Alpha and I were discussing how to celebrate our fifteenth wedding anniversary, which is approaching. Without going into detail, it is a hard-earned anniversary and we deserve something nice. Our definitions of “nice” diverge somewhat, though, and there are the usual budget constraints. At the moment we’re seeking a compromise between drinking a lot of Guinness at a session at an Irish pub in Vienna, and a night at a wellness hotel in southern Austria, an area called “Austrian Tuscany”. I’m not saying who is voting for which alternative.

One possible compromise we considered briefly was to spend a few nasty hours at the Hotel Orient with a bottle of champagne and another bottle of Viagra. The Hotel Orient is considered Vienna’s finest Stundenhotel. The German word “Stundenbuch” is translated as “Book of Hours” so I will translate “Stundenhotel” as “Hotel of Hours”. It’s a plush, kitschy, place where managers take their secretaries or otherwise illicit lovers meet for a few nasty hours with a bottle of champagne and/or Viagra.

The hotel has a website, which I don’t think is very good, although the room tour application is kind of neat and seemed to load fast for me. It lets you pan around the rooms, and even up to the ceiling, which usually have a mirror.

We looked at the site. We loaded the app and I was panning around the first room. “That’s the lobby,” Alpha said.
I looked at her.
She looked at me.
“I mean, that looks like it could be the lobby,” she said.
“Nice save,” I said.

Please put any suggestions for spending a fifteenth anniversary into the suggestion box below. Thanks in advance.