Vienna Very Politely Takes Lots of Your Money/We’ve Decided that the Austrian Airbnb Kinda Sucks, Actually

Klaus Zynski Invades Europe, Part 11.

The Austrian waiter fucked up asking for a tip and that was all it took, the facade crumbled. I had to come to terms with the reality that I am a filthy little paypig for the Austrian government.

It was a nice meal. I had a shakshuka. That’s more of a breakfast food I guess but who cares it’s tomato sauce and eggs, can eat that shit any time of day. There was one waiter and one bus boy on the floor and they were doing a fair but unremarkable job. I had to go to the bar to indicate I wanted my check. The guy stuck the card reader in my face and demanded, politely, a tip, for the team. Liz was getting the check, not me. We play tennis with the checks. I get one, she gets one, and so on. Who wants to spend time venmoing each other on vacation?

He held the card reader in my face a second too long, frowned a few degrees too harshly when Liz decided against a tip. We’d been cast in the role of cash-rich, culture poor foreigners, here trading our American dollars for European culture.

Obviously we couldn’t go back there. The place will remain nameless. We went to the pub next door and had drinks. I did, anyway. Liz doesn’t drink. They had chocolate cake though and my girl loves chocolate.

Chocolate. We bought some fancy chocolate on the way out of the zoo. The lady at the counter there played it right. She offered free samples and let us browse. Walked out of there with like 40 Euro in chocolate. Gifts for friends back home. Another free sample as thanks. Good-ass chocolate.

Liz asked me if she’d been a dick to the waiter. I’d have given him 5% to keep the peace and grumbled on my way out. She’s not a pushover like me. Food service workers get my sympathy because I used to be one. I didn’t think she was out of line. We waited for a long time and like I said, he played it wrong, came off like a shakedown. Gotta stand your ground in those situations.

Really, it’s your own damn fault, Europeans. You’re always coming on the internet telling us how insane US tipping culture is. What would you have us do? I wouldn’t want to be a cultural colonizer.

We’ve Decided that the Austrian Airbnb Kinda Sucks, Actually

Pic unrelated but important.

Laundry fiasco aside, we have some grievances with the Austrian Airbnb.

I’ll begin with the Good. Location is fantastic. Three minute walk to two major metro lines. Vienna is not that big in terms of square mileage and so this means you more or less have the whole city three minutes from the front door. Access is easy, they have a combination lock keybox and so we just leave the key there when we go out for the day. Neighborhood seems safe aside from the aforementioned propaganda posters which the locals seem to be tearing down. We’re next to a pizza place we never ate at and across from a weed store and a kindergarten.

It’s not a bad place, honestly. If you’re in Vienna for a weekend and want a pad you can do far worse. The issue is that this is a place run at minimum cost by a group of local dads looking for a side hustle. This means you get dad craftsmanship and interior design philosophy. All IKEA furniture, some of iit improperly assembled or secured. No towel hangers in the bathroom. No spare linens or towels. Two pieces of art in the whole unit, one “Live Laugh Love” sign in the kitchen and one IKEA stock photo print of some sunflowers.

Let’s talk about the kitchen, actually.

Full size fridge is nice, but again, this was furnished by Tim The Tool Man Taylor. No paper towels. No baking sheet. One non-stick pan for the stovetop.

The have one of those bitchin IKEA couches that pulls out into a rectangular cot. That made for some good YouTube viewing once we got the smart TV’s language changed to English, but in a microcosm of all of our complaints, the couch was half-broken and therefore difficult to pull out.

Photographs well. Only just OK to live in. Six outta ten. Could be an eight or nine with a few cheap fixtures and an afternoon of elbow grease.