O perfil de jurocha

If you’re looking for a romantic place to spend the afternoon or evening, you should consider visiting Terrassenheuriger Trimmel.
Its eight terraces carved on Bisamberg Mountain are perfect to mix your own almweiss - the austrian loved mixture of herb lemonade and white wine - while enjoying a great view of green Langenzersdorf village.

Both dogs and children are allowed; but no need to worry about noise or privacy if you’re going either alone or with your partner and aren’t much into animals and children. Since each terrace hosts only one table and is located a few meters away from all others, you’ll be able to enjoy the place as it was your own and there wasn’t anyone else at the heuriger.

Terrassenheuriger Trimmel stays open until midnight. Before going back home, check the shop at its entrance to get many different kinds of sausages.

The oldest zoo in the world is truly worried by the animals’life quality. By transforming old cages into natural-reserve-looking-like spaces, Schonbrunn Tiergarten managed to provide both a comfort living for its species and a pleasure tour to its human visitors.

A day is not enough to visit all sectors of the attraction. But coming back to the zoo is far from being a dull or boring walk. Schonbrunn Tiergarten frequently hosts art work exhibitions and every coming back will be full of small surprises. The actual running art exhibition (June 2009) is very interesting and can catch the attention of children/teenagers about the ways nature deals with waste and human produced garbage.

Pay attention to the white bears space. One of the two big white bears is extremely active and playful and could be giving his own show with his blue-floating toy by your walk. Another great area to visit is the Tropical Florest: inside of a climatized building, you’ll be able to see free-flying birds and bats as well as smell the largest flower of the world.

It might me a bit too much of a concrete jungle for viennese taste, but it deserves at least a try. Specially because of Cenaro’s Spatzle. This dish, which holds the restaurant name, consists of a portion of truly fresh spatzle (a traditional austrian/german pasta-like recipe made of butter, eggs and flour) and two soft medium-sized pork medaillons covered by a juicy sauce with a few mushrooms pieces.

Situated at Gasometer Towers, Cenaro fits perfectly as a choice for “lunch-and-shopping-forgotten-needed-goods-before-going-back-to-the-office” situations. It still offers lunch at 3 pm and, despite the few waiters working there, service is quick.

Two main courses and two draft beers (meaning a week-lunch for two people) will cost you about 25 euro.

In Moscow city-heart is always Xmas. Stores located in ground-floors of hundred-years-old buildings are forever showing their entrances fully decorated with flashing lights. Colorful drawnings present brands and promotions through the night.

It’s so true that you can even dispense the public lights and guide yourself by the commerce ones over Tverskaya Avenue: blue and green to gambling houses and jewelery shops; yellow to electronics; pink and red to fancy shops selling clothes and shoes. Used to temperatures below minus 30 degrees, russians were celebrating the delay in winter arrival and the mild climate of 5 degrees. Untill late at night, it was still possible to find people wandering around. In face of such a party atmosphere, leave the cozy and artificially warmed bar in Marriot Grand Hotel, a bit before 2 in the morning, to go to a nightclub at the other side of the city didn’t seemed any sacrifice. We left on 5: three russians, an austrian and me. Our entrance relied on a small identity-change operation as Vlad Tanvel, who guided our excursion, explained. There wasn’t enough time to include mine or the austrian journalist name in the guest list. Without a name in it, accessing the club Krysha Mira - or “the rooftop of the world” in portuguese - was impossible. “But we added some extra fake names”, said Tanvel. From there own, I was called Sônia Vásquez.

We crossed the bridge over Moscow river by car and got in front of the old Badaevsky Brewery, at Tarasa Shevchenko street. In front of the dim light, I wasn’t able to really notice the complex built of apparent bricks dating from 1800. In the rooftop of the buildings that once belonged to the brewery is the most VIP nightclub of Moscow. In the silently neighborhood, Tanvel climbed up long iron stairs.

In the mid part of it, in a small uphill, 4 guards exhibited unfriendly faces. I was afraid any of them asked for passaport, immediately discovering the fake name, but, happily, everyone was accepted. We still passed by two other guards in the top of the stairs, responsible for opening the heavy iron door in the long wall surrounding the brewery buildings.

After another iron staircase we got in a claustrophobic hall. Staff took care of our heavy coats. So far, it didn’t seem a night out for dancing at all. It was more likely to be a visit to a secret historical site, controlled by federal agents. But a new staircase changed the sensation quickly. We reached a wide floor, fully covered by mirrors. White leather couchs suggested an ambient of rest and relaxing hours. From the bar counter, a smiling barman offered drinks, shaking towards us his cocktail-mixer. I was astonished by the prices in the menu, which were written in rubles side-by-side of the international - although limited - drinks options. I picked a mojito and was surprised again when it was handle over the counter to me: the glass went almost until my waist. I had in my hands a liter of run, soda and macerate mint.

Top models, athletes and the crème de la créme of Moscow nightscene are the place’s target public. Krysha Mira’s fame is so that the club, opened on fridays and saturdays during the summer, can even demand certain dresscodes in its parties. And it gets enough guests respecting it. According to flyers and pictures in the official website, it had already hosted space nights and pink panthers nights.

The biggest attraction of the night is another staircase away. The main dancefloor is on the roof of the old Badaevsky building. It’s two big white tends over one of the highest buldings in the complex. The sides are closed by glass walls. The view is majestic. To enjoy it, it’s worth the value face the windy weather outside. It’s possible to see the skyscrapers’ line construction of the so-called Commercial Moscow, in the West side of the city, that is planned to be free of cranes only by 2020.

There was the 67 floors of offices, apartments and the casino of Eurasia Building. Soon it will also possible to see the new government headquartes: the complex of four towers shaped as a M should have been already finished, but it’s still under construction.

Dancing until sunrise

At 2, Krysha Mira is still empty. I count 12 people in the main dancefloor. Everyone is very well-dressed with modern dresses, T-shirts with details that shine under the club’s lights and fur vests. There’s an electronic beat - this time is house - and some of the guests are already dancing.

At 2:30, the club is suddenly full. More and more guests keep coming in. And everybody seems happy, following the commandant-DJ, who raises his arms and dances himself. The guests show up in small groups of 3 or 4. They put themselves in half-circles in front of the DJ’s cabin. Based on the configuration “VIP-nightclub-to-highclass-groups”, the atmosphere doesn’t seem favorable to casual meetings - or flirting. Who are there have brought already their perfect companion to the rooftop-paradise.

The party goes on in a growing rhythm until 6. But the nightclub stays open, and with DJs working, until 10. Unfortunately I can’t enjoy the first sun’s rays from the club. I have to catch a plane to São Paulo. Although, I keep russian friends to go back to the city - and to club, of course. In other nightclubs of Moscow the common soundtrack is made of pop and the 40-most-hits of dancefloors all over the world. But Krysha Mira is very different from the rest of the Moscow scene. It’s the rooftop of world!

(by Juliana Rocha, as first published at OESP)