After more paperwork at the VIC this morning, I took myself to a mall I heard about a few stops further on the U1 subway line, the Donauzentrum. Well, it was huge! And no nice linear floor plan for these guys. No this mall is made of at least 2 buildings linked by a "bridge", in which there are several Y-shaped intersections. Some places there are escalators down and stairs to go up, sometimes the reverse. Add to that some serious renovation and expansion everywhere. There are kryptic signs pointing towards the "pyramid" and the "arena", yet the hallway they pointed to was a dead end. There is also a multiplex cinema somewhere in there. I definitely will need many trips to that mall to figure it all out.
Most of Vienna is now smoke-free in public areas, but the implementation of that policy is sometimes wonky. In the mall, there was one little cafeteria-style area where smoking was allowed. Unfortunately, the cafeteria was open to the mall and therefore spewing smoke everywhere. And as it was located on the bridge linking the buildings, there seemed to be no way to avoid walking through the smoke!
I spent an hour in a telecom store, trying to pick out a cell phone and plan. After all that time, I found out I can't get one until I have my Legitimationskarte in hand. That's a kind of card proving my strange status of no-working-visa-and-not-quite-a-diplomat-but-still-with-some-privileges. I should get that later this week, and then I can return to the mall and get my phone. (That'll be for another post.)
By then I was starving, but this mall does not have a food court, only a smattering of restaurants and food counters spread out all over. There was one where you could choose from a variety of breaded foods - meat, fish, even veggies, which would then be served to you... on a bun! I ended up eating something at a little counter called the CrêpeCat, which sold crêpes (of course) but for some reason also carried baked potatoes. Strange combination...
Outside the mall, on the street surrounding the subway station, I finally found what must be the local equivalent of a food court:a series of kind of chip-wagons, although only one sold fries etc. The others were for sausages (of course) and local dishes, some shawarma-type offerings, and I bretzel one too I think. But it was raining again, so I didn't look too closely, just walked by.
