Hanne

2 July 2009

Vienna/ Wien/ ‘Donaumetropole/ hub of the Danube. Burial site of Beethoven, playground of Mozart, home of the Sachertorte. Yep, I have been off gallivanting across the continent again! Originally I was not much interested in going to Vienna, I wanted to visit Paris instead. But all my friends had signed up for this trip already. So I did too, and that was a good choice! It was completely worth two overnight bus trips to spend the weekend in Austria’s capital.

What did we do? Become cultured, of course. Opera, art galleries, cafés, castles and a music festival were all on the programme. Well, OUR programme, anyway. The trip was actually organized by three students who designed the itinerary as part of a university ‘work-oriented course’. Their city tour on the first day would have been much more useful if they had described where we were and why, but the accommodation was good, and it was awesome not to have to worry about little details like where to get a public transport pass.

So. We left Freiburg on Thursday evening and settled in to a rather restless night. Busses are not the most comfortable places to sleep, plus we were all super excited. David came prepared with his beer, should the trip not prove soporific enough for his liking. It seemed to work, he slept like a log! We arrived in Vienna at around 8am and deposited our bags at the hostel. Then it was time to explore! Four of us went for a walk down to the Museums Quarter – Holly and I were interested in the exhibition there, the other two girls were keen to check out the shopping possibilities as soon as possible. They saw shoes, and were like flies to honey. Living in Freiburg can cause shopaholics to experience severe withdrawal symptoms, it would seem!

Then it was time for a city tour. We saw plenty of old buildings but did not learn much about them, except the Austria Library. We went inside the old reading hall and it was absolutely stacked with books as it is the library with one copy of every book ever published in Austria. The ceiling was also painted with pretty pictures. Lots of ceilings are painted with pretty pictures here in Europe….

During the city tour we did see the Opera house and Maria and I decided we would definitely like to go to the Opera in the evening so had to go home to freshen up. Buying standing tickets at the door meant lining up at 5pm and hoping that there were fewer than 530 people in front of us. Luckily, there were. Aida was showing and it was a spectacular performance, quite an atmosphere. And quite an experience when we entered too, we felt like cattle as we were lined up in two lines, shoulders against the walls, and told to file into the standing places and tie a scarf or jumper to the railing to secure a spot. By the end we were quite exhausted, but all the standing was completely worth it. Especially when the orchestra played the Grand March, which was the tune to our school song at high school. And especially when some ballet dancers came on and danced around a bit.

After the Opera we were completely hungry so headed directly for the nearest food place. Unfortunately Subway had no bread. WTF? Then the falafel man next door had no more falafel. The city was conspiring against us! Eventually we headed back to meet the others in a bar near the hostel and after canvassing several streets in search of grub I grabbed a feta kebab from a street corner. I was ravenous. I t was gooood.

The next morning was choice time: either we could visit the Mozart House or the Kaiser apartments where Kaiserin Elisabeth and Kaiser Franz Josef lived. Well, I was the only one who chose Mozart and then felt lonely, so went with the others. It was very informative, Kaiserin Elisabeth was forced to marry her cousin at 15 which would kind of suck, but later she was a very independent woman who traveled a lot and did plenty of sport and took cocaine injections for period pain (this was all in the exhibition, even the toilet bag she kept her potions in). There was also a big exhbition of the royal china and silver and the cake tins were interesting to look at, some were shaped like sparrows. Yum.

We were finished with royal doings for the time being and then decided it was definitely time for cake. Heidi from Finalnd is our cakes expert and she had been raving on about Sachertorte, a special kind of chocolate cake with apricot jam that originated from the Hotel Sacher in Vienna. I can confirm that it was indeed delicious. And the toilet lady was really nice too, she told us we should definitely visit the Donauinselfest. All the hotels and theaters here have toilet ladies who are in charge of keeping the loos clean and stocked up with toilet paper. You should really give them 50 cents if you need to pee, or they look at you with a witches stare. It is a custom that took a while to get used to, I guess you always need a purse of change if you have small children! Going on a bit of a tangent here, but I was just reminded of a conversation we had last night involving men and whether they stand or sit. We asked several German guys to canvas opinion as to whether the rumours we had heard were true or not, and apparently approximately 80% of them sit when taking a piss. Just in case you ever wanted to know.

David was keen to see Beethoven’s grave so that was next on the list, we went on a cross city adventure then got lost in a humungous graveyard. Found the grave of the Macho family (sorry to any posers out there who may be disappointed by the news that ‘macho’ is dead) and went for a lovely stroll. Eventually we found Beethoven, Strauss, Schubert AND Brahms. And luckily we did not get rained on by poisonous flesh-eating caterpillars. There were signs all over the place warning visitors about them, and a lovely couple from eastern Germany told us in great detail how your skin peels off and you are ill for months, then wished us a pleasant stay in Austria.

That afternoon Holly and I headed for the museums quarter to check out the Leopold Museum and the Modern Art Museum, and I was in seventh heaven. Everything we studied in seventh form Art History was right there, just casually presented as if it was pretending to be nothing out of the ordinary. There was a Gustav Klimt exhibition on the top floor, and halls full of Der Blaue Reiter, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, not to mention the odd Dada piece and a hall full of American artists such as Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. It was coooooool. I felt like such a geek for being so excited, but it was coooool.

What happened next? Well that evening we headed for the Donauinselfest, a huge free open air music concert on the Donau Island in the middle of the Danube. Our goal? Make it half way down the island to the main stage before 10pm, when Snow Patrol were due to take the stage. For some reason there were lots of stalls selling flags, including several Australian flags. Holly ate an icecream called a ‘bumbum’ (just for the name!) and then we joined the crowds. It was an awesome atmosphere! After that we headed back into the city and found a cute little cocktail bar, where Heidi proceeded to spill her deliciously red drink down the front of her crispily white new skirt. Oops. But the wine was good, and the music. A nice end to a busy day…

And then it was Sunday and our last day and it pissed down with rain but we had time to explore a maze and the gardens and castle of Schloss Schönebrunn and see how pretty the wall decorations were in the rooms where the King lived. Then we trained to the other side of the city for a typical Austrian experience in a small restaurant owned by a local wine-making family. We sampled their wine and the home-made spreads from the buffet, followed by apple strudel with warm custard, mmm mmm.

And then it was home time! This time I had the entire back seat of the bus to myself for sleeping, which was much more conducive to a good nights shut-eye. Oh, and the bus driver was playing a radio station with non-stop Michael Jackson until various tour group members threatened bad bad things unless it stopped. We found out about his death as we were arriving in Vienna and several people heard the radio and thought it was in their dream. But he kind of belongs to the weekend too then, because of course his face was all over the papers. And that is about it! A busy weekend, back to the uni slog now, three more weeks to go!

Bis nächstes Mal,

Hanne