Tuesday June 5, 2007
Weird squirrels and ham & corn pizza


Hello Everyone,

So it’s been a busy two days, as usual. Today was kind of my catch up day from the weekend to rest because I definitely didn’t do any of that the past few days. Yesterday for class we went to Schönbrunn Palace and gardens. Needless to say, it was breathtaking. So Prof. Waldman got our tickets, and he had already warned everyone that other tour guides really push you along and try to get bossy so we shouldn’t be intimidated since you go through the palace like a maze. Well half way through, one of the guards starts to go off on Waldman in German, so he starts talking back in German. Apparently, in order to give a “tour” you need to be a licensed tour guide. Their excuse is so you know fire exits etc, but the real reason is they want more money. So Waldman explains that he is our professor and we are just talking, and they try to tell him he’s leading a tour. Well Waldman is kind of an anti-conformist kind of guy and doesn’t mind “sticking it to the man” when given the chance. So we go on. A few minutes later we are surrounded by at least three guards yelling at Waldman to stop giving a tour, in German, so he starts talking back in German about how there is nothing wrong with talking to his students. They start to tell him he is unqualified, so he spews back “I have a Ph.D. and am educationally more qualified than any of the ‘licensed’ tour guides you allow in here” and they start spouting back, and Waldman just starts playing mind games with them because the whole premise was dumb: we are allowed to talk, but Waldman was “giving tours.” A clear difference, not. So after much ado about that, we walked on, and they kind of followed us, but that was about it. It’s kind of neat to see your Professor be a badass.

Schönbrunn was just as ornate as you would expect. It was meant to rival the palace in Versailles built by King Louis XIV. There were many famous things about the palace, including the room where the 6 year old Mozart played for Empress Maria Theresa and jumped on her lap and kissed her daughter Marie Antoinette. Also of note, one of the rooms is where Napoleon’s son was imprisoned until his death. He wasn’t allowed out of the palace for fear that he would be crowned in Napoleon’s place, and he led a really miserable life, was very sickly, and had a pet bird that apparently was his only friend. (which they have stuffed and in the museum.) The gardens are enormous and smell so fresh and are blooming with different types of flowers. Our class walked around for a bit and had a discussion before we split. I walked around a little more, but I’m going to have to go back because my feet were too tired to do the labyrinth and zoo they have. I went to the Coach Museum, which in all its simplicity was really intriguing. They had the royal funeral coach which was basically this imposing black coffin display and the Imperial Coach from the 1700’s, which was covered in gold leaf and had 8 model white horses “pulling it” in full plumage. It looked like Cinderella’s carriage. Also, squirrels here are weird. I’ve only seen them at Schönbrunn, but they are a grey/dark brown and have pointy ears with tufts of fur at the ends, and hop around. I managed to only get one picture, and the squirrel looks evil, so perhaps they are.

After that I came back to the apartment and went grocery shopping, which is actually always a pain because they don’t have very big selections and things are laid out pretty weird. Not to mention it’s a pain because you have to pay for shopping carts, so I always end up with my arms full of food until I can put it in my bag (which you have to bring) at the cash register.

Then yesterday evening I went with a few others went to go see the Vienna Mozart Orchestra perform Mozart and Strauss. I dressed up in this skirt I have that is a faded red white and blue pattern but I had to pair it with a bright blue sweater since I didn’t pack the jean jacket I normally wear with it, so I looked pretty Americana. When I came out my roommates started to sing “She’s a grand old flag” which I thought was pretty funny. The student tickets were 19 euros, and we almost didn’t do it, but then the girl said she’d upgrade our seats since they weren’t sold out, so we ended up with seats that cost 59 euros! The concert played all the classic songs you recognize from Mozart, and the players dressed in colorful Mozart costumes which was pretty comical actually. The Musikverein, the concert hall, is a bright pink building and had a really pretty interior (I think I’ve said this about every building on this trip, but it’s true) so needless to say, that was neat. Duh. When we were trying to figure out where to go for our tickets, the guards kept saying “it’s right around the corner to the left” but the problem was there were like a thousand corridors so we ended up basically asking every guard there where to go. I think they were just out to confuse us.

All of us with Mozart.

Afterwards several of us were going to go to a bar, but to make a long story short we ended up coming back pretty soon.

End Monday.


So today I had German class. Last week I was all into it, now I either want to go back and relearn French or just be ignorant and just speak English. I’m kind of tired of dealing with it. Today we had a long class to learn about Mozart’s Opera The Magic Flute because we are all going to go see it on Friday at the smaller Volksoper. I was pretty tired still from my weekend, so I came back and crashed after class, but not after getting actually winked at by a 55 year old Turkish man on my way to the U-bahn, twice. That’s been happening to all of us quite frequently. All these old non-Viennese men keep starring at us or start talking to us randomly on the street. We find it funny, yet disturbing at the same time. There comments are all harmless, but we are just like “are you serious?” But seriously, people here stare a lot! And it isn’t like in America where you look back and they look away, they just keep going. So we all stare right back and make them feel uncomfortable. Relax though everyone, because in Austria apparently you wear your wedding ring on your right hand, not your left, and I normally wear a ring on my right hand, so here I look like I’m married. lol

For dinner I went and got pizza at a corner stand, and the guy working asked where I was from in broken English, so I said Texas, and he said “bang bang, cowboy!” and I was like “rigggghhhttt.” It was cool, and my pizza had corn and ham on it. It was pretty darn tasty.

I think that’s it for today. We only have German class the next few days because our professor is kicking off a conference in Florence about Hungary and its role in Renaissance Art, which is kind of the beginning of his year long fellowship with Harvard. Tomorrow I think I’m going to try and go to the Opera and go check out the Hofburg Palace and all their museums. We shall see!

Take care everyone, and eat lots of BBQ and TexMex for me!
*Elaine


By the way, I feel like my sentence structure has become awkward after being here. Even though I don’t speak German, I hear it all day long and I’m pretty sure it’s screwing with my English brain. Either that or I’m just tired. So sorry guys.

Also, these are links to youtube that crack me up. It’s Falco, an 80’s artist from Vienna and the scenes in both of these videos are all things I’ve seen or see on a regular basis. Hope you enjoy them as much as we all have!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRjRGVDD0Wk&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjBXK4CTtvM&mode=related&search=