June 14, 2022
Here is the report of our meeting with Swee and Vadjutka upon request from several EST members:
A while ago Swee informed me that she was planning to come to Vienna for her 23th ( !! ) birthday. As KreativLink is living nearby and I’m already here, we thought a meeting would be lovely. Vadjutka was going to join the party from Budapest (3 hours by train). Unfortunately KreativLink got ill the day before and couldn’t come.
On that day it was cold. I picked up Swee from her hotel and we headed to the Mariahilferstrasse (major shopping street), which we had to walk all the way up to the train station to meet Vadjutka.
As the train rolled into the platform, I was concerned whether I would be able to recognise her or not. The train stopped and in the wagon that stopped right in front of us, a girl … waving and smiling … with a camera hanging from her neck 🙂 She started to take photos right away, giving me an excuse not to take many pictures and leave that to the professionals.
From the day it was certain that Swee would come, I wanted to take her to Bortolotti. My favourite ice cream parlor on the planet. When we settled on our reserved places, it was pressies time. Vad and I brought along some birthday presents for Swee and she surprised us with gifts as well. Her workmanship and eye for detail is just amazing.
After those lovely moments we ate sandwiches with Italian names …
… but in reality I wanted to skip that part to order ice cream. I showed the girls the pics in the menu card to get them drooling. But in the end they said that they are full. Unbelievable! I mean there has to be always space for some ice cream … it melts into nothingness after all.
I ended up being the only one eating ice cream, while the others waited for me to finish. Hopefully I can go back with KreativLink one day to enjoy a big cup each 🙂
After that it was time for me to go, because the time for midday prayer was about to run out and I had to reach home before that. Then I thought I could stay a little longer and guide them at least to the Naschmarkt, if only I could go to a clothing shop with changing rooms to pray there, secretly.
Unfortunately there are not that many shops at this end of the Mariahilferstrasse and Vadjutka wanted to go get some beer for someone as a present from a special brewery nearby. She didn’t know the exact address, so we didn’t know how long that would take. We had to make decisions.
She, a Jew, said “first the prayer, it is important”.
Me, a Muslim, said “let’s go get the beer”, because I didn’t want her to get lost.
Finally we decided to split up. She went by herself and we went to find a suitable shop with a changing room. The first one we found was for men clothing only, so no chance for me to pretend trying out something. The next one was ok, we went in, I picked up a cardigan, said “oh that’s nice, let’s try that out” and headed right to the changing room.
We met Vadjutka again at the Museumsquartier and went to a small shop with very diverse items, such as the “giant microbes“. After that I lead them to the Naschmarkt and left them with a hand drawn map of the places they had to go next. I hope it was helpful 🙂
To sum it all up: it was a lovely day. I hope we can meet again some time, some place …