Hot Dog!

A hot dog, as everyone knows, is an American born name for a sausage originally called a frankfurter. That's because it is a type of sausage that has been made in Frankfurt, Germany for centuries. And no, I am not in Frankfurt. But the hot dog is still relevant. Because the other name used for a hot dog in the United States is a wiener. These days we use wiener more to refer to things with a certain hot dog like shape, such as a dachshund or a piece of male anatomy.

But did you know that wiener, like frankfurter, is named for a city? It is a type of sausage traditionally made in Vienna. And that's where I am now, which is why hot dogs are relevant.

Look at that elegant hydrant

The Viennese refer to their city as Wien. And in German, the "w" has a "v" sound. So it sounds like Vien. And things from Vienna are Wiener. The system of public transportation is the Wiener Linien. A famous composition by Stauss is Wiener Blut (Viennese Blood). Here wiener is not a reference to anything phallic. Or is it? It could have a double meaning.

Leaning into the phallic side of Wiener?

Vienna is fantastic! This is a city rich in culture. There is art, architecture, and so much music. It has beautiful churches, castles, and governmental buildings. And the public transportation is beyond reproach. You can get to so many places. They have the U-bahn, which is trains, sometimes underground like subways, sometimes overhead like elevated trains, and that requires sometimes they are at ground level. (That's the intermediate value theorem, people. MATH! Oh, sorry, I'm in Europe. I mean MATHS!)

Baroque style, am I right? Neo-baroque?

There are also buses, light rails, and regional rails. It is so easy to get from one place to another in Vienna. We are about halfway through our time here, and I know Vienna is someplace we will have to return to sometime. Last night, Alrica and I went to a concert inside a beautiful building. There was a string quintet accompanied by piano, a baritone, a soprano, and works by Mozart, Rossini, Vivaldi, Lehar, Kalman, Monti, and Strauss. (In German, the double s is written as ß so his name is Strauß.)

We have ridden around the city on a hop on/hop off bus. We visited St. Stephen's Church, which is fantastically beautiful.

The inside is beautiful too, but harder to get good pictures.

And the food is varied and fantastic. Vienna has immigrants from all over the world. So we've had a mix of traditional Viennese foods like Schnitzel and from all over the world like phơ, durum, buruk, and le mien (which in America is chow mien.) And yes, you can get hot dogs too. And brats, and currywurst, and, well, a variety of hot dog-esque offerings.

One surprise has been how common English is here. I don't mean people speaking it, though that's pretty common too. I mean on signs. You see it in advertisements, store fronts, store names, internet video ads, and all over. And I don't mean translations. Yes, sometimes at a site there is a panel with the history of the place and it also translates that into English. But here, you often see English alone in those more commercial ventures. Also, and I suspect this is primarily designed to make Alrica crazy, they don't always know how to spell English words.

If you are hungy, maybe go for a wiener

There was an old commercial in which a child sang, "I wish I were an Oscar Meyer wiener." Well, I don't know about the Oscar Meyer part, but I wouldn't mind being a Wiener. (Which some of my readers will say I already am, in the less geographic way.)