Thursday Activities

The bottom floor of this building houses the Cafe Rüdigerhof.

Imagine a doubling of all the things that make OKC's Red Cup such a cool place, and you'll come close to Cafe Rüdigerhof. Same sort of freakazoid customers, only more of them. Bigger place. Nicer outdoor setting (the trees to the left of this photo shade the patio area, where we sat last night for many hours with our friend Klausi.)

You can get all the different kinds of coffee you want. Tea. Alcohol! (I cannot for the life of me figure out why coffee houses in OKC don't also serve hootch. WTF?)

And, unlike OKC where they roll up the goddamned sidewalks about 9 or 10 every night, this place stays open late.



This is a pic I downloaded from Flickr.

It shows the patio area, the part you can't see in my pic above.

This shot was taken very early in the morning, but imagine this place on a warm August night, the patio filled with people.

Klausi is a regular at the Cafe Rüdigerhof, such to the extent that he even has a drink named after him: Klausigeschpritzer, which is 1/8 liter of white wine and about 1/4 liter of mineral water. It's more refreshing than something you'd drink if you want to get wasted, which makes it perfect for an evening at one of Vienna's coolest gathering spots.

Earlier in the day, we'd intended to visit a nearby famous monastery where the chanting monks once produced a record that was a big best-seller. But the car had a flat, and as is often the case, the spare was flat, too. The Austrian version of AAA came to our rescue but by that time it was too late to visit the monastery. Maybe later in the week.

In the afternoon we met B's parents and her sister at a Heurige (wine tavern) for lunch and conversation. It was kind of steamy outside, though we were sitting in the shade.