Kommentar von Neda Aleva

I passed under the same tree as Hitler and Napoleon

The bulgarian journalist Neda Aleva was in a typical austrian winehouse and is not sure, if she wants to return again...

In order to learn something interesting about Austria and Vienna I had to get familiar with it‘s culture and traditions. There are these traditional wine houses called "Heurigen" - the word is quite hard to pronounce for me by the way - which exact translation is as I heard "The wine from this year."
Really soon I found myself entering one of these "pubs". There was this three hundred years old tree at the entrance which leans to one side so you have to pass under its "wooden ark". It‘s kind of hard to pass under, if you‘re taller, without folding yourself. Based on a "myth" I heard about this Heurigen – Napoleon and Hitler used to be guests there. It‘s obvious that for both of them it wasn‘t hard passing under. I guess they chose this exact wine house because it was "unreachable" for the people of normal height. Probably they enjoyed the enviroment of yellow walls with green windows and little red flowers, peacefully, far away form their complexes.
The place is cosy and reminded me of my homeland, except the wine. Due to a Viennese tradition, they mix white wine with sparkling water and that mess has the bold name "Weisser G‘spritzter". I asked myself why do people create such a mixture when it already exist for example champaign. Not to mention that I tried to pour some water in my glass. For that I used the gadget on the mouth of the bottle. But the water spread anywhere, into my eye, on the table, on my clothes, but not into the glass.
Then I was cold, the waiter surprisingly brought me a blanket to cover with. The transformation from a wine - bringing waiter into a concerned mother was astonishing. So I finally found myself pleasantly unsober covered with blanket drinking weird wine with nice people. Wailing out I turned back and a thought of never coming back ran through my empty head. But who actually knows where the paths the thirst would lead me to.