For a long time I forgot what air travel was like. After countless flights on USAir and Southwest, I had come to think that a ride on an airplane entailed gripping my armrests tightly while the engines make popping and rattling noises and flight attendants growl at me. That was my conception of air travel… until I stepped on board a Singapore Air 747.

While walking to my seat at the back of the plane, I’m pretty sure I was personally greeted by all 22 flight attendants. On my seat I found a pillow and a blanket. And an hour into the flight, I found on my tray table a meal fit for a flying king.

Beef with white rice and steamed vegetables, a side of ham salad, a roll with butter, rice pudding, spring water and Coke light. Yum. The last flight I was on I got a Sprite. Only a Sprite. On my last international flight I got a Sprite and a yogurt. Oh, happy day.

But on Singapore Air, I was fed handsomely and treated like a person, not a bacteria culture. It was refreshing to fly with an airline where the crew were taking pride in their work instead of taking shelter in the galley.

I have never been to Singapore. But for eight hours, Singapore came to me.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do. Unfortunately, I am not in Rome. I, like rice, am in Vienna, referred to locally as Wien. So if we are to apply the saying to other cities, we must ask ourselves a very important question: what do the Wieners do?

Answer: they eat boatloads of pork. So that’s what I did as well.

Pictured above is a plate with a pork chop, ham, bacon, and wiener sausage. In case that’s not enough, they added a breadball (breaded, as per rice’s observation about Austrian cuisine), a mountain of sauerkraut, and two small potatoes.

The other white meat? I think not. Here pork is the meat. Period. End of discussion. After countless sausages, much ham, several pork chops, and bacon, I can say confidently that when in Wien, I did as the Wieners do. And it was delicious.

Today, we ask ourselves a simple question–will it bread? To evaluate our query, we put Austria to the test. We went to a random restaurant in Vienna, and requested that the chef surprise us with his most classic cuisine. The first course, bread, was, by definition, breaded. The second course, beer, was effectively liquified, fermented bread, but for good measure, it was served with more bread, which, as mentioned above, was by its very nature breaded. The third course, schnitzel, was beef, thinly pounded, coated with bread crumbs, and then fried. Breaded indeed.

chicken and rice, using basic induction, so declares that Austria can bread anything, thus unambiguously answering the question above with a simple yet thorough ‘yes’. Tune in next time. Not sure why. Just trust me.