This is what we do here.

The extra pins are back into the Bill Gates doll which is now in the coldest part of the freezer.

Gwenyth and I have decided that we will communicate only in German when we exchange emails – and will do this daily. So I decided to buy the German Language Pack for Word 2007.

The Microsoft site is almost impenetrable and only those with advanced hacking skills and immense patience can get into it. Actually finding the site to buy the Language Pack was damn near impossible. There is nothing at all on any of the layers of pages I went to that say ‘Buy Language Pack’, They talk about it a lot but to buy it you just have to keep clicking until you get lucky and stumble accidentally upon the right spot.

Perhaps it's part of a game ‘Indiana Jones and the Quest for the Furshlugginer German Language Pack'.

But buying it proved to be much more difficult than finding it.

Firstly I ended up on the US site and went through all the palaver to buy it only to discover that I needed a US address.

So I had to go to a European site – where I have the privilege of paying much more for the same product.

The process of buying this thing was excruciating. I had to fill out many forms, create a Windows ID account, give my date birth and much other totally irrelevant information. At one stage I admit I was shrieking with rage but managed to calm down enough to do what I thought may be the final steps.

When I clicked on the last button an invoice popped up saying thank you for your purchase and telling me what I had bought and how much it was. Printed on the invoice was a message saying that my credit card payment could not be processed. I was then booted off the site and found myself back where I had started from.

I had to go and calm down and did not return to the quest for the language pack for some hours. Working slowly and carefully I negotiated my way back in and eventually found that I had in fact purchased the damn thing and could download it. Which I did.

It took hours to do something that should have taken minutes.

I discovered another weird Viennese thing.

Cate got back from Moscow on Saturday evening and we went to dinner at a restaurant called Firenze Enoteca near Stephansplatz. When we left the restaurant Cate said it was the worst meal she had ever had – and the worst wine.

Cate tends to be swept up in the emotion of the moment and forgets some of the stunningly awful repasts we have savored in our global wanderings.

I said I didn’t think it was even in the top 50 and mentioned some memorable occasions – including some go outside and stick the fingers down the throat situations. Or even stay inside and do it.

I can for example – remember a restaurant in Narooma, on the south coast of NSW – which has rendered me incapable of ever eating again – or even thinking hard about - a Hokkien Noodles. And this was 15 years ago.

Anyway at about 4:30 Cate started vomiting and just got worse and worse – so bad in fact that Muffin left the bedroom and I had to wear ear plugs. And Muffin could just not understand why Cate was shouting into the big white telephone when there was a nice furry rug waiting in the lounge room.

But – it was not the food – because we both at the same vile crap. It was obviously a bug from Moscow.

She may have gotten this from the extremely drunk taxi driver on the way to the airport in Moscow. He kept falling asleep and Cate and her work colleague had to keep shouting and hitting him to keep him upright. Death was narrowly avoided but there was not much they could do – they were in the wilds of Moscow in the middle of a blinding Snowstorm. Death awaited them both inside and outside.

By 8:00 AM Cate was fading and I realised that it was possible that some Apothekes may be open on a Sunday as there is a sort of duty roster. They must hustle Apotheke people out of bed at gunpoint to get them out there on a Sunday.

So I found the website that listed the duty Apotheke in our area and went there at 8:30. It wasn’t ‘open’ in the sense that the door was open but there was a light on inside. I was pondering my next move when a man came along and pushed a red button next to the door.

An Apotheke-man appeared from the back of the shop and came and opened a small glass window – at about waist height – at the side of the door. The client man bent over and shouted his ailments through the glass and eventually – after a lot of shouting and gesticulating – (the glass is nearly but not completely soundproof) there were medicines and money exchanged.

Old habits die hard and when the Apotheke-man slid open the door to talk to me I dropped to my knees and said ‘Bless me father for I have sinned – my wife is vomiting non–stop and is dying’.

He crossed himself and said ‘ This is the work of the devil – give your wife these drops and they will cast out the evil spirits. Now say ten Hail Marys and be gone’.

‘Ten is a bit much’ I said – ‘just for vomiting’

‘OK’ – he said – ‘Just do five but stop fiddling with your testicles’.

When I got home Cate had deteriorated and I immediately called ‘Doc Around the Clock’ (Yes – that is what it is called) and Doc said he would be there in half an hour – which he was.

He gave Cate an injection and told me the drops I had obtained got were useless homeopathic rubbish. He gave me a prescription to get filled.

He then charged me a synapse-searing €250 ($377.50) for the consultation. After the third visit we get a voucher to go sailing on his yacht in the Maldives.

It was a bit harder at the Apotheke this time as there was a queue of six people already waiting outside. Fortunately it was fine and mild day. I would hate to have to line up for hours in a snow storm – because there is no way they are going to open the door.

It is quaintly Viennese not to think that people may need an Apotheke six days each week – but not a Sunday. After all – why would anyone get sick on a Sunday?

And if you do get sick it is certainly not my fault and I am definitely not going to let you and your smelly little sick body into my shop – I mean - I mopped the floor on Saturday afternoon.

To make you suffer even more I will make you bend double and shout through a little hole in the glass. If you have a particularly embarrassing ailment I will ask you to repeat it six times.

This is Wien. This is what we do here.