch of stuff, but the one that caught my eye was sachertorte. I’d read in my tourist guide book that it was a famous dessert in Vienna from back in the day. So I ordered that. How to describe it. The closest I can say is that it reminded me of German chocolate cake infused with a strong apricot flavor. Yum!
So I went back to my table and listened to the woman playing jazz standards that I couldn’t quite name. I snuck peeks at the other folks in the place when I could. Very good vibe. It was a Meeting Place. Definitely a hangout where friends met and visited. It’s one of those places where the people make it worthwhile. The slightly dingy beat up decor, the crazy art, the bizarre music were all just backdrops for the real reason for being there, which was the other people.
I wished that I’d had my camera so I could take pictures. I wished that I’d had my recorder so I could sample the ambiance and the music. I wished that I’d had my notebook PC so I could write down my thoughts right then and there. But I had none of these things. So I just sat and took it all in.
I remember thinking to myself, “this is authentic, this is the real deal.” as if somehow my hangouts back home aren’t the real deal and aren’t authentic. But that’s not true. Some are and some aren’t. And I kinda got an inkling about what separates the authentic places from the not-so-real. I figured it out based on my interaction with the waiter. Despite his very limited English and my non-existent German, he managed to make me feel at home. He took his time helping me order. He went above and beyond the call of duty helping me pick out a dessert. And more importantly. He did not rush me to finish and get the hell out. I could have sat there all night and it wouldn’t have bothered him a bit I don’t think. He never once offered to brig me my bill. Nor did he keep checking on me every 5 minutes to see if I needed/wanted something more. In the US I would have called it bad service. And yet in this case, it didn’t feel like bad service at all. Maybe it was because he was always somewhere nearby. It’s not like he disappeared into the kitchen for long stretches of time. I eventually noticed that people had to ask him to bring the check. So that’s what I did too. The thing that made the place seem so authentic. The defining characteristic for it seems to be that you feel welcome to stay as log as you like.
When I think back to all the coffee places I hang out at back home, the stay-as-long-as-you-like criteria does seem to do a pretty good job of sorting out the good places from the bad. You might think this criteria would cleanly separate the independent places from the corporate chain places. But that’s not 100% the case. I can think of two coffee places in Chapel Hill alone that are proudly independent but are too cramped or otherwise uncomfortable to actually visit with friends. Likewise. I know of at least one Starbucks which is staffed with the friendliest wage slaves I have ever seen. They practically insist on getting your life story before you order your drink.
So now I’m torn. Do I go back or not? Will the repetition of going a second time ruin the experience? Will I feel bad for having wasted a night repeating something when I could have been exploring some other part of the city? Will I feel like too much of a tourist if I show up with camera and recorder and laptop? If I go back again and make a better choice of seating location, will I have the nerve to strike up a conversation with the intriguing woman reading something on her Mac Book? And will she know even a word of English?