Resplendent Vienna

I didn't get a chance to write about Vienna until I was two cities away (in Venice actually). Because of this, enough time had passed that I was actually reminiscent about it. We only spent two half days there, and we mostly just walked around, but this was probably the right thing to do here considering that I believe it was the most photogenic city we visited. (You'll have to tell me if you agree after this post and the next one.) Let me recount our visit from the beginning.

Upon leaving Prague, (and I do mean stepping out of our apartment door) it started to rain. And I'm talking, log ride at six flags kind of rain. We unfortunately had a 20 minute walk to the train station to complete. We weighed our options... we could try public transit, but since our apartment was so beautifully located we hadn't had a reason to use it before now and therefor had no idea how it worked. Now, while deciphering bus and tram routes and schedules in the 45 minutes we had left before our train was scheduled to leave seemed like a fun challenge for now expert sight see-ers like me and John, it could also lead to frustrating train missing antics. We weighed in the comical value of such antics as they could be represented in a future blog, but in the end decided that catching the present train was more important than a potential chuckle from future readers such as yourselves. I apologize for our selfishness. Perhaps you can take solace in the fact that we arrived at the train station soaked to the bone, and frankly quite cranky.


Believe it or not, the train ride significantly improved my mood. Rain falling on the countryside is quite pleasent as long as you are not in said countryside. Puddles, fog, and an everchanging lanscape to enjoy each upon. What's not to love? I've always enjoyed rainy days, it's a fondness my father and I both share. I also like telling him this because each time he forgets, and is surprised and happy to find another rain watcher. I hope that again he has forgotten, and that reading this reminds him and makes him smile.
I was sure the rain would end by the time we reached Vienna, (Europe is reasonably sizable, correct?) but no, the rain followed us all the way to our destination train station, and throughout another walk to a different foreign abode. This time we stayed in a hostel. We checked in reasonably quickly, stowed our things, toweled off, and went out to explore. First things first, we were starving. The closest eatery to our hostel was "The Schnitzel Sisters." Having just left Prague, and already missing it, we decided to try it out. They produced an English menu for us, and almost immediately, and without reading the entire menu John decided to order bacon wrapped, cheese stuffed sausages. I promptly told him he was ridiculous, and then went ahead and ordered the chicken cordon bleu. It wasn't until I sat down that I realized we both ordered cheese wrapped in meat, wrapped in meat. Also, mine was breaded and deep fried, so I was more ridiculous.


As we left our dear sisters of schnitzel, it was starting to get dark, and therefore (in my opinion) the most fun time to take pictures. I like it because in daylight it's pretty easy to know how a picture is going to come out before you take it, but at twilight when light is less evenly distributed, you never know what light is going to do to your photo when it is done bouncing around inside your camera. Most of the time you say, "Crap, it is SO much prettier than this picture makes it look." But every once in a while, you say "Wow, this is cool!"

As John and I were about to abandon the cool wet evening, (yes, it was still drizzling) we heard music coming from this ominous looking castle. We stumbled on an outdoor film festival! Tonight's series? Dance! We thought this was quite fortunate because if there were no words at least we would be able to understand everything. (We were wrong by the way.) The first was a modern ballet composition that was really beautiful. There was obviously some kind of story happening, but when John and I compared interpretations, they couldn't have been more different.
The next piece had a short synopsis (in many languages) at the beginning, so we knew we were going to watch a depiction of the life of Christ. The choreographer decided that 'funk' was the most appropriate style of dance for this epic religious narrative, and so we were rewarded with break dancing, slow motion running, and (I kid you not) moon-walking. It was extremely difficult to keep from laughing when Judas was doing the 'Robot'. The rest of the Viennan audience apparently did not see the comedy in it. (Perhaps they were just cranky about the rain ruining their cultural event.) The final act was definitely the most visually interesting, it was a beautifully choreographed ballet-film, complete with costume changes and extremely confusing plot lines. The dancers seemed to be moving so fast, I'm still wondering if they were using less frames per second for effect. As part of the story (which we caught none of) they had a male character (dressed as a female character) on point shoes. I was impressed. I never saw a man do point before. Tell me dancers, is this common? Do males use toe shoes, or was this a unique experience? I am not trying to say that I don't think males have the grace or talent to learn this type of dance, only that I wouldn't think there would be a reason for males to master this technique if they never needed to use it in a ballet. We watched about half of it before we gave up on ever discovering the meaning of the piece and left those silly Viennans to their own interpretations.
After stopping to fight with (and conquer!) the most confusing Austrian hot chocolate machine ever, (was it really asking us how 'chocolaty' we wanted our drink?) we retired to our respective bunk beds excited about the palace we would visit the next day.

What's that? You want a preview? OK, I'm feeling generous: