Tuesday in Vienna: Palace-hopping and Sachertorte

Tuesday was HOT in Vienna. Really hot and sweaty. It wasn't really fun dressed in wool clothing, especially strap-hanging on the underground on the afternoon commute. But, I survived.

The fun was in the evening. The company rented out the entire Albertina Museum, which was a beautiful Hapsburg palace very close to the Staatsoper. It was just a stunning venue; it really took my breath away to be in there, to be sitting in the rooms where the Hapsburgs used to hang out, dropping crumbs on their rugs, etc. We had a private tour of "Monet to Picasso: The Batliner collection", which was great. We had beautiful food and wine. The sparkling wine was good, a bit sweet.

Afterwards, I went to the Sacher Hotel, and tried the Sacher Torte, but I didn't like it. I figured out why as I read the history of the cake recipe. It's from 1832; that's the clue. Those were pre-refrigeration days. That is why it was dry and overly sweet to my modern palate. Just like Christmas fruitcakes and rumcakes and Yorkshire puddings that are traditional but nobody really thinks they are haute cuisine, I think Sacher Totre had to be strong enough to survive trans-shipment by carriage, and later by train, which took a long time. It had to be physically strong, and overly sweet in order to be self-cured (sugar cured). So for someone in the 21st Century, it's an anachronism. Well, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

I was feeling like not only eating central European food, so earlier in the day I found a Chinese buffet near Schwedenrplatz. The Wien Messe food lines were ridiculous, so I abandoned that place and jumped on the U-bahn.

Day one of EAGE was fine, it was busy and a long day to be on one's feet. OMV hired ~20 year old feamle models dressed in coveralls (but only the trousers, mind you) and tight tank tops to hang around their booth, and I didn't actually expect it from a major European corporation, it was not at all PC for the year 2011; maybe for the year 1975. Petrobras or PEMEX, yes, I would expect it from them. A bit distracting, but not in a bad way. This actor who was working for them reciting their little corporate speech was intoning it all day long, it must have been so boring. Poor guy, I thought, he must be a drama student, and this is how he has to pay the bills. I wonder if he speaks English, or whether he is reciting English phonetically, like ABBA used to sing.