Vienna Calling ...

I appreciate that as a freelance Goodwill Ambassador (and former international fashion model), I make a lot of demands on my bipedal attendants: I travel a great deal, I distribute food and medical relief to troubled nations, I have to be rushed to various functions with world dignitaries and heads of state, and be whisked about to photo ops - just to scratch the tip of my very big iceberg. But my bipedal attendants have been whining more than usual lately - a period roughly coinciding with our move to Bratislava - so I decided that enough was enough.

I took them to Vienna.

Vienna! - the home of sachertorte - the world's most famous chocolate cake - Mozart, waltzes, Gustav Klimt, Viennese coffee, the Vienna Boys Choir - and of course, wiener schnitzel. Unfortunately, of all these things, we only managed to have a coffee; there was a humongous line-up for the sachertorte, we skipped the museums, the Mozart we found was made of cardboard, my male bipedal attendant has 2 left feet and couldn't waltz to save his soul, we saw lots of boys but none were singing, and since wiener schnitzel first saw the light of day as a calf on a farm, we couldn't have any of that. Thank goodness the coffee was good!

Because we'll have other opportunities to visit Vee, we decided to make our first outing a walking tour and save the museums for a rainy day - which my bipedal attendants reminded me should be any day now. Personally, I don't think my bipedal attendants have earned the right to stand in the presence of Dürer, Rubens, Rembrandt, Raphael, Vermeer, Titian, Velasquez - and Klimt.

So we walked and we walked and we walked. Of course, my female bipedal attendant developed a dozen blisters during the course of the day - which we still haven't heard the end of - because her feet have yet to be acclimatized to wearing shoes rather than flip-flops (bears don't even wear footwear & I don't complain!), but in between the "rest stops" for coffee and beer and a pee, we did manage to see a lot.

And because we'll be back soon (there were no inspectors on our train to validate our tickets so they're good for another 30 days!), I'll just mention what for many Viennese is the very soul of their city: the Stephansdom - the cathedral of St. Stephen. Dominating the centre of the city - it is the Eiffel Tower of Vienna - its first incarnation was as a simple parish church in 1147 which itself had been built over an ancient Roman cemetery. Over the years it saw much rebuilding, expanding and redesigning in the Romanesque and later Gothic styles. It is now very big and very awesome - even by a bear's standards!

Its highest point - the South Tower - stands 136 meters (445 feet) tall and served as an observation point and military command post during both the Siege of Vienna (1529) and the Battle of Vienna (1683). The North Tower stands at about half its rival's height - money being tight and all, it never reached its intended grandeur. There is a story though that its architect killed himself over a girl before he could complete the tower and, as a hopeless romantic myself, I much prefer that tale. Poor architect!

It's also said that, one day, Beethoven saw birds flying out of the church's belfries (the Stephansdom has 23 bells!) but he couldn't hear a thing - and that was the moment when he realized that he had gone totally deaf. Poor Ludwig! The largest bell (weighing over 20,000 kilos) was actually cast from cannons seized from Muslim invaders - one of the best examples of recycling I can think of. One of the lesser bells is known as the bieringerin ("beer ringer") which was once rung for last call at the city's taverns. We could use one of those in our house - but maybe not as big.

At one time, a mastodon bone hung over the main entrance to the church, so that doorway is now known as the Giant's Door. Poor elephant! On either side of this doorway are curious features - curious even for a church. Embedded in one wall are two brass ells - the ell being a unit of measurement roughly calculated from the shoulder to elbow. These brass markers provided the approved, standardized lengths for measuring drapery and linen in the city. On the other side of the door and also carved into the wall is another indentation (see photo, above left). Those people who believed that their bakers had cheated them by giving them small loaves of bread, could check these questionable loaves against this standard measure. With all this measuring of cloth and linen, I wonder if anyone actually went to the Stephansdom to pray?

There's so much more I could tell you about the cathedral - there are lots of miraculous stories and legends attributed to it - and about Vienna for that matter, but it'll all have to wait until we pop back for another visit. With Vienna only 1 hour away - in the immortal words of Falco (Mr. "Rock Me Amadeus") - Vienna is always calling.

Burčiak & Beer for a Bear

“Le Beaujolais nouveau est arrivé!”

... well, not really because it isn't the 3rd Thursday of November, but ever since I walked Paris' catwalks as an international fashion model, the arrival of those coveted bottles of vin de primeur has always been a day of celebration (with a day of hangovers the following day) in our household.

I confess that I was a little relieved when I heard that Slovakia produces its own wine and hosts several wine festivals throughout the year and, as I reminded my bipedal attendants, this alone should take the sting out of leaving Spain. This weekend saw Bratislava's "Rača Vintage Festival", so I thought I'd give my attendants - who are still sulking about the weather - a little treat by taking them for an afternoon of tasting the region's (self-) acclaimed burčiak or "immature wine".

Of course it rained, although temperatures did climb - for a short period - to a downright tropical 12º C.

Slovakia's Small Carpathians region produces 0.3 % of the wine in Europe and most of it is consumed domestically although a little bit is exported, notably to Japan. I would remind you that David Hasselhoff is big in Japan too. Oenophiles in the area suggest that the best way to taste the local wine is to visit the private cellars of those vintners who started up their businesses after the fall of Communism. Instead, we took the #5 tram to the village of Rača.

I mentioned that burčiak is an immature or young wine - so young that, from a scientific perspective, it might be a little premature if not ambitious to even call it "wine". The wine - or what might be more accurately called "broth" - is, in fact, only drawn from its primary fermenters after about a week of fermenting. At this point, there's still a lot of yeast and sediment in the wine. Bottles of the murky burčiak sold at the festival - mostly 2-litre plastic pop bottles - proudly display a good inch or so of sediment at the bottom and "floaters". Don't ask me what those are.

Because of the high sugar content (remember, the wine is still fermenting), the wine is very gassy (just like my male bipedal attendant!), so you have to stop about every 30 minutes to unscrew the bottle caps - lest there be a burčiak explosion. In fact, it's been suggested that the etymology of the word burčiak is "explode" or "stir up". The other option is to finish your 2-litre bottle within that time frame - which I think lots of people do.

The wine sells here for just pennies a glass or about 2 to 3 euros for a 2-litre bottle but, after having sampled both the red and the white (yes, that is white wine in the above-right photo) what seems like an outrageously low price is actually quite reasonable. Certainly charging more would be criminal.

What are normally residential streets in Rača are closed off to traffic and booths are set up, so people can wander about, swig wine from bottles, stop to release gas from the bottles, and eat all manner of deep-fried doughy things, and lots of sausage. Although it only has an alcohol value of about 5%, the wine keeps fermenting in your stomach so it doesn't take long for people to get into the spirit of the new wine - the so-called "burčiak curse".

Some of my bipedal attendants' colleagues attend the festival annually and have learned to self-medicate with an anti-diarrhoeal before drinking. After trying both wines, I can easily believe that it does go right through you, which makes me wonder why I only saw 4 porta-potties the whole afternoon. Imagine: new wine and Imodium! I bet that never happens on "Beaujolais Nouveau Day".

After my 2 samples, I decided not to buy an actual bottle but took my male bipedal attendant's advice and changed my tipple to beer. Fortunately Budvar, the original Budweiser, from the Czech Republic was on tap. Unlike the American Bud - the self-styled King of Beers - its Czech forebear is the Beer of Kings. Which made it the Beer of Bears today.

A Hrad Day's Night

At the risk of sounding immodest, I’ve probably visited more castles than any other bear in the world, but all the ones I’ve seen had either been Muslim alcázars or alcazabas “appropriated” by conquering Spanish Catholic armies. Today though, I visited my first ever non-Muslim castle - what's called a hrad in Slovak - and it was quite different from the castles I saw in Spain. My female bipedal attendant was quick to point out that the sky wasn’t very pretty (she actually used the word “ugly”) but that’s hardly the fault of the castle. I have to keep telling her that we're not in Spain anymore.

The castle at Devín - barely 10 kilometres from Bratislava - is perched strategically atop a rocky cliff some 212 metres high, and the settlement of the site can be traced back to Neolithic times. Historically, if you could control this site then you could control the many trade routes which travelled along or across the Danube - especially the so-called Amber Road which ran from the Baltic to the Adriatic Sea. I love amber - especially amber cuff links, even though the colour doesn't go very well with grey flannel.

The Celts were here, as were the Romans and the Slavs, as well as lots of other people. As far as fortresses go, this one’s a survivor and has been breached, fallen, changed hands, been modified and reinforced many many times, although Napoleon did a pretty good job blowing it up in 1809. Little men shouldn’t have access to explosives.

Much of what I visited today dated to the 15th and 16th centuries but there were remains of a 9th century basilica as well as a 4th century Christian chapel which may have served the spiritual needs of the Roman legionnaires who were stationed there at that time. I guess when men aren’t thinking about killing each other, they think about their god. Or at least their place in heaven. Humans are such an odd species.

Far far below the castle flow the grey (not blue) waters of the Danube and the brown waters of the Morova Rivers. In fact, Devín Castle overlooks the confluence of these two waterways, the middle of which is actually the border with Austria. On a clear day you can see Vienna and bits of the Alps although it was clear today but we didn’t see much except grass and trees. Still though - it was Austrian grass and trees.

As a freelance Goodwill Ambassador, I am very mindful that until 1989, the Iron Curtain followed this waterline and barbed wire was strung along the banks, cutting off access to the water. I like the fact that the dissolution of centralized Communist authority is called the “Velvet Revolution” – and not just because I’m a former international fashion model and very sensitive to fabrics (although I do look very nice in velvet – especially red velvet).

As you can see, I was forced to dress weather-appropriately today, and my bipedal attendants kindly took my hoodie out of mothballs, but not without a lot of complaining about the temperature. Last weekend it was in the mid-30’s here and today it was a brisk 13 – which I admit is a pretty significant drop in temperature. Of course, listening to my female bipedal attendant, who had to wear socks and running shoes today and who hasn’t been out of flip-flops since March, you’d think the world had come to an end. Maybe she should have been there when Napoleon was blasting the castle to smithereens. That would've given her something to complain about!

A Duck, a Snail, and a Bear

A few weeks ago, I recounted part of a rather unforgettable day in Málaga where my bipedal & god-bipedal attendants and I enjoyed the city's fabulous fiesta. Odds are they don't remember too much of the day, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention that before indulging in several bottles of cartojal, we had visited the city's Alcazaba and Roman theatre, and even hiked up the hill to Gibralfaro Castle (my attendants complained the whole way) - just so that no one thinks that we (or more accurately they) are complete degenerates

That morning (pre-cartojal), I stumbled across a statue of Hans Christian Anderson. It turns out that Mr. HCA had spent some time in Spain but was most fond of Málaga. In fact, his favourite spot in the city was the English Cemetery. I think that Mr. HCA may have had some "issues" - I mean, someone capable of writing "The Little Match Girl" would probably feel comfortable in a cemetery, right?

Fortunately, there are no frozen dead little girls on this statue but, on his satchel sits the Ugly Duckling. And me on his knee.

I was quite surprised last week, after dodging autograph hounds, to come across Mr. HCA here in Bratislava. When he visited the city in 1841 he said, "If you want a fairy tale, your city is a fairy tale itself." I'll have to think about that one. It has even been suggested that a fire which had broken out in the nearby town of Devín served as an inspiration for "The Little Match Girl". He was apparently moved by the "sadness and misery there". I mean, really!

Of course, I didn't actually meet Mr. HCA but rather another statue of him: no Ugly Duckling here (or frozen dead little girls), but a snail which may refer to the snail in "The Snail and the Rose-Tree" - another thoroughly depressing tale if you like snails. And I like snails. As a freelance Goodwill Ambassador, I like everyone and I must confess that I want to like Mr. HCA too but all these stories about death and evil queens and star-crossed lovers are a little too much for me. And he didn't make any bears heroes in his stories either. In fact, in one story he even penned the line “Why, it's hot enough here to roast a bear." Roast a bear????

In any case, Mr. HCA - or at least statues of him - have provided me with a nice transition from Spain to Slovakia. Maybe a better expression would be that I feel "bookended" by him - or at least statues of him - which, as a writer, might have made him smile. Assuming he ever did smile.

A Bear in Bratislava

I thought that the photo of me with the Napoleonic soldier might throw you off but it seems that a few of my savvier readers were able to identify my new location as Bratislava (or Pressburg in German and Pozsong in Hungarian, although no one guessed those), the capital of Slovakia. I've been here for almost week now and, I must confess that I thought I’d enjoy a certain level of anonymity in this part of the world (I seldom modelled east of Milan) but as you can see from the above photo, the paparazzi always manage to find me.

I mean, as a former international fashion model I'm used to having my photo taken but this fellow was a little too much in my face.

In any case, Bratislava is going to be my den for the next 11 months and I have to say that my bipedal attendants have been awfully long in the face about the whole situation. I miss Spain too - I haven't had a manzanilla for over a week now! - but Slovakia brews excellent pivo (beer) and of course Czech beers are cheap and ubiquitous so you'd think my he-bipedal attendant would stop moping about.

There's a lot I can say about Bratislava but I think I'll pace myself a bit. I have to get a handle on the language which is a bit tricky . So far, besides pivo, all I've managed to learn is ahoy (hi), prosím (please) and d'akujem (thank you) because bears are nothing if not polite.

And I do know that "bear" is medved' and "grey" is sivý, but I'm not sure if that makes me Sivý Medved'.

So for the next little bit I'm going to work on my Slovakian as well as the attitudes of my two bipedal attendants. As a freelance Good Will Ambassador, there's always plenty of work for me to do (especially now that Angelina has repopulated the world again - I mean, she hasn't worked for months!) but this time it's a bit closer to home. Some people are just so ungrateful for the new experiences offered to them. Even if they could just learn to grin and bear it they might learn to actually like it here. And if not, I may have to hand out a few pink slips.

Where's Grey Bear?

I seem to be sitting in the hat of a Napoleonic soldier. Any guesses what city I'm in?