GAWA Day #41: Vienna--The Best City in the World

The Quality of Life Index is used by Mercer to rank 230 cities.  New York City is given a rating of 100, and ends up as #44 on the list.  For seven straight years, Vienna (108.6) has been ranked as the BEST.  The worst at #230 is Baghdad.  

#2 is Zurich and #3 Auckland.  For the USA, San Francisco #27, Boston #34 and Honolulu #35 (we were #28 three years ago).

Vienna, with a population of 1.8 million, is the capital and largest city of Austria.  Call it  the City of Music (Strauss/Mozart) or The City of Dreams (Freud), this site has had continuous habitation since 500 BC. At one time about a century ago (1913), Adolf Hitler, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Tito, Sigmund Freud and Joseph Stalin lived within a few miles of each other in central Vienna.

Interestingly enough, 32% have no religion, 41% are Catholics and 12% Muslim.  Known for giant Wiener Schnitzel (veal cutlet, left) and Sachertorte (a kind of very sweet chocolate cake with apricot jam).  White wine is served with sparkling water and coffee houses are exceptional.

The important tourist attractions are Schonbrunn  Palace (which also has the world's oldest zoo), Hofburg in town and 100 art museums.  The Lipizzaner horses are here and so is the Vienna Boys' Choir.  The highlights come tomorrow, with the focus on an individual who will astound you.

We had a rather spectacular dinner at the Palai Pallavicini.  First here are two ladies, Lesley from Australia, and Lareene from New Jersey, who are among the six independents (not a couple), so we have sat at various functions together:

Our table, with Vinnie and Fran from New York, Marvja and Elvira from Panama and Lareene/Lesley:

While the creamed pumpkin soup, filet of salmon and Schmankerlparfait Pallavicini (ice cream dessert) were outstanding, amazingly enough, I thought the simple green salad with a radish and raspberry vinaigrette stood out as the best, so I feature this dish:

The Viennese performances could well have been the highlight.  The nearly two-hour long program with a seven piece classical assemblage, plus singers and dancers was sterling:

This is a view of the room and entertainment:

Our fabulous dessert, here with Vinny and Fran:

Tomorrow, the most extraordinary female in history:  Maria Theresa.

-

GAWA Day #40: Bratislava--Gem of the Danube

Bratislava is clearly my most surprising city on this Grand Around the World Adventure.  Why?  I pictured a city of poverty and war.  I must have confused this area with Serbia or whatever.  Bratislava is the gem of the Danube, and only recently so.

First settled around 5000 BC, a good beginning point of the modern history is when the Iron Curtain fell in 1989.  Czechoslovakia eventually, and reasonably amicably, split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.  The former had the more advanced economy and the latter was the poor sister, where Bratislava is the capital.

Slovakia is a country of 5 million, and 10% live in Bratislava.  You can read about how they got so far so fast--decent leadership, a people insulted and the flat tax are some reasons--but the country now produces more vehicles/capita than any country.  The labor cost is the second lowest in the European Union (EU, 28 member nations, now referred to as states) and the labor force is the most productive in the OECD (organization of 34 countries in this total region).   The information technology infrastructure is excellent and major international companies are establishing here.  The GDP/capita is 178% of the EU average and unemployment rate is below 2%.

Their most important one event in history?  It's a long story, but their 2002 Men's World Ice Hockey Championship, for this incredible achievement, for the first time ever, brought the entire populace together.  Previously, there were all these petty and significant political and economic rivalries.  These attitudes melted away, and the country came tougher because of this victory.  The biggest national heroes are stars of the National Hockey League.

The future?  Cars that fly?  Sure, they had an accident, but here is a product of their aeromobile program:

Mind you, there is considerable graffiti, worry about the motivation level of the next generation and our tour guide warned about pickpockets.  These roving bands come from outside the country.

So here are a few photos of our tour, beginning with St. Martin's Church:

Note the ad above McDonald's.  Finally, Bratislava Castle and St. Martin's Church as we leave the city:

-

GAWA Day #39: The Beautiful Blue Danube

Last night we had a boat tour along the Danube, accompanied by the Blue Danube Waltz and other works of Johann Strauss II in the background.  The scenes were magical, and you can scroll down to that posting for details.  If you clicked on the music, that came from Stanley Kubrick's 2001, which was released almost half a century ago. This is 2015 and we're nowhere close to sending spaceships to far away places in outer space.  Sure, there is that white elephant called the International Space Station, but watching that movie skewed the imaginations of a few brilliant billionaires about the planet Mars.

The Danube River begins in the Black Forest of Germany, empties into the Black Sea and is the second longest in Europe, next to the Volga.  Perhaps blue might not be the exact color, but the hue is a lot more appealing than the brown, gray or black of the Mississippi, Nile and Chao Phraya.  Perhaps blue green, not crystal clear, but with some clarity better than murky, might be a more accurate description.

How many rivers traverse through ten countries, providing drinking water for 20 million people?  Between today and tomorrow, we will visit three capital cities on the banks:  Budapest, Bratislava and Vienna.

Our day tour of Budapest was totally different and entertainingly educational.  We first visited the Pest side, and here is the Dohany Synagogue, the second largest in the world.  #1?  New York City.  There is a Holocaust Memorial here.

At the top of Buda area is the Matthias Church and Fisherman's Bastion, the centerpiece of an awesome promontory where views of both cities are spectacular, save for some fog:

I had a stir fried beef for lunch with a beer.  I then took a short nap and awaited the departure.  By the way, did I tell you that two bars on this ship open at 9AM and serve virtually anything you want until midnight?  I picked up a sherry on rocks and went to the sun deck to see us depart Budapest:

That's the Hungarian Parliament Building above.  You'd think, wow, it must be a thousand years old.  Nope.  Built in 1904.  Yet, because of wars, it is one of the oldest European legislative structures.

This takes a minute instead of an hour.  So who's that?  Johann Strauss II.  Since you almost surely didn't know this, his father was Johann Strauss I, who composed the Radetzky March, and III was II's nephew, who also wrote music, but is better known as a conductor.  Here, 2 hours of Johann Strauss II.

Oh, I continue to be a rugby expert.  As I predicted, New Zealand beat South Africa and Australia won over Argentina.  Finals on Halloween, October 31 at 1600 GMT from London.

I must be losing my reading audience, for I haven't mentioned anything American for weeks, although I note that Notre Dame goes to undefeated Temple this coming Saturday, and LSU, now #3, plays at Alabama the following weekend.  Stanford is now the best in the West, and when will Hawaii's coach Norman Chow be fired?  The Patriots, Packers and Broncos are undefeated, but who cares that much.  The Mets play at the Royals on Tuesday in the first baseball World Series Game.  No hurricanes of note.

Tonight was the Captain's Reception, where I met some new friends.  My dinner companions were Char and Patty from the Denver area:

Chef Siegfred of Manila came by for a chat:

I told him that his efforts rivals that of Crystal Cruises.  This was a fine ending to a great day.

-

GAWA Day #38: Budapest and Michael Antal

Budapest is Michael Antal's favorite city.  His roots are in Hungary, and he annually spends some time during the summer period here.  I just arrived to join the Tauck River Tour to Amsterdam.

My close friend and colleague, Michael passed away this week.  I remember in the early 1980's when I was working in the U.S. Senate, this youngish professor-type from Princeton dropped by my office and told me he had just been selected as the Coral Industries Professor of Renewable Resources.  A third of century later, his legacy?  Twenty-two alumni of his lab are now University professors or group leaders of national laboratories.  Most of them are directly involved with biofuels and sustainability, and Michael's publications are among the most heavily cited in engineering journals.  In fact, he is in the top 1%, having had 100 peer-reviewed publications and 11 patents, including those pending.  

He is, perhaps, best known for his flash carbonization process:

His wife, Ann, is accreditation coordinator of McKinley Community School for Adults, my high school, incidentally.  Michael got his degrees from Dartmouth College and Harvard, and first worked for the thermonuclear weapons group at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.  I had a similar experience on the laser fusion program at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.  I liked to chide him, though, on the fact that he was a war monger and laser fusion was the ultimate peace energy.

We had one piece of unfinished business. He had just purchased a fancy, shiny, copper coffee-making machine and we were just about ready for me to try his product when he suddenly took ill.  While I had fancy lunches at Orchids, or brought a Rainbow Drive-Inn bento to have at Magic Island, Michael was famous for having a banana for lunch.  Not sure how long this persisted, but he did well-control his weight. 

Finally, he enjoyed planning for the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute's Christmas gathering.  His team generally came up with the most innovative venues, and he took this task of bringing the HNEI family together very seriously.

The ms Espirit above actually has a decent internet system, and it's free....except from a serious flaw.  It takes an hour for just one photo to download!  We have a city tour tomorrow, but, as a beginning, here is a summary of the fascinating city of Budapest:

• First settlement was around the Year Zero.
• Largest and capital city of Hungary, with 1.74 million.
• Budapest originates from the cities of Buda and Pest.
• The population was larger in the the 80's, but many moved into the suburbs, bringing the metropolitan population to 3.3 million. 
• Known to be one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.

• Sits on the Danube, and Budapest is known as the Pearl of the Danube.
• 80 geothermal springs.
• 70 operating higher education institutions.
• While Poland is credited with initiating the fall of the Iron Curtain, Hungary was right there at the beginning.
• The currency is florins.

We actually got a special night cruise tonight.  This could well have been the most spectacular part of the whole river tour:

-

Remarkable, but Manzanillo and Puerto Vallarta largely escaped major damage from Super Hurricane Patricia, a 200 MPH monster.

-

GAWA Day #37B: Frankfurt

I was somewhat surprised to see all that snow on mountains just outside of Venice on the way to Frankfurt, as this is still October:

The approach to Frankfurt Airport showed that the fall colors were already here:

The Sheraton at the airport now seems spiffier, I went up to the Club Lounge for a drink and ended up deciding to have my dinner here:

If I paid $75 for salad, soup and beer at the Westin in Venice, this meal above would have cost $150 there.  Here, free. That bottom right drink is a red champagne, evocative of a time two decades ago when I was one of the investors for Phil Bossert's wine company, and accompanied him to Freiborg, when we drank 50 wines in two days, one a red champagne.  I thought that would be a big seller in China.

Frankfurt is the fifth largest city in Germany with a little more than 700,000 people, but its metropolitan region has 5.5 million.  The geographic center of the European Union is maybe 20 miles east of where I presently am.

The city is the largest financial center in Continental Europe.  The Frankfurt Stock Exchange is one of the world's largest by market capitalization.

This is Hub City, for all major air, rail and highway links virtually pass through my hotel room.  Lufthansa is headquartered here.

The largest book fair on Planet Earth just ended here.  7,000 exhibitors and 286,000 visitors.

In September, Frankfurt hosted the world's largest motor show.  They share this venue every other year with Hannover.  Anyway, you get an idea what Frankfurt does.

So to summarize, Mercer ranked Frankfurt as #7 in its Quality of Living survey.  #1 has been Vienna since 2010, while San Francisco is the highest ranked U.S. city at #27, with Boston at #34 and Honolulu #36

There are no Michelin 3-Star nor Pellegrino Best 50 restaurants in Frankfurt, so I decided to go up to the Main Tower Restaurant.  However, they were booked for the next two days.  After a couple more checks, I decided, heck, I haven't had a good steak in weeks, so I asked for, and got a lunch reservation at M-Steakhouse, said to be the best in Frankfurt.  Not sure why this bird is at the entrance.

I had a one pound rib-eye from the USA and glasses of California Cabernet and German beer:

These are what came at the end.

The walk to Palmengarten took less than ten minutes.  I kind of got lost and ended up on the wrong side of the park, but saw a coffee shop, so I walked in and noticed the park was right there when you walk out.  I think I committed a sin by not paying the 7 Euro fee, but there was nowhere to do this.  Interestingly enough, a few minutes into the park I saw something on the ground, which was the entrance card noting the 7 Euro fee..  Must be the will of God.

So here are a few photos:

Dahlias were in bloom:

The rest of the park:

The obligatory swan:

Then, on the way back to the airport I walked around the Zeil, which was not anything special:

This was my most relaxing day of the journey.

-

The so-called strongest hurricane in the history the Western Hemisphere, made landfall between Manzanillo and Puerto Vallarta:

Scarily, Patricia took only a day and a half to strengthen from a tropical storm to a Category 5.  Unofficially, Typhoon Nancy in the East Pacific reached a 1-minute maximum sustained wind speed of 215 MPH.  Patricia hit 200 MPH.  Iniki in 1992 was a Category 4 at 145 MPH when making landfall on Kauai.

-