Coffee House Culture

Finding myself with lots of free time both during school and during my first week of spring break (I'm finally living the good 3L life!), and thinking about my upcoming second-week-of-spring-break travels, I'm finally posting one of the entries I half-wrote after Stu and my travels in August. The other will have to wait for when I return from Costa Rica! So . . . imagine it's back in August rather than six months later!

I've discovered that I'm a go-go-go traveler. (Well, I guess I've always known that--but I've never thought about other people's styles.) Yes, in the mornings I often don't want to get up and sometimes I can drag my feet taking a while to get ready, but when there are things I want to see and do, I am ready ready ready! I walk quickly and don't dilly dally. When I studied abroad in Madrid in college, I traveled to Italy during Semana Santa. The first couple of days I was on my own in Rome, before meeting up with two friends in Florence and Siena. From my Art History class in high school, I knew that there were many, many buildings and artistic masterpieces I wanted to see in Rome. I had a very long list. Over those couple of days, I literally ran around the city, squeezing in everything on my list. If I had been with friends the whole time, there's no way I would have been able to see everything that I saw. (I met up with other people here and there, and one afternoon I was really lucky--my friend and her parents invited me to join their private tour of the Coliseum and other ruins--and paid for all of it! The joys of being a college student.) Looking back on those days now, I can see that I was kind of crazy. Now I can't imagine packing in as much as I did over those few days--I'm actually kind of amazed that I did. Even though I've settled down a little in my travel style--and have become more accepting of the fact that I'll probably never see or do everything I want to in a city--I'm still an active traveler.

And that is why the coffee culture of Zagreb and Vienna sounded interesting to me but was also a change from what I'm accustomed to. I was excited to just sit at a coffee shop and look out at people walking by. To enjoy a leisurely afternoon taking in a part of a city. To chat with Stu with nowhere to rush off to.

Zagreb is often compared to other European cities, like Vienna, because it has a more traditionally European feel than other Croatian cities. Several streets in Zagreb are lined with cafes (doubling as bars at night). Ready to start our afternoon coffee breaks, Stu and I were excited to be in Zagreb, which was also not quite as hot as the coast had been.

Streets like this are ideal for lounging and people watching, but I soon grew antsy just sitting (as Stu will attest to). Spending a couple hours in the same spot in the middle of the afternoon was not a travel style to which I was accustomed!

Determined to make myself like this habit, I identified a few cafes in Vienna that Stu and I should try. Our first day in Vienna, we were tired from the train ride from Budapest, so we figured we'd start out at a cafe and also do some planning while at the cafe. Cafe Landtmann is one of the most famous cafes in Vienna--a good place to start. We ordered coffee, of course, and delicious pastries. Stu got the famous apple strudel and I ordered some sort of delicious pastry (waffles?) that I can't quite remember.

The rainy, cool weather in Vienna was also conducive to coffee shop lounging. We visited different cafes each day in Vienna. Although I can't quite say that I got used to spending more than an hour at a coffee shop, reading, chatting, sipping coffee, while on vacation in cities with many sights to see, I think a coffee house culture presents an important idea. It's a reminder to, slow down, Chloe, and relax. Enjoy being in a new city and take in the people and the sights. Enjoy the moment; don't be thinking ahead to all of the places you want to visit.