The winery owner, he pinched my side when we took the picture, and said something in unrecognizable Austrian country German.

Monday June 11, 2007

I have quite a few days to catch everyone up on! I suggest reading all of this in parts, or just skim for the interesting parts. Remember, my family reads this to know exactly what is going on, I don’t except everyone to care that much!

Friday: We don’t have class on Fridays, so I took it a little slow in the morning and then got my day going. First I went to Karlskirche (St. Charles Church) which was built by Emperor Karl I after a second plague hit Vienna in the 1700s (St. Charles, his patron saint, also happened to be the patron saint of plagues). It is by my favorite church exterior here because it has a very imposing and attention grabbing. It has a fantastic presence, so when I got there Friday morning to finally go inside I sat for a moment outside in Karlsplatz and enjoyed the moment. This is a new concept for me, when things are pleasant and nice I just stop everything and sit right down and enjoy it until it passes. I have never had the luxury of that ever before. Typically I always have somewhere else I ought to be, something that should be done, something I need to take care of, but those reasons virtually don’t exist here in Vienna. People watching can be quite fun, especially when you solely use visual cues because they are all speaking in another language. I sat down next to an older man playing the accordion (yes I know, I should have followed Grandpa’s advice and taken accordion so I could be the life of the party) facing Karlskirche and the shallow reflecting pool in front of it. There was a young lady walking in the reflecting pool with her black lab letting him play and splash in the water while she talked on her cell phone (or handies as they call them here) and a little less innocently on the other side there were two topless women in thong bikini bottoms in front of a man with a camera, just to remind me I am in Europe. Just so you know, the naked people here in Europe are not attractive.

Not that I’ve been to Paris, but from what I gather I feel like Vienna is more the romanticized city that Paris used to be before it became filled with overly idyllic tourists. Here I was in a park sitting next to an accordion playing love songs and not surrounded by tourists. Sure, you see them everywhere, but they don’t flock and swarm and are still outnumbered by the locals. It was refreshing that it still exists even in a city the size and grandeur of Vienna.

So moving on, inside the church, I walked in and was instantly disappointed because you couldn’t see the beautiful frescos on the ceiling because the view was impeded by an enormous scaffolding. I was sad until I realized that while they are restoring the ceiling they installed an elevator to the top so guests could get the chance to be up close and personal to the ceiling. I got up to the top platform and they had a bunch of stairs leading up to the top dome in the church were you could see out and view a panorama of the city. Not to sound like my dad, but I thought about chickening out. You could feel every vibration, especially once you got on the several flights of stairs. I’ve never wanted more to have an engineer by my side to certify that it was structurally sound (this is Austria not Germany remember). But I reasoned that if there was a place to go crashing down to your death doing something mildly risky it would be a church, so I did it. The scene was beautiful and it was amazing to be so close to the ceiling for once! I stayed at the top for like three minutes tops before I went down to safer ground.

I almost missed the other neat thing they had in the church museum because the captions were in German and I was sick of listening to the audio tour. Well, they had many saint relics that were donated by the Imperial family, including a few parts of organs from holy people inside crucifies as well as what they claim to be splinters from the actual cross. They say you could build a house from all the splinters claiming to be from the cross, but they made the comment that what makes them so special is that people have revered them as holy relics for centuries and they are still very old parts of history regardless of their validity. They also had vestments from the actual St. Charles, so that was kind of surreal to be so close to parts of history.

After that, I went to find some lunch, but it was later in the afternoon so most of the places had closed, so I finally got some sparkling apple juice, which was amazing, and ate cream cheese strudel for lunch. It was good, but not quite as good as the apple.

After that I headed over to the Hofburg again to find the National Library State Room. After being directed to the actual functional National Library, they sent me around finally to the old historic one. It was a big hall filled to the ceiling again with old books and the rolling staircases. They had many handwritten books on display that were given to the Imperial family for weddings etc, and also had the actual “Good King” Wenceslaus commissioned bibles (handwritten) on display. I’m not sure if I had ever put two and two together to realize he was an actual person, not just a Christmas song, but it rang a distant bell.

So funny story from the National Library State Hall. It was really musty in there from all the old books and just as quite as a library. Well about halfway through, I let out this giant sneeze from the must and it just reverberated throughout the entire hall in front of all the other visitors. Can anyone say slightly awkward turtle?

After that I made it a point to walk around awhile in the giant public gardens they have surrounding the Hofburg. Oh and I saw these really awesome black and white artistic postcards and I wanted to get a bunch for home from around Vienna until they guy told me they were 1.50 euros each. The price wasn’t posted anywhere so I think he was just trying to take advantage of tourists, so I just slapped them all down on the counter, said “Nein danke” and left. Ridiculous, but I haven’t seen them anywhere else, but I will get over it for 1.50 euros each. That’s like an apple strudel a piece. Seriously people.

After all that our class went to the opera again to see Mozart’s Magic Flute. It was really good, but not as good in my opinion as La Traviata. I didn’t like the storyline [weak female role and overly sexist,] but the music and set design of Magic Flute was entertaining enough. After that we got gelato. Enough said.

Saturday I woke up and realized instantly that I was coming down with a cold. Boo. Most people on the trip got it last weekend and I guess I could only hold the inevitable off for a little. So I stopped by H&M and bought a completely fabulous summer wide brimmed white hat. I figure I’m outside so much here I can make use of it when I go and sit in the park, plus I’ve always wanted a timeless one like this and have never found it for a good price in the US. I went and got some soup, fruit juice and fresh fruit, then came back to the apartment and rested. I knew that if I didn’t rest upfront this would turn into a weeklong cold like the others had and I knew Sunday would be a busy day and I didn’t want to be miserable. So I napped, read, wrote in my journal, and for the first time talked to James and my parents on Skype (free “phone” using internet cables) on the computer. It was really nice to finally be able to just talk with them. By the way, my homesickness has gone away again. I think last week was my actualization phase that I was going to be away from home for over another two months but now I’m completely at peace with the amount of contact I have with everyone and the routine I have here.

Sunday

We had a group trip to the Wachau Valley Region and traveled to the Melk Benedictine Monastery which dates back to around 1089 when the Babenbergs (Austrian Imperial Family before the Habsburgs) donated their castle to the Benedictine Monks. From there we went to Dürnstein, and then on to Krems and the surrounding region.

We went to the monastery and it had prettish gardens surrounding it. The abbey itself was just ok and I felt like the museum was a bit out of place because it was completely symbolic and modern, but the church was absolutely breathtaking, which says a lot since I average about 10 new churches a week. When we walked in, and they were in the middle of their morning prayer service so we got to hear the organ and everything in German. After that we went and got back on the bus, and went to have a huge lunch in the small town Dürnstein at a local place. Everything was very good, but unfortunately we ended up not having enough time to hike up to the castle ruins on the hill that apparently Richard the Lionheart was held prisoner, but we did get to walk around a bit.

After that we went to Krems, an old medieval town, and had a tour given by “professional” Austrian tourguide. She actually really flared my temper and it took everything I had to bite my tongue because as an American I apparently have more class than she does. One of the first things she said to us was about American politics and starts Bush bashing, then continually kept bringing it up throughout the entire freaking tour. I am a firm believer that world issues right now are incredibly dynamic and complex and there is no right or wrong side since our world is in a time of unprecedented change brought on by hundreds of years of history. I welcome people who have opposing opinions from me because I feel like that is how all of our opinions grow and develop when seeking the truth, but I only value opinions when they come from people who actually know what they are talking about and have considered all sides and implications of the argument. It was painfully obvious that her knowledge of US economics, foreign policy, and American opinion was ill informed and ignorant.

For those of you who miss my rants, this will make you feel better. My complaints are as follows:
1) I don’t walk up people I meet foreign country and immediately start talking about their leader and give my opinions about how terrible their country is, that would be rude. Period. Furthermore, their criticism should consist of more that “your leader looks like a primate.”
2) Secondly, we, as Americans, have just paid this lady a large sum of money to walk around with us and tell us about her small town. This puts her in a professional capacity, making the offense even more inappropriate. I came for a tour of Krems, not a talk over American Politics by a short Austrian lady who’s been to the US once.
3) I think it is disrespectful when people use a captive audience for something other than the intended purpose.
4) Lastly, how would someone in our group feel if they had a family member involved in the war, or worse yet who had died because of it? Way to ruin their cultural experience.
5) Do you have a better idea? Then make it happen.

All of that said, I was ready to spew red white and blue fire on her since she probably, maybe, reached my shoulders. Also, don’t you dare tell me your health care system is better than the United States. There is a reason we have the best emergency medical care in the world and some of the best premiere medical technology, that isn’t an accident. Again, I don’t care what she thinks as long as she knows what she’s talking about, which she clearly didn’t. Don’t regurgitate stereotypes to me when I’m not here spending money to talk about that.

Well right after our tour I think God got angry too, because it started to storm. So we got on the bus and drove to a local winery in the middle of the country. It was a small mom and pop kind of place and when we got out the old man [see picture] shakes all our hands as we got off the bus and starts talking in a German Austrian dialect I think equivalent to what a Yorkshire accent sounds to Londoners. So nobody except our IES guide knew what he was saying, German students included, but that didn’t keep him from talking to us and saying jokes we didn’t understand! We got to go into the wine cellar and taste from the barrel. He used this glass siphon to pull up the wine and pour it into our glasses, which a “taste” of each wine was about half a glass. After that we went back upstairs and had wine and cheese, plenty more wine, and then finally went and had a full spread of Austrian meats, cheeses, and vegetables. Again, so good, and we really felt like guests because they never let our glasses get empty and we stuffed ourselves and they brought out more, and then this amazing dessert bread.

Monday
Today wasn’t that busy since I’m still feeling better, although I don’t feel that bad. I went and got fresh fruit at the farmer’s market, went to class, Professor Waldman played Beethoven and Shubert at full volume and at times had us sing along. It was fun.

I’m really learning how to stretch my money out. I did my research and figured out that Hundertwasser museum, KunstHausWien was half price on Mondays, so after I figured that out more people of course wanted to go. Hundertwasser was this architect and artist who followed no conventions and believed a lot in incorporating nature and leaving out straight lines, floor included. For instance, in the lobby of the museum, the fountain has water that flows up the fountain instead of falling down it. He was a free spirit but not in a way that was annoying. I enjoy his work which isn’t even in my style.

Ok, this entry has been long enough. For those of you who skimmed through for pictures, I don’t blame you. ;)

Lots of Love,
Elaine