During my first visit to Vienna in 1994, Paul and I were taken out to a heuriger by my new friends Evelyn and Gunther. (I wrote about that night here.) During the course of the evening, Guthner said to us that if we left early enough, we could visit the Donut Room. Keep in mind that he spoke as little English as we did German..."The Donut Room?" I asked mimicking as much Viennese pronunciation as I could. He nodded enthusiastically and Paul and I looked at each other, confused. "Donut Room?" we said to each other wonderingly.
This being my second week in Vienna, I'd already learned about the great love the Viennese have for pastries, so I thought maybe this was simply a bakery or cafe with an English name, a late night place to go for coffee and a munchie after so much wine. I'd seen a number of establishments with English names that week, so I shrugged and said that would be nice. It was clear that we were confused, so either he or Evelyn (I can't remember which) opened the pocketsize travel book I'd brought with me, flipped through the pages and returned the book to me opened to a page about the Donauturm (DOH-now-tourm). The Danube Tower! I explained what a donut was and we all had a good laugh.
We never made it to the Donut Room—the gemütlichkeit at the heuriger was just too hard to leave—but this is a story that will live forever in my memory. Unlike a lot of people, I'm not afraid of making language faux pas because they make travel stories so much more fun to tell.
During the same evening, after we'd eaten a vast dinner of every conceivable Bavarian dish, I being a stupid American, asked the waitress if they had doggy bags. She had no idea what I was saying as she spoke no English whatsoever, so I tried my hand at my nearly non-existent German:
"Um... Hundchen.... Tasche?"
She looked at me as if she were going to burst out laughing and said something to the others at the table. Gunther said,
"She wants to know why you want a bag made out of a puppy." We all laughed and I continued.
"Sie essen...... sehr woll.... take heim..."
"Oh!" she chirpped brightly. "Teeeen voil!"
I never took it with me—it's just not done—instead, I took with me the memories of a wonderful night spent with affable and entertaining people, homey music, great food and abundant laughter, discovering first-hand that language doesn't matter when people share a spirit of tolerance and humor.
