lovable cats for lovable people

 

 

FIFe World Show in Vienna/Austria
on November 13/14, 2004

 

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Actually I had only planned to photograph all Ragdolls shown at the FIFe Worldshow in Vienna and to take some additional pictures for a future article on cat shows in general. But in the end I had so much picture material I was able to put the following pages and a personal WW show report together. However, some pictures are missing now that would have been nice for a complete WW show report. So please don't hesitate to submit pictures of the vet-in, the other stalls and boothes, interesting or fun situations, etc. Everything is most welcome!

Due to the many pictures in the article, loading of the pages may take longer than usual. By the way, if you are only interested in Ragdoll pictures - a couple of them can be found on page 6, all other Raggies are pictured from page 9 to page 13. American Curl pictures are on page 5.

photo: Angela Kalista Vienna - a fascinatingly beautiful city and always worth a trip! Here a view of the city hall with the Christmas market that opened this very show weekend

s the annual FIFe world cat show, always held in different countries, is very special and Vienna is "only" about 480 km away from Munich, I was delighted and didn't hesitate to say "yes" when my friend Ellen asked me if I would accompany her to the show. I had no cat I could show there myself, so I would be a "visitor" only, while Ellen entered her two blue bicolor Ragdoll boys, Usti, recently altered, and her 6 months old kitten Mickey (Ellen is not a breeder but loves to show her cats).

fter a comfortable car trip we arrived on Friday afternoon at our hotel which was one of the recommended show hotels. I used to have a deep respect for the reputation of this 4 star hotel and thought of it as kind of a luxury accomodation, too expensive for a humble exhibitor. So whenever I have needed to stay overnight in Vienna, I used the by far smaller boarding-house located just a few steps away from this huge hotel, in its "shadow" so to speak. Too bad that the boarding-house was already booked up this time. But Ellen tried to make the hotel even sweeter sounding by listing all benefits of the hotel she had found on the internet, especially the swimming pool and sauna ("you just have to bring along your swimming suit, using the pool will be sooo much fun!"). But normally you hardly have time to use such extras when showing. Besides, personally I am not very interested in foreign swimming pools or saunas anyway, so I was more impressed and convinced by the discount for "world show people".

Big shudder... the hotel room's carpet...

owever, the first impression of the totally overheated hotel was a quite worn carpet in the entry hall. And I couldn't suppress a smile when I noticed the big English sign in the lift that of all things the swimming pool and sauna were out of order. After switching on the lights in my room, I saw that the bathroom was under water. So I had to move from the third floor to a room on the first floor, now far away from Ellen's room. But these quarters did not look especially inviting either. Dark spots on the carpet, very used looking furniture, dirty walls, a not working TV... At least the beds looked fairly new and were comfortable. This and the special price mentioned before (46 Euro plus 6 Euro for cats in the room, instead of the normal list price of 111 Euro for a single room) made the situation bearable.

 

More impressions of my hotel room:

 

My "air conditioning system"  :-)))

oreover, I was fortunately able to totally turn off my room's in the beginning almost "boiling hot" radiator, while this was not possible everywhere. Ellen for example, had to stand up frequently during the night to open the window for a minute or two, else the heat in the room would have been beyond endurance (because of the cats and a fierce cold wind outside you could not keep the windows open for a longer time). My room's windows had two yellowed stickers, asking the hotel guest to keep the windows closed, so a) no insects could enter the room, and b) the airconditioning system could work properly. Airconditioning system???? Other things were just as remarkable, for example the sign on the lift to push only the button of the direction you want to go - funnily there was only a single button, namely to downstairs. All in all the hotel radiated a faded charm of the late 70ies/early 80ies - once built never updated. It really made you wonder how (or when) the hotel had earned its stars...

n the meantime Nadja and Olaf, Mickey's breeders, had arrived by plane from Switzerland. They too had not brought along any cats but had come as show visitor and for "moral support" :-) only. If you are a first time visitor to Vienna, don't miss thoroughly exploring this stunningly beautiful and charming city! But since Ellen and I had been several times to Vienna in the past, and it was already late, we all were more than happy to stay in the hotel for dinner. Big mistake! To make the story short: the service was awful and the meals lacking, topped off by tiny six legged critters in the salad!

ave you also had a "Jungle Show" on TV, where the participants - a couple of more or less famous national stars - have to eat fat maggots and such? I suppose they would have fallen on their knees out of sheer gratitude if they would have had to eat salad lice only. But for us this was really enough! Finally Ellen confessed that her neighbour at home, working for a week in Vienna a few months ago and staying in our hotel during the time, had warned her of dining here (why didn't she tell us earlier?!). Instead, he had recommended a small local restaurant, just a few minutes walk away from the hotel. Still sitting at the dining table, Olaf took his cell phone and reserved a table for us for the next day after the show. When we left the dining hall, Olaf enthusiastically gave away the other restaurant's address to other cat people who seemed not too happy about the meals, too (some had even left without paying, that wasn't very polite either. After all, not everything had been bad, so we only had shortened our bill accordingly).

 

Welcome sign at the hall entry

adja and Olaf were still sleeping, they wanted to follow by taxi later, when we - Ellen and I - entered our car on Saturday morning. Ellen usually uses the internet service of the German motor club ADAC for any route planning. This time, the route description from the hotel to the show hall was printed out from an Austrian website. I suppose we interpreted something wrong, because after a perfect start we suddenly were stuck in a dead end. Only a pedestrian or a bicyclist would have been able to use the specified way. For a while we tried to find our way around the dead end, but without success. Ellen became more and more nervous, and for the first time I did not miss my cats but was very happy that they were safely at home. Finally, after lots of turns and twists, the hall was in sight! We grabbed one of the last parking spaces (quite a distance away from the hall), and decided to carry - or better drag - not only the cats but everything else incl. the two chairs into the hall right away (an old exhibitor rule says, never go without chairs as you never know what you will find in the hall). The wind was still biting cold and we were relieved when we reached the hall.

The crowd in front of the judging lists in the morning

hough we were late, we were still in time. I am not completely sure re the vet-in, but I counted about 10 present vets. The examination of the cats and control of the vaccination booklets went fast (as far as I know, on this occasion the vets did not check if cats from abroad were microchipped - since October 2004 chipping is at least mandatory for any cats crossing the EU borders). When Ellen fetched the show documents, she was told to look for the German flags as all exhibitors from a country would be benched together.

Where there was the vet-in in the morning, now there is the entrance cash

he first disappointment... It is certainly very exhibitor-friendly when all cats from an exhibitor are placed next to each other, no matter what breed or color they belong to. But I heard more than one voice saying that you usually know the other exhibitors of your breed from your own country and that it would have been more interesting and fun to be benched next to exhibitors of your breed from abroad (not even all cats of the same breed from a country were benched next to each other in their respective "country row").

The first spectators arrive

ith the assistance of today's computer programs, perhaps it will be possible in the future to bench all cats of a breed next to each other, without seperating them by colors or categories. So all exhibitors would be still able to have all their cats together, but they also would be amidst (almost) all other exhibitors of the same breed. If one wanted to show cats of different breeds, either the exhibitor could mark on the entry sheet in what breed row s/he wishes to sit, or the "majority breed" counts (if the exhibitor enters one Maine Coon and two Ragdolls, s/he is placed with all cats in the Ragdoll row).

Last preparations before the judging starts (Alva Uddin/Sweden and...?)

nyway, I waited with Usti and Mickey and all show baggage on the end of the German row while Ellen was searching for her two pens. As all pen numbers were totally mixed up, the task certainly wasn't so easy, but I just couldn't believe that Ellen wasn't successful. So I started to search myself, but indeed - no pens with her numbers in the German row or in the area nearby! After a while Ellen was desperate and on the verge of tears. She was hard pressed to pack her cats and go home. My heart went out to her and I did my best to convince her that everything would be ok soon.

Soon Mickey and Usti will be *finally* able to leave their carriers

ven the show managers could not find Ellen's two pens. What a pity that there was no show hall plan available - else it would have been quite easy to check where the pens should have been. Perhaps other exhibitors had taken them over - after all, they just had to be somewhere, hadn't they? All in all we had searched for almost an hour - an hour where Mickey and Usti had to stay in their carriers, not knowing what happened around them. Finally, somebody brought a smaller double cage, one of the kind used in the judging areas, and placed it in front of a row entry. The other exhibitors in the row gave Ellen a mixture of sympathetic, doubtful, and strangely fascinated looks while she put up her show curtains.

The Vienna show catalog

couldn't be of any more help for the time being, so I started to explore the hall and to purchase a catalog for myself. I planned to take pictures of every present Ragdoll and their owners and needed the catalog to find all Raggies and to mark who is who on the films. Though the catalog cost 8 Euro, I heard that it was sold out early on the first show day. Due to extreme use :-), unfortunately my copy "let down" by Saturday evening so all Ragdoll pages came loose.

 

A well deserved recreation break

hile I strolled along with my just bought catalog, I found a rather exhausted looking Ellen with a cold drink and nerve-soothing cigarette in a quiet corner. She just had moved her cats once more, this time into their actual pens. However, neither she nor the show management had found them... Doris, a fellow Ragdoll breeder from Switzerland, had frantically searched for her as the two pens next to Doris' were still empty and a look into the catalog had confirmed that they belonged to Ellen. Doris, you are a gem!

Local patriotism  ;-)

ogether with another two German exhibitors, Ellen was now seated between the Norwegian and Swiss exhibitors, distinctively away from the official German row. In order not to be completely lost between, the neighboring German Maine Coon breeders had put up a small German flag...

next   FIFe World Show, page 2

 

[ Legendary Ragdolls | The First Ragdolls with a FIFe-European Title | Ragdolls with a FIFe-World Winner Title | Ragdolls at Cat Shows; FIFe World Winner Show - Vienna 2004, page 1 ]

Except as noted all text, photos and design by Renate Wald. Illustrations made by and/or purchased from Lallas Countrystyle, R. Wald & C.ountry Patch C.ollections. My heartfelt gratitude goes to Patricia and Frej Krook for editing. All images, text and content within this website are subject to copyright laws. Without my or the respective artist's written consent the reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium is prohibited. Disclaimer