Tag Archives: Babuders

entertainment, short breaks

Vienna, Austria Part 2… karaoke time!

I had been itching to do some karaoke in front of a live audience for some time.  I do a lot of karaoke on SingSnap.com, which is an online karaoke site.  But there’s nothing like performing live.  Babuder’s is a nice place located on a side street called Tiefer Graben.  When we arrived at about 7:00pm on Thursday night, the place was just opening up.  Bill and I selected a table and ordered a couple of local beers.  Herbert was already there, but we had never met in person before.  I only knew him from comments and private messages on my recordings.  Sometimes Herbert joins me in duets and I’ve come to enjoy his witty observations.

Anyway, I was feeling a little shy.  Karaoke at Babuder’s is a little different than what I’m used to.  Instead of looking through books of available songs and handing the KJ slips of paper with requests, you just go up to him and ask him for songs.  They have a database with over 30,000 songs, so chances are good they’ll have what you want.  But not being able to browse through a book means you have to think of something to sing rather than have something suggested.  You also have no idea what version of karaoke song you’ll get.  They are not all created equally.

I started with “Blue Bayou”, which I’ve done hundreds of times.  I got up on the little stage, feeling oddly nervous in front of all the Viennese locals.  There weren’t actually that many people there, but I was jittery anyway.  I eventually relaxed and enjoyed the rush.  I spotted the resident Queen Bee in the corner.  She was very cute and probably at least twenty years younger than me.  She had a couple of girlfriends with her and one of the guys who worked there, a young guy with muscles, appeared to be hitting on her.  I have to admit, the Queen Bee had a good voice.  Fortunately, our styles were different.

As the night wore on, Herbert and Bill started bonding.  Herbert is a very interesting guy.  He’s in his early 60s.  His parents were Czech, but he was born and raised in Ludwigsburg, which is a town very close to Stuttgart.  He speaks English, German, Polish, Russian, and, based on one of his karaoke performances, French.  He has three master’s degrees and a voice that reminds me a bit of Bob Dylan’s.  He and Bill really seemed to hit it off and they talked a lot while I got up and sang stuff by Alison Krauss, Kate Bush, The Carpenters, and more Linda Ronstadt.  To my knowledge, no one filmed me… I’m glad of that!  One thing I did notice was that most of the people at Babuder’s could sing quite competently.  It also appeared to be a very gay friendly place, though most everyone was subdued.  One guy started speaking rapid fire German to me and I answered that I speak no German in German.  He switched to English.  It turned out he was a Brit.

Bill is unimpressed…

Decent beer.  They had peanuts and pretzels, but I didn’t notice any other food.

The party was winding down.

Not the best photo of the sign outside.

 

Herbert wanted to get together on Friday night so we could meet his girlfriend and they could show us around Vienna.  We left Babuder’s at about 11:00 and caught a cab back to our hotel, where we both promptly crashed.  I would have liked to have gone back to Babuder’s, but there was a lot of other stuff we wanted to see and do.  Herbert says Thursday nights at Babuder’s are good because it’s not too crowded.  If we get back to Vienna, we will have to visit again.

Standard
Uncategorized

Vienna, Austria Part 1

A couple of months ago, after Bill and I visited Regensburg, Germany, we took part in a fun ritual we have for choosing where we travel.  I got out our trusty champagne bucket with slips of paper bearing names of famous and exotic cities.  Bill drew, and Vienna, Austria was the big winner.  I was excited to visit Vienna.  I was last there in August 1997 on my way home from my Peace Corps assignment in Armenia.  At the time, I was unmarried and traveling with a couple of friends.  We were broke, so we stayed in a university dorm/hostel.  It was decidedly no frills traveling.  The night we left Vienna, we took an overnight train to Venice.  That was the night Princess Diana died.  I didn’t know about her death until the day after the world found out.  We were in Florence, Italy, and I saw her picture on a newspaper with the blazing headline that she’d been killed.  I was pretty shocked.

Anyway, this time I was happy Bill and I were going to stay in a hotel.  I had another reason to be excited about the trip.  My friend Herbert from SingSnap.com wanted us to meet in person and do some karaoke together.  I am a sucker for karaoke.

I won’t lie.  I was a little apprehensive about flying Germanwings to Vienna.  Oh sure, I knew our chances of dying in a plane crash caused by a mentally ill pilot were slim to none.  Still, it was very soon after that tragic crash in the French Alps last month.  As it turned out, our flight to Vienna was smooth as silk.  Bill and I had a row to ourselves, even though we booked the cheapest fare and had to pay 30 euros to check my bag.  I’m not too wild about Germanwings’ new tiered fare program.  Because we booked via Expedia, we got the most basic fare.  Next time, we will book from their Web site for a fare that includes luggage and such.

The weather was absolutely beautiful all weekend and we stayed in a nice hotel, the Falkensteiner Wien Margareten, which isn’t all that close to downtown Vienna, but is handy to both a metro station on the U4 line and a tram stop.  The staff spoke English and the hotel had a bar, a restaurant, and a spa.

We were in a lowbrow “comfort” room, which had a city view and a shower…

There was a desk and free Internet…

A neat little makeup table for the ladies…

A TV where I watched CHiPs and Knight Rider in German…

And a nifty Nespresso machine…

The bed was comfortable.  There was a chocolate on the pillow and a weird “scent” towel that was supposed to provide “aromatherapy”.  Unfortunately, all it did for me was give me a headache.

That towel smelled good, but it was a bit strong.

 

I wasn’t totally wild about the housekeeper who insisted on removing the keycard from the switch while Bill and I were out.  On our last full day, she actually took the card from us, which pissed me off.  But overall, I thought the hotel was fine, especially for the price.  We got a good deal on Expedia– four nights and round trip on Germanwings cost about $1100.  As I mentioned before, next time I will book directly for the flight.  That way, I won’t get the cheapest fare and end up shelling out for luggage.

After settling in, Bill and I took our first walk into the city.  From the hotel, it was about three or four miles.  The weather started off nice when we set out, but within minutes, a chilly wind picked up.  I had no jacket with me and was wearing sandals.  We walked briskly and got hung up at St. Stephen’s Cathedral, where Bill made the mistake of looking at a city map.  We were quickly spotted by a man named Adrian in a period costume.  He was there to hawk concert tickets.

I was in no mood for Adrian’s bullshit, but Bill is a lot nicer than I am.  I had my mind on getting to a bar called Babuder’s, where we would meet Herbert and I could do my karaoke.  I hoped we’d have time to score dinner, too.  But nothing doing…  Adrian was on the case and was intent on getting us to buy tickets to a classical show with dancers, opera singers, and a small orchestra.  Bill ended up buying us a pair of tickets to see the show– it was about 80 euros and included a free drink.  We went to Babuder’s where Herbert was already waiting for us.

Standard