The Shadow-gloom and Weight of the Sacred

Credit: Douglas Sprott http://www.flickr.com/photos/dugspr CC BY-SA 2.0 The yellow building on the left houses  Eissalon Tuchlauben.

It seems that I miss Vienna the most once the high, oppressive temperatures of the Oklahoma summer emerge. There have been a couple of hot days here and there already this year, but this week the prediction from the weather fortune tellers is that everyday will hit 89 or 90 degrees. (That's something like 32 degrees for you Europeans out there...actually, for anyone anywhere in the world other than the United States.) Vienna is the perfect climate for someone of my composition: plenty of cool, snowy weather in the winter; marvelously long fall and spring seasons; a summer that makes it warm enough to swim in the afternoon and cool enough to enjoy kaffee in the evening. Well, as I sit here longing for some Vienna weather, I thought I'd break out an old staple (not really, but...) of my blog: the MY:WIEN series.

In Vienna, most of the Eissalons open only during the summer months, and that is the case for Eissalon Tuchlauben. Gretchen had a friend, who started out as a penpal while we were living in the States, who recommended this Eissalon. We liked it because of its location in the city center, yet still it is nestled back on a narrow street so it kind of secluded. It became a really special place for us. In fact, we did feel like it was our Eissalon and we never took any of our American friends there. We never went there with Austrian friends, for that matter. We sometimes called it our secret Eissalon. I don't think we made any real effort to hide it; I know that initially we told people about this Eissalon with the really good Eis, but no one seemed all that interested. We liked that it turned out that way. It was our place. It belonged to us.

Photo from Eissalon Tuchlauben's website. http://eissalon-tuchlauben.at/der-eissalon/uber-uns/der-eissalon

We weren't regular patrons at Eissalon Tuchlauben, though. We normally went there after we accomplished a task that was, in our minds, complicated, or to celebrate. After we turned in our applications for visas--a high-stress task--we probably headed over to our secret Eissalon for a victory Eis (not to be confused with Victory Gin). Then, when we were actually granted visas, we'd head back for another victory Eis. I think our first victory Eis may have been after we opened our bank account in Vienna, but I can't remember.

Interestingly enough, in the late summer of 2009, we were out with some teammates and friends walking about the city center when someone suggested ice cream. Our teammates suggested this place to which they had recently been introduced, Eissalon Tuchlauben! Gretchen and I didn't immediately put it together  that this was our secret Eissalon; we were being led to it in a very roundabout fashion, plus we so rarely called it by its actual name that it simply didn't register in our minds. But, sure enough, we ended up at Eissalon Tuchlauben. We never mentioned that this Eissalon was, in fact, was our secret Eissalon. It seemed a little less special after that, however I'm sure the next time we get to visit Vienna we'll be over that!

Besides, after this post, Eissalon Tuchlauben will be known and discussed by my thousands of readers.




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The best way to get to Eissalon Tuchlauben is to take the U1 (red line) Ubahn to Stephansplatz and then walk to Tuchlauben 15 as highlighted in the map above.