The Original Sacher Torte, as served by the Hotel Sacher, is by no means bad, but the fact remains that in the last century, human progress in the field of chocolate has been quite impressive. And what was state of the art chocolate back in its time is today just another slice of cake on a chipped plate.
Our other remarkable cafe moment comes when we notice a pair of women near us conversing animatedly in sign. Something about their conversation fascinates Sarah; finally she realizes that they are signing in a non-ASL dialect, one whose basic principles differ from those of American Sign Language. Later on on the trip, when we run into an acquaintance from college in Budapest (Dan Biss, for the curious), the smallness of the world will be reaffirmed, but at that moment in a Vienna cafe, it's larger and more wonderful than we'd realized.