A Weekend in Vienna

merci beaucoup monsieur hamidm!

i dont suppose at your age--and with the formidable mrs hamidm by your side--you had the opportunity to sample paris` fabled nightlife? no visits to the moulin rouge or the clubs?

Hmm...Schwarzenegger hardly counts as a great Austrian! Wittgenstein on the other hand...and Karl Popper...and Mozart...etc.

It is the most beautiful city I`ve yet been to in my life...

hamidm...any tips before i go to paris? ;-)

Re: # 11

naqshbandi,

..... sure ... take lots of money - a cup of coffee and a croissant will set you back 7 euros ! ....... going from america everything seemed to be so darn expensive but you are probably used to it ........ stay in the latin quarter if you can and if you are interested in going to places like versailles and the louvre, buy the tickets in advance - you will save yourself a couple of hours ..... we had a nice one bedroom apartment (citadines) and it cost us about $265 a night - it had a kitchen, a living room with a sofa bed, and a fairly decent sized bedroom .......... of course they didn`t make the beds or give you fresh towels every day, but it was quite adequate - the location was fantastic with a ten minute walk to notre dame and ten minutes to the louvre ..........also, get a metro pass - it is fast and very efficient (much better than ny and london)........ it is a beautiful city- very grand - and contrary to popular myth the people are quite friendly and helpful ....... of course there are no signs in english, but i think that`s okay ......... we spent at least four hours a day sitting in the cafes and watching the `traffic` - it was very relaxing .......... mrs hamidm was so impressed that she wants to go back and stay for a month - i am going to buy a lottery ticket ........

........ based on your recommendation we will be sure to visit vienna on our next trip to europe ........

Very nice Asif. Perhaps the greatest sons of the fatherland are Schwarzenegger, the President of California, and from the Mirasis - Wolfgang Mozart (did you know that every 4th male Austrian is either Wolfgang or Franz), Schubert, Strauss, and from the al-Qaedaborg branch, Austria produced such luminaries as Adolf and Globocnik, and my favorite Austrian was Otto Neurath. I spent a good part of late 80s going between London and Heidelberg/Mannheim and from HD to all over. I love that part. Are you living in Frankfurt now? I have family in Germany.

Asif - Thanks for a nice overview of Vienna. I will be in Europe in the next month or so for some business and family engagements. Hopefully, I will include Vienna in my list of places to explore.

Very nice picture.

hamidm....thanks...and that was hilarious! really good. you should seriously thinkof writing it up for chowk on the front page..expanded of course! I hope to go to Paris at the end of the month insha Allah! Yeh kids nowadays aren`t interested in Culture so much...!!

p.s. what is French wine like?
others praise it to high heaven whilst my friend said it tasted like `vinegar`--even the expensive kind.

being myself teetotal i don`t know...
oh and you never mentioned french women...ooh la la...and had a fixation for French guys butts!

naqshbabdi,

great write-up ........ i just got back yesterday from a 5 day vacation in paris with mrs hamidm and my younger daughter ...... do you want to know what we did ?....... this won`t take long ...

......... we went through the louvre in less than 2 hours - looked at venus di milo and mona lisa and my daughter said ``wow! .... now can we go shopping`` .......... i tried to tell her about louis xvi and the revolution and all that, but she wasn`t interested in stale history - all she wanted to do was go to h&m ......... so we went to h&m and shopped for 6 hours and they bought stuff that you can buy for half the price in the us ...... the next day we tried to take the metro to versailles but got lost so we took a taxi - it took us three hours and fifty euros to get there and we quickly went through the king`s apartment, looked at his bed and peeked out of his window at his famous gardens .......... my daughter said, `` wow! ...i am hungry and i hate my sunglasses`` ............. so we bought yet another pair of sunglasses from one of the hundreds of africans hawking watches and little eiffel towers outside the gates - he wanted 20 euros, i offered him five and he countered with ten ........ we had a deal ............ then we went for lunch and look at the waiters and the french men who, ``look so cute and really know how to dress``......... the two of them agreed that i was the fattest person in paris and i called french men purse-carrying sissies who walked as if they had a coin stuck in their crack ........... mrs hamidm said i was jealous and the daughter agreed ........ i told them that the french were skinny because they drank a lot of wine and smoked cigarettes - so i had another glass of wine .... and another, and another ........ it was fun even though i don`t think i lost any weight .........

.......... the next day we climbed the steps to sacre cure ... my daughter said, ``wow!..... i need to buy something for allison and monique and mary and jenna ..... but mary is not my friend any more so i won`t buy her anything``.......i was relieved !.......so we climbed down the steps and we bought stuff - little jewellery boxes, boxer shorts and a belt ......... on the way to the metro we spotted a quaint little `indien and paistanais` resturant (himalaya) set up in a narrow alley at a rather steep angle ..... the owner was from lahore, the waiter was from amritsar and the food was horrible ........ but the view of purse carrying french men walking by with their tight little butts was great ........ i had four indian beers at six euros a pop - the beer was good but i felt bad for contributing to the enemy`s war economy ........

....... we went to the pantheon to look at all the dead people - my daughter posed with the remains of marie currie and i tried to tell her about rousseau and his influence on the french revolution - she asked me if he had killed louis xvi ............ so we went shopping and hung around the sidewalk cafes, eating baguettes and cheese and tomatoes, sitting on tiny lttle chairs that only frenchmen can fit into and looked at the people walking by ......... spring time in paris is beautiful ............

Re: # 5

Hamidm Sahib:

You really spoil your daughters.

Zeana beti, now here is your great opportunity to get more than even.

Re: # 9

anil mian,

.... of course i spoil my daughters - they are just like zeena ............ the minute i say something they don`t like, they start crying and make me feel like a jerk .......... it is tough living in a household with three women who always seem to get their way ........... that`s why i pick on zeena ......... poor girl, she is a standin for the women who torment me daily ..........

...........here is an example: i get up at eight, go out and walk around town to see a church that they didn`t want to see(architecture is not as thrilling as shoes, it seems); sit down at a cafe and have a ten euro cup of coffee with a croissant, come back and wake them up at nine, walk to the louvre to buy tickets so that the mem sahibs do not have to stand in line, come back at ten to find one still in bed and the other whining about paris water that makes the hair frizzy ! ........ at eleven they are squabbling over the hair curler and blaming me and louis xv for the stupid french electrical outlets; by about eleven thirty they are ready to go when all of a sudden they realize that they don`t have the right shoes and so decided to change their pants and shirts and sweaters ! ............ i decided to take an extra beincar and another lipitor to calm my nerves and prevent the impending heart attack ...........

......... but i must admit that a couple of hours later they did look good standing in front of venus de milo in their new shoes and frizzzless hair ........ my daughter said ``wow! ..... now why is this stupid statue so famous - did louis xvi make it ? ...... i am hungry`` ........ i had no answer, but i must admit i had the same question - i just didn`t want to appear to be dumb by asking it ............

Nice article. Naqshbandi, check out trip planner and trip journal at travel.yahoo.com as it might be a good place to save your memories and also inspire others.

I have yet to develop my photos which I will do so and add them but here is a photo of the Hofburg:

Reminds me of an after-dinner showing of someone`s holiday`s photographs ...

Correction: `sealing` should be `ceiling`!

Any one else been there? What were your impressions? Are there many desis there or was my first impression correct?

The saddest sight was at one of the underground stations: a young man, in his early 20s, begging and scavanging inside rubbish-bins for food. The sight broke my heart. Surely in a country as wealthy as this, with a highly developed social security and welfare system, no one needs to be begging?