EUROPE, APRIL-MAY '01: VIENNA, AUSTRIA
The streetcars run in a nice scenic loop around the city's inner and most historical ring. Unfortunately, we kept having to get off. I was still quite miserably sick with a cold I'd caught in Frankfurt and that had erupted in Munich and had now added a cough. Fortunately, Kelly generously gifted me from her stash of only soon-to-expire Sudafed, but in convenience stores all I could find were candy-type lozenges for the cough. I finally bit the bullet and visited a pharmacy again, where I now knew I had to speak to the man behind the counter. I asked in German for something for a cough, and he then asked me a question containing the word "Schleim" (pronounced like "slime" with an "sh," making it even gooier-sounding). I said, "I don't know," whereupon he laughed at me. Turns out he was asking if my cough was wet or dry. Hence the shlime. What he eventually sold me could charitably be called cough goop. It was brown and herbal-flavored (bleh — I longed for saccharine, approximate cherry or grape) and had a gel consistency. I will never insult American drug companies again! Let's hear it for Robitussin!

Anyway, the reason we kept having to leave the Strassenbahn was because every time I'd been on it for a few minutes, I'd go off in a coughing fit, frightening the people around us. We'd get off, I'd get hold of myself, we'd reboard the next train, and it would happen again. We finally decided close quarters were causing it, so we walked.


<< PREVIOUS PHOTO   |   NEXT PHOTO >>

HOME  >>  TRAVEL  >>  EUROPE '01  >>  AUSTRIA  >>  VIENNA