Vienna is beautiful. (That's where I was this past weekend.) Its large, grand, old buildings, architectural stylings, and focus on art reminded me very strongly of Paris. Schönbrunn Palace and it's gardens are strikingly similar to Versailles' and, as if to solidify the connection in my mind, the opera I went to see, Foust, was also completely in French.
I set out from Juelich at 5:30am to be able to get to Vienna at a decent hour, see it on Saturday and then go to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, for Sunday. There was a 15 minute train delay that caused me to miss my connection and I was stuck waiting a few hours for the next train to Vienna. I finally arrived at around 6pm and knew that I wanted to see more of Vienna than I wanted to see Bratislava, so I chose to stay in Vienna both days. With that decided, I hurredly checked into a hostel and hopped on the subway to get to the opera to see if there were any €3 standing room tickets still available. While I'm in a city famous for it's culture and music (Mozart, Beethoven, Strauss, and Brahms all lived here or were buried here - Vienna's cemetery is the 2nd largest in Europe, I think), I figured I might as well experience as much of that culture as I could. In the opera, the orchestra was great and the singers' voices filled the hall most impressively.
I ate at the Sacher Café after the opera and had the Original Sacher Torte (the first ever cake). To round out my first evening, I sought out a local, Mozart-themed restaurant and enjoyed some authentic Wiener schnitzel (that means schnitzel from Vienna in German, the national language of Austria) and paired it with a local beer.
Perhaps you haven't noticed, but some of my favorite activities in each location I have visited have been eating the local foods and trying the local beers and wines.
I got to bed, got up early and walked the city, seeing the impressive buildings and as many of the sights as possible. I hope to go back and see a few of the more interesting museums as well as the inside of the Hofburg, Schönbrunn, and Belvedere Palaces.
After a few hours of walking around, to finish my time in the city center, I hurried to Zantoni and Zantoni and had the best ice cream in town.
I had to leave Vienna much earlier than I wanted to because of the oppressively long return trip (11 hours on trains), and that prevented me from seeing most of the Schönbrunn gardens and the other locations I hope to return to. I just had time before the train to purchase a pack of Manner Neapolitan wafers, another Viennese specialty.
The trip was long enough that I managed to finish reading Harry Potter. For the past two weeks I've averaged a half a book, or around 200 pages, per day. It's been very enjoyable rediscovering my love of reading while here. I found an iPod app that let me download Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin at the start of July and ever since then I've been reading something whenever I've been underway on public transport. I won't spoil the ending of the Harry Potter series for you, but I will say I thought it was very well done. That's in stark contrast to the end of the Animorphs series. I read all 57 books in that K.A. Applegate series when I was younger; I had a standing pre-order of every book as it came out. And then she ended it without a conclusion, in essence, with an ellipsis "..." and a page that said "Try reading my next series!" That was really frustrating; quite the let down. Thank you, great authors like J.R.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling, for giving me hope for satisfying ending in book series.
Interestingly enough, there are a number of small connections between the authors I like to read or have read recently. Without knowing it until now, Rowling is compared by some analysts to Jane Austin. And three of the four authors I mentioned in the last paragraph go by their initials, like me. But for now I have to break my contemplation and to get to work; today is my second to last day.
I am going out on the town with my coworkers tonight and celebrating with a barbecue tomorrow for lunch. I'm really looking forward to some more German grilling complimented nicely with American BBQ Sauce.
Tomorrow night it's off to Italy for a week (Rome, The Vatican, and Cinque Terra) and then back to Germany for Oktoberfest (19th and 20th of September), and then I fly home on the 21st. It's approaching so quickly!
Just after bows before the intermission of Foust. For arriving two minutes before the show started, I had a decent spot. I couldn't see about 1/3 of the stage, though.
Part of the Opera Hall during intermission.
The Original Sacher Torte, complete with milk-coffee. An after-opera tradition.
The Karlskirche at night, reflecting quite clearly in the pond before it.
Hard to see, but on this mirror in red there is a digital counter showing the Number of Wiener schnitzels eaten since January 1st. One of those was me.
This is part of a subway series where they have all kinds of active counters going. I thought it was very interesting.
Mmmm. Pi. It continued around the corner.
The Parliament building. Just one of many many large and impressive buildings in Vienna.
Some buildings near the town hall (the spired building in this picture).
The gardens at Schönbrunn Palace.
