Donnerstag, 8. Dezember
Wien
Today we went to the Leopold Museum, which is an art museum in Vienna's museum quarter. It was pretty neat; they had stuff from the turn of the century until today. Lots of stuff that we've been discussing in class from the Secession, like Klimt and Schiele and all them. Over this trip, I've discovered that I really like Klimt's stuff. They had copies of the paintings he did for the University, who then rejected them, which is one of the big things that spurned him onto starting the secession movement (they are copies because the originals were burned in WWII). Those were really neat. I also really liked the secession posters, and it was pretty funny--they had a little game you could play in the exhibit of "fits, but does not belong"--basically find the things of the same style but not the same era. Next to the secession posters, they had some hippie posters for concerts--very similar font, very similar style of art. Pretty cool.
One of the floors of the museum was devoted to Egon Schiele and those inspired by him, and I walked through that floor a bit quicker. There was some really bizarre stuff there that was probably made to make people feel uncomfortable. I find Schiele's work (for the most part) really disgusting and off-putting, and just in general don't really like him. Some of the stuff he inspired was interesting (if slightly disturbing) though. There was one room that was covered in foam and had whispers about various things coming from the walls. Overall though, the museum was pretty neat. I liked the way it was set up; it led you through the era chronologically, and it was of a manageable size, not too huge.
When I was done with the museum, I walked across the street to the Adventmarkt between the two twin museums--the museum of art history and the museum of natural history. It was a pretty standard Christmas market, nothing too exciting. I did get something interesting for lunch there though. I got a crepe, and asked for Schinken und Käse (ham and cheese), and the lady asked, "Schinken Käse Mais?" (ham cheese and corn?), and I looked at the menu again and realized that those aren't just lists of possibilities but options for specific crepes, so I decided to try it. I've seen the Viennese put corn on a couple of things you wouldn't really expect (i.e. pizza), so maybe its a good thing. In any case, my ham/cheese/corn crepe was pretty tasty. Interesting, yet tasty.
I decided to amble my way back to the hotel instead of taking the U-Bahn, and found another Christmas market on the way. It was pretty cool, very artsy. It seemed like more handmade things than some of the others (though all the markets have many many handmade things). I got some Glühwein in a ceramic handmade mug (like it was spun on a pottery wheel), which was pretty neat. There were so many things that I wanted to get but would never be able to take home. =( I've been having this problem a lot while here.
Later on, we all met up together to go to a Heurige, which is a type of restaurant normally found in wineries. It's a very homey kind of restaurant, where you get a bunch of food to eat family style and enjoy it with delicious wine. Dr. Rotenberg had told us that we'd have to work a little to get there, because you always have to work a little to get to a Heurige, but I don't think he expected us to work as much as we did. We took the U4 to its end station, and from there we were supposed to take the 39A bus. Unfortunately, without realizing, we got on the 38A. Then, Dr. Rotenberg said we should get off, but then Dr. Souchuk thought it was two stops more. We got off two stops later, and then we were going to walk back those other two stops. It was then that we realized we had taken the wrong bus altogether, and so we just walked there (probably about a 20-30 minute walk?) instead. We were about 45 minutes late for our reservation, but that was not too big a deal, as there was lots of space in the restaurant.
Regular visitors to a Heurige generally will go up to the "buffet," which is like a deli counter, order all of the salads and things they want for their family, pay for it at the counter, and sit back down with their food. However, since we were a large group, the waiters just brought us a bit of everything. There was ham, pork roast, potato salad, carrot salad, green beans, pasta with mushrooms, pasta with olives, root vegetable (I don't remember what it was called, but its an Austrian dish), Knödel (dumpling)...lots of variety and so much food! The wine we drank was a Riesling, which is a drier white wine, and it was quite tasty. Apparently its the custom to put more and more soda water in your wine each time you refill your glass so that you can make it through the evening. As I only had two glasses, I didn't bother watering it down. It was good as it was. After we were all done eating, we got a plate of varied cookies to share, which were also yummy. The way back to the U-Bahn took maybe five minutes tops, compared to the 40 minutes it took to get there. But at least the longer journey was before we ate, so we had time to warm up and eat all the calories we had just burned off. All things considered, it was a pretty good evening.
Freitag, 9. Dezember
Wien
Our initial plan for today was to go to the art history museum, but that was abandoned for Schloß Belvedere instead. Schloß Belvedere was the palace of Prince Eugen of Savoy, who saved the Austrian Empire in a few key battles, so he was granted the best real estate with the best view (which is what Belvedere translates to) in the city. It has expansive gardens, and is a really pretty castle. Inside, it's a big art museum, which houses (among other things) Klimt's The Kiss. It was really neat to see in person, along with many of the other works within the castle. In addition to the two rooms of Klimt works, upstairs, in the impressionist section, there were a few Monets. There was also another exhibition interspersed throughout the museum, which was called INTERVENTION. It had modern-day artists who were inspired by works in the Belvedere, but twisted them a bit. I really liked the stuff from Marianna Gartner (here is an example of one of her paintings).
After Belvedere, we walked to the Stadtpark (city park) to compare the different garden styles of Belvedere (very geometric, many straight lines) to that of the Stadtpark (very organic and curvy). As Dr. Rotenberg explained, Belvedere had the "Catholic," aristocratic type of gardening, keeping everything orderly, ruling over nature, whereas the Stadtpark was the "Lutheran" approach--letting nature be nature, keeping it for the people, approachable for everyone. Apparently you can do pretty much anything you want in the Stadtpark...last time Dr. Rotenberg was here in the summer, there was a couple having sex in the bushes, and he was watching all the old people sitting on the benches chuckling and chatting about it. This is probably not something that would be tolerated in the states. Both parks were pretty in their own ways, though the Stadtpark was more comfortable to just take a stroll. It also wasn't overrun with tourists (though there were some Japanese people taking funny tourist photos by the flower clock in the park) like Belvedere was.
Next, Michelle, Bria, and I walked around the city to find places that Klimt hung out at--the Universität für Angewandte Kunst (University of Applied Arts), where he went to school, and the Burgtheatre (court theatre), where he painted murals on the ceiling and the grand staircase. Unfortunately we could not go inside the theatre to see his paintings, but I got a picture of the outside of both places. The assignment was to pick someone from our book, A Nervous Splendor, and take pictures of places related to them in Vienna. I had originally wanted to pick Crown Prince Rudolf, but there's basically nowhere in the city other than the palace that has anything to do with him, so I chose my second favorite figure from the book, Gustav Klimt. I really liked how he hated all the fakeness of the Vienna high bourgeoisie, and went against the grain to eventually form the Secession.
After our Klimt adventures, Bria and I went to Cafe Tirolerhof, and while we were sitting there, Brendan and Michelle walked in and joined us. It was a pretty standard Viennese cafe, though the waiter was really rude and kept ignoring us. It was really difficult to get his attention to take Bria's order (she hadn't known right as she sat down, which was what originally made him not like us), and almost more difficult to get him to come to our table so that we could pay. Eventually we were able to pay, so we proceeded to our next place (also for an assignment), a pastry shop called Demel. We were supposed to sit there for a while, but after attempting to navigate the place for a bit, we decided that it was impossible. It was so packed with tourists it was ridiculous. It was probably the most touristy one we've gone to, and that's saying something since they were mostly touristy. So instead, we all just got our pastries to go and ate them in the hotel lobby. I got a Fächertorte, which had a layer of poppyseed, a layer of chestnut mousse, a layer of apples, bits of cherry, and a flaky crust. The motley of flavors was confusing, yet delicious. After that pastry, I wasn't hungry for dinner, so I just hung out at the hotel for the evening.
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I will continue this update later, but right now I have to get ready to go to a Viennese University class and then the opera. Busy day!
Monday, December 12, 2011
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Milk, Cream, and the Crème de la Crème
Montag, 5. Dezember
Melk und Krems
This morning we hopped on a bus to get out of the city for the day. We first traveled to Melk, which is a small town about an hour and a half due west of Vienna. It was pretty windy and chilly there, but luckily we were not there to be outside. Since we arrived a bit early, we went in the restaurant to get some coffee and to kill half an hour. After we had all warmed up a bit with our Melanges, we proceeded into the abbey (Stift Melk) for our guided tour.
Our guide walked us through a courtyard, which had some modern paintings, which my brother and I decided looked like ninjas when we were there last year summer. Apparently, they are the four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, temperance, and courage. The monks decided a while back to keep up with the times, so there was a bunch of modern stuff along with the really old stuff throughout the place. The museum our guide led us through next was a perfect example of this modernity. Each room was a different color, and was ridiculously modern. I was really surprised. It was quite an interesting museum, not as dry as I would´ve thought it would be. After the museum, we walked through the abbey a bit, saw some really beautiful ceiling murals, a couple cool libraries, and a really nice panoramic view of the town and surrounding area.
We eventually got to the church, which was really beautiful. They had some entire skeletons from the catacombs in Paris, which were posed almost....sexual. I really felt like one of them was saying, "Paint me like one of your French girls." The main altar, interestingly enough, did not have a crucifix, or Jesus on it at all for that matter. It was all saints, especially Peter and Paul, since they were some of the patron saints of the church. Mary and Jesus were in some of the smaller alcove chapels shooting off the sides. When we were done in the church, our tour was over, so after a small stint in the gift shop, we got back on the bus to head to Krems.
According to Dr. Rotenberg, Krems is in a big wine-growing region. Thus, along with the Wiener Schnitzel I ordered (I hadn´t had one yet, and really wanted one), I ordered a Grüner Veltliner, a white wine exemplary of the region. It was pretty sweet (sweeter than I expected, as most of the white wines I´ve drank were dry), but quite tasty. For dessert, I got Eispalatschinken--crepes filled with ice cream and covered in powdered sugar and chocolate sauce. Needless to say, it was very delicious. After that excellent meal, we had half an hour to walk around the tiny town of Krems before getting back on the bus to go back to the hotel, where I just hung out for the rest of the night, catching up on my reading assignment before going to bed.
Dienstag, 6. Dezember
Wien
Today we went to the Wien Museum--a museum of history of the city of Vienna. The ground floor was die Römerzeit (Roman times), and as you went up the stairs to the other floors, you got closer and closer to today. They had some original statues from the Stephansdom in the museum; I guess the ones that are on the church right now are copies. There was some interesting stuff there; I was really thrown aback by the modern stuff though. I´ve never seen a museum that has things from right now in it. In one of the exhibits, they had a postcard and some magnets on display that the souvenir shops sell, plus some credit cards that I have seen in advertisements. It was quite odd to see one´s own time in a display case.
I think my favorite part of the museum though was this one exhibit made in cooperation with some university students. They walked around the city, taking pictures of signs and things, and made magnets of the words, creating an art exhibit that the visitors can alter. They also made things out of trash resembling those things that high society celebrated around the turn of the century (i.e. hats with stuffed birds on them, crocodile handbags, etc). I´ll post pictures of those later, but they were pretty great. They also made an animated video, which I just searched for on youtube, but unfortunately it isn´t there. It was pretty great though. Very interesting.
Back downstairs, there was a special exhibit about Angelo Soliman, an African man who, around the turn of the century, was employed by a rich duke as his servant, won the lottery and thus his freedom, lived in the middle class with his wife until they dropped back down into poverty, went to work for the duke again, and then, upon his death, was stuffed and put in an exhibit of "native" African tribal people. It was such a scandal that this man who had made such a name for himself was reduced to nothing but a native in an exhibit--little more than an animal--so this man has become quite important in Vienna´s history.
When I finished with the museum (everyone finished at different times, so I was alone the rest of the day), I walked through the Adventmarkt right outside (the Karlsplatzmarkt that I was at a few days ago but closed so I couldn´t see a lot of it), and got a Glühbier and Bratwurst for lunch. The bratwurst came with a garlicy flatbread, which was pretty cool...usually they come with rye bread or a roll or something. This was a tasty change. However, more exciting than garlic bread was the Glühbier. I didn´t even know it existed until I saw the sign, which is why I ended up eating there actually. I got a cute little 0,3 L stein full of this hot, surprisingly sweet, beer. Unfortunately, once it got cold, it was not really that good. But it was delicious while it was warm though! I love all these warm drinks. In addition to Glühbier and Glühwein (red), there´s also Glühmost (white wine), and many many many kinds of Punsch. There is hot punch made of basically any kind of fruit you like, many with mixed kinds, and a bunch with different kinds of additional alcohol (punch generally already has a bit of alcohol in it already [unless you get Kinderpunsch], though it doesn´t taste like it). What else is interesting about all these drinks is that you can walk through the whole city drinking them (and any alcoholic drink for that matter), as opposed to in the US, where there are only certain fenced in areas, and if you walk down the street with alcohol you can get fined.
After the market, I went back to the hotel and chilled for a while, until I went to go get some dinner with Jocelyn. We went to a Wurstl stand and got some sausages and some Glühwein before coming back to the hotel to get ready for the opera.
Klemens, our guide in Salzburg, had gotten us some discounted student tickets for the Staatsoper (state opera) performance of Nabucco, a Verdi opera about the struggle between the Assyrians and the Jews in Babylon. It was pretty cool being in that space, though I felt rather under dressed next to all these fancy gowns. Unlike the other two operas I´ve been to, instead of English subtitles above the stage, each seat had its own little subtitle thing, on which you could choose English or German subtitles (I chose English). I was kinda bummed that they didn´t translate every line that was sung, but I suppose they got all the important bits. After the opera, we were going to go to a wurstl stand and rub elbows with the rich and (maybe) famous [according to our professors they all go to the sausage stands after the opera I guess...trading classiness for lower street food], but it was raining, so we decided not to. We were going to go to a cafe instead, but their kitchen was closed, as was most everything near our hotel, and since I wasn´t really hungry anyway, I just went to the hotel and went to sleep.
Mitwoch, 7. Dezember
Wien
We were with Dr. Rotenberg today, and our assignment was to go to a supermarket and examine products, ingredients, and brands from countries within the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. In our store, Spar Gourmet, there really wasn´t a lot of things made outside of Austria or Germany, though quite a lot of produce was from Italy. As we were looking at things and writing their countries of origin, one of the workers asked us what we were doing. When I told him we were working on a project for school, he said that normally that is forbidden without permission (which, when I asked Dr. Rotenberg later, apparently entails a signed/stamped letter from the professor about 3 weeks in advance). Since he said "normally," Bria and I decided to stay and finish the assignment, though we went to a different part of the store.
After the supermarket, we hopped on the Straßenbahn with the hopes of riding around the Ringstraße to our next cafe, but all of a sudden, the train left the ring. We thought it might eventually go back to the ring, so we stayed on it for a while, until we realized it really wasn´t going to head back there. So we hopped off and got on one going the other way. When we got back to the Ring, we decided to walk to the cafe (it was only like 4 blocks away). When we were almost there, I realized that my map, and thus our assignment paper, had fallen out of my pocket. So we walked all the way back to where we got off the S-Bahn, luckily we found the paper, but we didn´t find the map (which wasn´t an issue, I just got a new one from the hotel later). After having to walk there and back already, we decided to get on the S-Bahn instead. When we finally walked into Cafe Prückel, we almost left; the smoke was so thick you could hardly see. However, I then saw a glass door in the back, that fortunately led to a non-smoking section (I am so glad smoking inside is outlawed in the states....being here and going to cafes, bars, and restaurants where people are smoking...its awful). I ordered Schinkenfleckerl, which was bits of ham and little square noodles; it was quite tasty. We sat there for a while, reading and writing our assignments, and then proceeded to our next assignment: pastry shops.
We have to go to four of the best pastry shops in the city, order a pastry, and people watch. Sounds awful, right? At Gerstner, the pastry shop we went to today, I got a Mohntorte (poppyseed torte) and a Melange (Viennese specialty coffee...basically coffee and milk I think. Like a latte). The Mohntorte was really delicious; I had been craving poppyseed strudel for a while, and though this was not the same, it definitely sufficed. We could not do much people watching, however, as our assignment said to ignore the tourists, just write about the Viennese, and our pastry shop was basically all tourists. After we were done with our cakes, we headed back to the hotel to debrief with the class.
That evening, Dr. Rotenberg was going to take any of us that wanted to go to a Czech restaurant, but after we got there (and it was a long walk), we found out that they were full for the whole evening. Hungry and bummed, we started walking back and the group eventually all parted ways, some getting street food from the subway, others heading for some kind of restaurant, and I headed towards a Christmas market (of course). I tried some regular Punsch (mit Eierlikör), and didn´t really like it, but drank my €3,50 worth anyway. It was getting late, so a lot of the stalls were starting to close, so I didn´t end up getting food at the market. Instead, I went to a Wurstl stand and got a hot dog with Bratwurst (they were out of Scharfewurst). I don´t remember if I´ve described a Viennese hot dog already, so I´ll explain it now. A "hot dog" is just their way of presenting the meat, not a style of sausage. They take a baguette, stab it on a stake, squirt in some ketchup and mustard, and slide your sausage of choice into the hole. In general, quite tasty, and much better than an American hot dog. This one was not as good as some others I´ve had, but it was still pretty good.
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Well, that´s it for now. Tonight we are going to a Heurige, which is basically a wine restaurant, if I remember correctly. Should be pretty cool.
Melk und Krems
This morning we hopped on a bus to get out of the city for the day. We first traveled to Melk, which is a small town about an hour and a half due west of Vienna. It was pretty windy and chilly there, but luckily we were not there to be outside. Since we arrived a bit early, we went in the restaurant to get some coffee and to kill half an hour. After we had all warmed up a bit with our Melanges, we proceeded into the abbey (Stift Melk) for our guided tour.
Our guide walked us through a courtyard, which had some modern paintings, which my brother and I decided looked like ninjas when we were there last year summer. Apparently, they are the four cardinal virtues: prudence, justice, temperance, and courage. The monks decided a while back to keep up with the times, so there was a bunch of modern stuff along with the really old stuff throughout the place. The museum our guide led us through next was a perfect example of this modernity. Each room was a different color, and was ridiculously modern. I was really surprised. It was quite an interesting museum, not as dry as I would´ve thought it would be. After the museum, we walked through the abbey a bit, saw some really beautiful ceiling murals, a couple cool libraries, and a really nice panoramic view of the town and surrounding area.
We eventually got to the church, which was really beautiful. They had some entire skeletons from the catacombs in Paris, which were posed almost....sexual. I really felt like one of them was saying, "Paint me like one of your French girls." The main altar, interestingly enough, did not have a crucifix, or Jesus on it at all for that matter. It was all saints, especially Peter and Paul, since they were some of the patron saints of the church. Mary and Jesus were in some of the smaller alcove chapels shooting off the sides. When we were done in the church, our tour was over, so after a small stint in the gift shop, we got back on the bus to head to Krems.
According to Dr. Rotenberg, Krems is in a big wine-growing region. Thus, along with the Wiener Schnitzel I ordered (I hadn´t had one yet, and really wanted one), I ordered a Grüner Veltliner, a white wine exemplary of the region. It was pretty sweet (sweeter than I expected, as most of the white wines I´ve drank were dry), but quite tasty. For dessert, I got Eispalatschinken--crepes filled with ice cream and covered in powdered sugar and chocolate sauce. Needless to say, it was very delicious. After that excellent meal, we had half an hour to walk around the tiny town of Krems before getting back on the bus to go back to the hotel, where I just hung out for the rest of the night, catching up on my reading assignment before going to bed.
Dienstag, 6. Dezember
Wien
Today we went to the Wien Museum--a museum of history of the city of Vienna. The ground floor was die Römerzeit (Roman times), and as you went up the stairs to the other floors, you got closer and closer to today. They had some original statues from the Stephansdom in the museum; I guess the ones that are on the church right now are copies. There was some interesting stuff there; I was really thrown aback by the modern stuff though. I´ve never seen a museum that has things from right now in it. In one of the exhibits, they had a postcard and some magnets on display that the souvenir shops sell, plus some credit cards that I have seen in advertisements. It was quite odd to see one´s own time in a display case.
I think my favorite part of the museum though was this one exhibit made in cooperation with some university students. They walked around the city, taking pictures of signs and things, and made magnets of the words, creating an art exhibit that the visitors can alter. They also made things out of trash resembling those things that high society celebrated around the turn of the century (i.e. hats with stuffed birds on them, crocodile handbags, etc). I´ll post pictures of those later, but they were pretty great. They also made an animated video, which I just searched for on youtube, but unfortunately it isn´t there. It was pretty great though. Very interesting.
Back downstairs, there was a special exhibit about Angelo Soliman, an African man who, around the turn of the century, was employed by a rich duke as his servant, won the lottery and thus his freedom, lived in the middle class with his wife until they dropped back down into poverty, went to work for the duke again, and then, upon his death, was stuffed and put in an exhibit of "native" African tribal people. It was such a scandal that this man who had made such a name for himself was reduced to nothing but a native in an exhibit--little more than an animal--so this man has become quite important in Vienna´s history.
When I finished with the museum (everyone finished at different times, so I was alone the rest of the day), I walked through the Adventmarkt right outside (the Karlsplatzmarkt that I was at a few days ago but closed so I couldn´t see a lot of it), and got a Glühbier and Bratwurst for lunch. The bratwurst came with a garlicy flatbread, which was pretty cool...usually they come with rye bread or a roll or something. This was a tasty change. However, more exciting than garlic bread was the Glühbier. I didn´t even know it existed until I saw the sign, which is why I ended up eating there actually. I got a cute little 0,3 L stein full of this hot, surprisingly sweet, beer. Unfortunately, once it got cold, it was not really that good. But it was delicious while it was warm though! I love all these warm drinks. In addition to Glühbier and Glühwein (red), there´s also Glühmost (white wine), and many many many kinds of Punsch. There is hot punch made of basically any kind of fruit you like, many with mixed kinds, and a bunch with different kinds of additional alcohol (punch generally already has a bit of alcohol in it already [unless you get Kinderpunsch], though it doesn´t taste like it). What else is interesting about all these drinks is that you can walk through the whole city drinking them (and any alcoholic drink for that matter), as opposed to in the US, where there are only certain fenced in areas, and if you walk down the street with alcohol you can get fined.
After the market, I went back to the hotel and chilled for a while, until I went to go get some dinner with Jocelyn. We went to a Wurstl stand and got some sausages and some Glühwein before coming back to the hotel to get ready for the opera.
Klemens, our guide in Salzburg, had gotten us some discounted student tickets for the Staatsoper (state opera) performance of Nabucco, a Verdi opera about the struggle between the Assyrians and the Jews in Babylon. It was pretty cool being in that space, though I felt rather under dressed next to all these fancy gowns. Unlike the other two operas I´ve been to, instead of English subtitles above the stage, each seat had its own little subtitle thing, on which you could choose English or German subtitles (I chose English). I was kinda bummed that they didn´t translate every line that was sung, but I suppose they got all the important bits. After the opera, we were going to go to a wurstl stand and rub elbows with the rich and (maybe) famous [according to our professors they all go to the sausage stands after the opera I guess...trading classiness for lower street food], but it was raining, so we decided not to. We were going to go to a cafe instead, but their kitchen was closed, as was most everything near our hotel, and since I wasn´t really hungry anyway, I just went to the hotel and went to sleep.
Mitwoch, 7. Dezember
Wien
We were with Dr. Rotenberg today, and our assignment was to go to a supermarket and examine products, ingredients, and brands from countries within the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. In our store, Spar Gourmet, there really wasn´t a lot of things made outside of Austria or Germany, though quite a lot of produce was from Italy. As we were looking at things and writing their countries of origin, one of the workers asked us what we were doing. When I told him we were working on a project for school, he said that normally that is forbidden without permission (which, when I asked Dr. Rotenberg later, apparently entails a signed/stamped letter from the professor about 3 weeks in advance). Since he said "normally," Bria and I decided to stay and finish the assignment, though we went to a different part of the store.
After the supermarket, we hopped on the Straßenbahn with the hopes of riding around the Ringstraße to our next cafe, but all of a sudden, the train left the ring. We thought it might eventually go back to the ring, so we stayed on it for a while, until we realized it really wasn´t going to head back there. So we hopped off and got on one going the other way. When we got back to the Ring, we decided to walk to the cafe (it was only like 4 blocks away). When we were almost there, I realized that my map, and thus our assignment paper, had fallen out of my pocket. So we walked all the way back to where we got off the S-Bahn, luckily we found the paper, but we didn´t find the map (which wasn´t an issue, I just got a new one from the hotel later). After having to walk there and back already, we decided to get on the S-Bahn instead. When we finally walked into Cafe Prückel, we almost left; the smoke was so thick you could hardly see. However, I then saw a glass door in the back, that fortunately led to a non-smoking section (I am so glad smoking inside is outlawed in the states....being here and going to cafes, bars, and restaurants where people are smoking...its awful). I ordered Schinkenfleckerl, which was bits of ham and little square noodles; it was quite tasty. We sat there for a while, reading and writing our assignments, and then proceeded to our next assignment: pastry shops.
We have to go to four of the best pastry shops in the city, order a pastry, and people watch. Sounds awful, right? At Gerstner, the pastry shop we went to today, I got a Mohntorte (poppyseed torte) and a Melange (Viennese specialty coffee...basically coffee and milk I think. Like a latte). The Mohntorte was really delicious; I had been craving poppyseed strudel for a while, and though this was not the same, it definitely sufficed. We could not do much people watching, however, as our assignment said to ignore the tourists, just write about the Viennese, and our pastry shop was basically all tourists. After we were done with our cakes, we headed back to the hotel to debrief with the class.
That evening, Dr. Rotenberg was going to take any of us that wanted to go to a Czech restaurant, but after we got there (and it was a long walk), we found out that they were full for the whole evening. Hungry and bummed, we started walking back and the group eventually all parted ways, some getting street food from the subway, others heading for some kind of restaurant, and I headed towards a Christmas market (of course). I tried some regular Punsch (mit Eierlikör), and didn´t really like it, but drank my €3,50 worth anyway. It was getting late, so a lot of the stalls were starting to close, so I didn´t end up getting food at the market. Instead, I went to a Wurstl stand and got a hot dog with Bratwurst (they were out of Scharfewurst). I don´t remember if I´ve described a Viennese hot dog already, so I´ll explain it now. A "hot dog" is just their way of presenting the meat, not a style of sausage. They take a baguette, stab it on a stake, squirt in some ketchup and mustard, and slide your sausage of choice into the hole. In general, quite tasty, and much better than an American hot dog. This one was not as good as some others I´ve had, but it was still pretty good.
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Well, that´s it for now. Tonight we are going to a Heurige, which is basically a wine restaurant, if I remember correctly. Should be pretty cool.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Grocery Shopping, Architecture, and Christkindlmarkts
Freitag, 2. Dezember
Wien
Today was our first class meeting with Dr. Rotenberg. Instead of Dr. Souchuk's method of taking us on a tour of places, he decided to let us find them on our own. We were put into partners (one German speaker and one non-German speaker in each group) and then given a market, a shopping list, and a cafe. The shopping list was for a dinner for a family of four.
The menu for the dinner included:
Huhnersuppe [chicken soup]
Faschierten Laberl [like burger patties]
Salzkartoffeln [salted boiled potatoes]
Fisolen (or some other green vegetable) [green beans]
Blattsalat [leafy salad]
A Seasonal Fruit
And thus the shopping list was:
A whole chicken
1 Würzelwerk (1 Carrot, 1 Yellow Parsnip, 1 Slice Celerac (celery root), 1 Leek, Several Parsley Leaves) [soup aromatics basically....many market stalls sell them all in one rubber-banded package]
1/2 kg Zweibel [onions]
1/2 kg Faschiertes [ground meats, usually combined]
1 pkg Brösl [bread crumbs]
1/2 kg Kartoffeln (speckig: red or green label) [potatoes. The colors of the label pertain to what you are using the potato for. The blue ones are for grilling I think, and between red and green, one is for soup and one is for boiling, if I am not mistaken.]
1/2 kg Fisolen (or some other green vegetable) [green beans]
1 kg seasonal fruit (your choice)
Head of lettuce
My and Bria´s market was Vorgartenmarkt, which is in Stuwerviertel [viertel is a quarter or district of the city], an ethnically diverse, kind of sketchy seeming part of the city. It was definitely working class, and our internet research before leaving said it was the red light district, though that was not apparent at 10:30 in the morning. Our task was to go to each of our respective markets, shop around, and whoever came back with the cheapest price for the meal would win a Mozartkugel. Our market was small, so we pretty much only had one choice for most things. There were 2 or 3 vegetable stands, but only one baker and one butcher (plus a deli and a sausage maker, but they did not have whole chickens). Despite this, we ended up on the cheaper side of the range, though unfortunately did not win the chocolate. In a range from about €7,50 to €21,50, we fell at about €12,35 or so. So not too bad. I´m just amazed that you can feed a family of four for that cheap.
The market itself was pretty small, and had a big area with construction in the middle, which made it hard to navigate. The vendors seemed to know each other, as well as the few shoppers that were out on this chilly, slightly snowy Friday morning. Most of the shoppers we saw were older people. Many of the vendors were not Austrian; perhaps they were Turkish. The snow mostly did not stick, though there was a fine dusting on some of the vegetables. The people at the market seemed less germ-nervous; when we were asking the butcher how much the chicken weighed, he just grabbed it with his bare hands and threw it on the scale. It´s pretty interesting, and I think its awesome that they have these open-air markets all year round, every day, not just Sunday mornings in the summer like in the US.
After the market, Bria and I went to our assigned Cafe (one of about 7 we have to go to over the course of the trip), Adolf Loos´s Cafe Museum. It was a lot less drab than it appeared in the pictures, and was actually pretty comfy. It was a literary cafe; there were advertisements for two guys reading there books on separate evenings. We hung out there for a while, and I got a Weißer Schokotraum [white chocolate dream], which was white drinking chocolate on top of dark chocolate sauce, with some whipped cream on top. It was very white-chocolatey, and very sweet, but it was alright. We sat there for a while, wrote up our market assignment, and wrote up our cafe assignment.
We then went to the Rathaus Christkindlmarkt that we had passed by the previous day. This market was HUGE. Lots of shops selling lots of things; some of them were selling retail toys and things, it was interesting. Bria and I got Beerenpunsch, which had actual berries floating in the punch. It was pretty tasty, and it came in an awesome mug. The Rathaus Christmas market has a little train that drives around the market for €2, a little kids park, an ice skating rink, and a bunch of other stuff, in addition to the market. It was pretty awesome. Across the street, there was another, much smaller market: the Milka Weihnachtswelt [Christmas world]. There were about 5 purple stands in this little fenced in market, 2 of which were little log cabins. There was a lady dipping cookies into Milka fondue (for free), and a wheel you could spin to win things (I won a chocolate Krampus [Krampus travels with St. Nick and punishes the bad kids....he actually looks pretty scary, even in chocolate form], which was delicious).
On the way back to the hotel, I finally got the Döner I´ve been waiting for since my arrival in Europe. It was delicious, and sooo much cheaper than all the cafe food we´ve been eating lately.
Later that evening, we met up to try and go to the Spittelberg Christmas market again, leaving earlier this time. We got there and it was pretty cool. Lots of stuff I wasn´t really expecting though...half the time I felt like I was in an American hippie store. There was a really neat chocolate booth there though, and some cool crafty shops. A lot of it was a bit on the expensive side, but that´s to be expected from a neighborhood that was described as "the closest thing Vienna has to Wicker Park." After the market, I went back to the hotel to try and get some reading done and get some sleep.
Samstag, 3. Dezember
Wien
Today was with Dr. Souchuk again, and this time we walked around looking at a bunch of modern architecture, and a bit of modern art and art history. We started out looking at Otto Wagner´s work, such as his Postsparkasse, Karlsplatz station, and apartment buildings (pictures of all of these will be up later). We then went to the Secession building, which was built by the Secessionists (Gustav Klimt was one of the founders) for a place to house their art. In the basement is Klimt´s Beethoven Frieze, which was really cool [couldn´t take pictures unfortunately]. There was also a bit about the building and the people, and a tiny model of the building in the basement. The rest of the museum had current exhibitions of modern art, which were....interesting. Some were cooler than others, but most of them were not really my cup of tea. We then went to the Cafe Museum (yet again, but as an entire group this time), and had lunch and discussed the trip and our reading so far.
After lunch, Bria, Michelle, Alyssa, and I did a bit of shopping (I got some paprika shoestring chips and Nordbeer-Hopfen [northern berries-hops] juice/flavored water; the former was delicious, the latter interesting and tasty). I tried to look for some nice boots, but they were all ridiclously expensive, and I couldn´t bring myself to spend that much money on a pair of shoes.
After a short rest at the hotel, Bria, Michelle, and I went to the Karlsplatz Christkindlmarkt. It´s probably my favorite Christmas market so far. It had really nice things to buy, most of them made by craftsmen. It also had pony rides and hay to play in for the kids in the middle of the market. Unfortunately, after we finished eating our delicious meal (Hauswürstl mit Brot und Senf, und Weißglühwein [house sausage infused with cheese with bread and mustard, and white Glühwein, which I was really excited to try, and which was delicious]), the market stalls were starting to close down, so although we got to see a few, we didn´t get to see them all. Thus, we will be returning there on Monday or Tuesday night hopefully. After the market, we went back to the hotel to pick up Alyssa, and we were going to go to Loos´s American Bar, but it was super crowded, so we went to Sparky´s instead, where we drank some Cider and chatted for a good couple of hours; it was quite enjoyable.
Sonntag, 4. Dezember
Wien
This morning began with "A Mass for Five Voices" at the Augustiner Kirche. It was an Elizabethan choir singing all the hymns of the mass, which sounded really beautiful. The cathedral was also really beautiful, and the mass was pretty cool; I was proud of myself for understanding most of what was said--the Gospel was John the Baptist telling everyone that soon there will be someone stronger than him that will baptize with the Holy Spirit instead of water.
After mass, Bria and I went to our next cafe, Cafe Schwarzenberg. On the way, we decided to get lunch cheaper than we would at the cafe by getting street food. We each got a hot dog, which is more a method of eating sausage than a type of sausage. When you order a hot dog, they ask what kind of sausage you want inside. To make the Viennese hot dog, they take a baguette, cut off a slice, and stab the baguette onto a spike, hollowing out the inside. They then squirt some ketchup and mustard at the opening and stick the sausage into the bread. Bria and I got Bratwurst hot dogs, which were quite delicious. There were quite a lot of interesting street performers out today, so we kind of ambled our way down the street to our cafe.
When we finally made it to the cafe, it was super crowded. We eventually found a table and ordered. Bria got an Eiskaffee, which is vanilla ice cream and cold black coffee, with some whipped cream on top. It looked pretty good. I got Kaminfeuer Tee, a seasonal red tea with a bunch of different fruits in it. It was tasty, though I let it brew for too long (I got a teapot with loose leaf tea in an infuser). The odd part about this cafe was that the waiter gave us the check after only about 10 minutes. He said something really quickly in German, which we guessed must´ve meant that his shift was ending soon or something, since this is something that just doesn´t happen in Vienna. We sat there for a couple hours, and I wrote a bit in this blog (the earlier entry from today) and then read some the book we have to read for Dr. Souchuk´s class, A Nervous Splendor, which is about turn-of-the-century Vienna and all of the people that lived then and there and changed the world. Around 5, they started playing live music--piano and violin. They played a lot of showtunes, like "Life is a Cabaret" and "If I was a Rich Man," but the music made it harder to concentrate on the reading, so we decided to leave.
On the way home, we stopped at a Döner stand, and I got a Döner sandwich mit Pommes (french fries). I assumed the fries would be a side dish, but apparently not. He put the fries into the sandwich. It was not what I expected, but it was delicious nonetheless. The rest of the evening was spent in the hotel writing this lovely entry, and perhaps I will read some more later tonight before going to bed. Tomorrow we are going to Melk and Krems, and we have to meet up at 8:45 am, so I probably will go to sleep on the earlier side.
Wien
Today was our first class meeting with Dr. Rotenberg. Instead of Dr. Souchuk's method of taking us on a tour of places, he decided to let us find them on our own. We were put into partners (one German speaker and one non-German speaker in each group) and then given a market, a shopping list, and a cafe. The shopping list was for a dinner for a family of four.
The menu for the dinner included:
Huhnersuppe [chicken soup]
Faschierten Laberl [like burger patties]
Salzkartoffeln [salted boiled potatoes]
Fisolen (or some other green vegetable) [green beans]
Blattsalat [leafy salad]
A Seasonal Fruit
And thus the shopping list was:
A whole chicken
1 Würzelwerk (1 Carrot, 1 Yellow Parsnip, 1 Slice Celerac (celery root), 1 Leek, Several Parsley Leaves) [soup aromatics basically....many market stalls sell them all in one rubber-banded package]
1/2 kg Zweibel [onions]
1/2 kg Faschiertes [ground meats, usually combined]
1 pkg Brösl [bread crumbs]
1/2 kg Kartoffeln (speckig: red or green label) [potatoes. The colors of the label pertain to what you are using the potato for. The blue ones are for grilling I think, and between red and green, one is for soup and one is for boiling, if I am not mistaken.]
1/2 kg Fisolen (or some other green vegetable) [green beans]
1 kg seasonal fruit (your choice)
Head of lettuce
My and Bria´s market was Vorgartenmarkt, which is in Stuwerviertel [viertel is a quarter or district of the city], an ethnically diverse, kind of sketchy seeming part of the city. It was definitely working class, and our internet research before leaving said it was the red light district, though that was not apparent at 10:30 in the morning. Our task was to go to each of our respective markets, shop around, and whoever came back with the cheapest price for the meal would win a Mozartkugel. Our market was small, so we pretty much only had one choice for most things. There were 2 or 3 vegetable stands, but only one baker and one butcher (plus a deli and a sausage maker, but they did not have whole chickens). Despite this, we ended up on the cheaper side of the range, though unfortunately did not win the chocolate. In a range from about €7,50 to €21,50, we fell at about €12,35 or so. So not too bad. I´m just amazed that you can feed a family of four for that cheap.
The market itself was pretty small, and had a big area with construction in the middle, which made it hard to navigate. The vendors seemed to know each other, as well as the few shoppers that were out on this chilly, slightly snowy Friday morning. Most of the shoppers we saw were older people. Many of the vendors were not Austrian; perhaps they were Turkish. The snow mostly did not stick, though there was a fine dusting on some of the vegetables. The people at the market seemed less germ-nervous; when we were asking the butcher how much the chicken weighed, he just grabbed it with his bare hands and threw it on the scale. It´s pretty interesting, and I think its awesome that they have these open-air markets all year round, every day, not just Sunday mornings in the summer like in the US.
After the market, Bria and I went to our assigned Cafe (one of about 7 we have to go to over the course of the trip), Adolf Loos´s Cafe Museum. It was a lot less drab than it appeared in the pictures, and was actually pretty comfy. It was a literary cafe; there were advertisements for two guys reading there books on separate evenings. We hung out there for a while, and I got a Weißer Schokotraum [white chocolate dream], which was white drinking chocolate on top of dark chocolate sauce, with some whipped cream on top. It was very white-chocolatey, and very sweet, but it was alright. We sat there for a while, wrote up our market assignment, and wrote up our cafe assignment.
We then went to the Rathaus Christkindlmarkt that we had passed by the previous day. This market was HUGE. Lots of shops selling lots of things; some of them were selling retail toys and things, it was interesting. Bria and I got Beerenpunsch, which had actual berries floating in the punch. It was pretty tasty, and it came in an awesome mug. The Rathaus Christmas market has a little train that drives around the market for €2, a little kids park, an ice skating rink, and a bunch of other stuff, in addition to the market. It was pretty awesome. Across the street, there was another, much smaller market: the Milka Weihnachtswelt [Christmas world]. There were about 5 purple stands in this little fenced in market, 2 of which were little log cabins. There was a lady dipping cookies into Milka fondue (for free), and a wheel you could spin to win things (I won a chocolate Krampus [Krampus travels with St. Nick and punishes the bad kids....he actually looks pretty scary, even in chocolate form], which was delicious).
On the way back to the hotel, I finally got the Döner I´ve been waiting for since my arrival in Europe. It was delicious, and sooo much cheaper than all the cafe food we´ve been eating lately.
Later that evening, we met up to try and go to the Spittelberg Christmas market again, leaving earlier this time. We got there and it was pretty cool. Lots of stuff I wasn´t really expecting though...half the time I felt like I was in an American hippie store. There was a really neat chocolate booth there though, and some cool crafty shops. A lot of it was a bit on the expensive side, but that´s to be expected from a neighborhood that was described as "the closest thing Vienna has to Wicker Park." After the market, I went back to the hotel to try and get some reading done and get some sleep.
Samstag, 3. Dezember
Wien
Today was with Dr. Souchuk again, and this time we walked around looking at a bunch of modern architecture, and a bit of modern art and art history. We started out looking at Otto Wagner´s work, such as his Postsparkasse, Karlsplatz station, and apartment buildings (pictures of all of these will be up later). We then went to the Secession building, which was built by the Secessionists (Gustav Klimt was one of the founders) for a place to house their art. In the basement is Klimt´s Beethoven Frieze, which was really cool [couldn´t take pictures unfortunately]. There was also a bit about the building and the people, and a tiny model of the building in the basement. The rest of the museum had current exhibitions of modern art, which were....interesting. Some were cooler than others, but most of them were not really my cup of tea. We then went to the Cafe Museum (yet again, but as an entire group this time), and had lunch and discussed the trip and our reading so far.
After lunch, Bria, Michelle, Alyssa, and I did a bit of shopping (I got some paprika shoestring chips and Nordbeer-Hopfen [northern berries-hops] juice/flavored water; the former was delicious, the latter interesting and tasty). I tried to look for some nice boots, but they were all ridiclously expensive, and I couldn´t bring myself to spend that much money on a pair of shoes.
After a short rest at the hotel, Bria, Michelle, and I went to the Karlsplatz Christkindlmarkt. It´s probably my favorite Christmas market so far. It had really nice things to buy, most of them made by craftsmen. It also had pony rides and hay to play in for the kids in the middle of the market. Unfortunately, after we finished eating our delicious meal (Hauswürstl mit Brot und Senf, und Weißglühwein [house sausage infused with cheese with bread and mustard, and white Glühwein, which I was really excited to try, and which was delicious]), the market stalls were starting to close down, so although we got to see a few, we didn´t get to see them all. Thus, we will be returning there on Monday or Tuesday night hopefully. After the market, we went back to the hotel to pick up Alyssa, and we were going to go to Loos´s American Bar, but it was super crowded, so we went to Sparky´s instead, where we drank some Cider and chatted for a good couple of hours; it was quite enjoyable.
Sonntag, 4. Dezember
Wien
This morning began with "A Mass for Five Voices" at the Augustiner Kirche. It was an Elizabethan choir singing all the hymns of the mass, which sounded really beautiful. The cathedral was also really beautiful, and the mass was pretty cool; I was proud of myself for understanding most of what was said--the Gospel was John the Baptist telling everyone that soon there will be someone stronger than him that will baptize with the Holy Spirit instead of water.
After mass, Bria and I went to our next cafe, Cafe Schwarzenberg. On the way, we decided to get lunch cheaper than we would at the cafe by getting street food. We each got a hot dog, which is more a method of eating sausage than a type of sausage. When you order a hot dog, they ask what kind of sausage you want inside. To make the Viennese hot dog, they take a baguette, cut off a slice, and stab the baguette onto a spike, hollowing out the inside. They then squirt some ketchup and mustard at the opening and stick the sausage into the bread. Bria and I got Bratwurst hot dogs, which were quite delicious. There were quite a lot of interesting street performers out today, so we kind of ambled our way down the street to our cafe.
When we finally made it to the cafe, it was super crowded. We eventually found a table and ordered. Bria got an Eiskaffee, which is vanilla ice cream and cold black coffee, with some whipped cream on top. It looked pretty good. I got Kaminfeuer Tee, a seasonal red tea with a bunch of different fruits in it. It was tasty, though I let it brew for too long (I got a teapot with loose leaf tea in an infuser). The odd part about this cafe was that the waiter gave us the check after only about 10 minutes. He said something really quickly in German, which we guessed must´ve meant that his shift was ending soon or something, since this is something that just doesn´t happen in Vienna. We sat there for a couple hours, and I wrote a bit in this blog (the earlier entry from today) and then read some the book we have to read for Dr. Souchuk´s class, A Nervous Splendor, which is about turn-of-the-century Vienna and all of the people that lived then and there and changed the world. Around 5, they started playing live music--piano and violin. They played a lot of showtunes, like "Life is a Cabaret" and "If I was a Rich Man," but the music made it harder to concentrate on the reading, so we decided to leave.
On the way home, we stopped at a Döner stand, and I got a Döner sandwich mit Pommes (french fries). I assumed the fries would be a side dish, but apparently not. He put the fries into the sandwich. It was not what I expected, but it was delicious nonetheless. The rest of the evening was spent in the hotel writing this lovely entry, and perhaps I will read some more later tonight before going to bed. Tomorrow we are going to Melk and Krems, and we have to meet up at 8:45 am, so I probably will go to sleep on the earlier side.
Endlich in Wien!
Mittwoch, 30. Dezember
Salzburg, Wien
Our morning was taken up by a tour given by a Salzburg resident, Clemens, a professor Dr. Souchuk knows from somewhere. It was pretty cool being on a tour given by a local. Lots of history and interesting stuff. After the tour, we went to a cafe that had been in existence since 1703 or so, and was the hangout of a few famous writers, as well as the Mozart family. We then had a few hours free, so we went to a Christmas market, where I got some Paprika Balsamic Vinegar, and the Manner store, to sate my minor obsession with "Oma cookies." After the market, a bunch of us went up to the fortress (Hohensalzburg Festung) that overlooks the whole city. Clemens had told us that the museum inside wasn't really worth the cost, so we just took the Zeilbahn (furnicular) up the mountain and looked at all the beautiful panorama views. It was really awesome up there. Salzburg is such a beautiful city, and its surrounded by the mountains, which only makes it prettier. I think its one of the prettiest cities I've ever visited.
We then made our way back to the hotel, where we picked up our bags and walked to the train station. After a fairly uneventful 3 hour train ride, we finally arrived in Vienna! Since it was about 6pm by the time we put all our stuff in our rooms, we were all quite hungry. Dr. Souchuk led us to her favorite cafe in the city, Cafe Diglas. Viennese cafes are something totally different than American ones. They serve all sorts of things, not just coffee but also dinner and alcoholic drinks. The waiters will never try to rush you and you don't have to pay until you ask to. I had Berner Würstl, which as I found out when they arrived, are basically hot dog-type sausages wrapped in bacon. Apparently that is how they do it in Bern, Switzerland. At any rate, they were delicious. The bathrooms in this cafe were also quite interesting. The doors of the stalls are clear, which is a bit disorienting, but then once you lock them, a light shines on them at just the right angle to make them fog up so no one can see through. It also shows a do not enter sign on it. It was pretty awesome. After dinner, Dr. Souchuk walked us around the city a bit, showing us some interesting things, and then we went back to the hotel for a good night´s sleep.
Donnerstag, 1. Dezember
Wien
So today was our first full day in Vienna. Drs. Souchuk and Rotenberg are switching off days for teaching, so today was Dr. Souchuk´s day. She took us around the Ringstraße and showed us all the buildings we learned about in the first week of class. Vienna used to be surrounded by a big wall, which, at the turn of the century, was torn down and replaced by a big thoroughfare with many fancy new buildings. If I remember correctly, Emperor Franz Josef began this project. He commissioned (as we saw on our tour) the Staatsoper (state opera house) [neo-romantic], the parliament building [neo-Greek], the Rathaus (city hall) [Gothic], Universität (University) [neo-renaissance], the Zwillingsmuseen (twin museums) [neo-renaissance], and a bunch of other buildings, all in different styles, but all built in the same small period of time. They are all pretty impressive, and since the Hofburg (court palace) was also on the Ring, it was the place to see and be seen at the turn of the century. Now, its a pretty busy street, with streetcars running through the middle, and the city is much larger than this ring [the ring now contains the first of 23 districts of the city].
After walking around for a while, we stopped at Cafe Landtmann for lunch. I had this soup that was a mix of so many things--beef stew with pieces of beef and chicken, as well as a Leberknödl (meat dumpling, kinda like a meatball) and a Semolinaknödl (Semolina dumpling). It was really tasty. Then for dessert, I got this really bizarre thing called Maroniblüte (click here and scroll down for a picture), which was chestnut mousse in a chocolate-covered waffle bowl, covered in chestnut-paste all thin like spaghetti, with an Amaretto cherry on top. It was extremely nutty, and very interesting.
After the cafe, we went back to Hofburg and went into the Sisi Museum and Imperial Apartments. Sisi, or Elisabeth, was the wife of Emperor Franz Josef; she was a very interesting person, and beloved by her people, to the point where the country of Austria, and the city of Vienna in particular, is pretty obsessed with her. Everywhere you turn, you either see Sisi´s, Franz Josef´s, or Mozart´s face. Anyway, so Sisi was really beautiful (picture of Sisi), which is mostly why the public loved her, and she really worked for that beauty. Though the rest of the imperial family frowned upon it, she had exercise things in her room (i.e. gymnastic rings, pull-up bar), and was very concerned about the health of her teeth, skin, and ankle-length hair. She was devastated when her son Rudolf committed suicide, and wore black mourning clothes the rest of her life. She wrote lots of quite melancholy poetry, since she felt very caged by court life, and felt she had no freedom whatsoever. She longed for death, and when she was eventually assassinated, the country and her husband mourned her deeply.
Since everyone went through the museum at different paces, I ended up leaving the museum by myself and just wandering around the city for a while. Later on, we all met to go to a Christkindlmarkt am Spittelberg, which is the artsy neighborhood of Vienna. Unfortunately, we left too late and the market was closing, so then we went to find some dinner. Most of us went with Dr. Souchuk to a pizza place, which was pretty tasty. Afterwards, I went out with some of the other students, and we ended up at a Mexican bar, of all places, with a really creepy waiter that was hitting on all of us. The bathroom in this bar was really bizarre though, because it just had an aquarium separating the men´s and women´s. The sinks faced each other, and when you were washing your hands, you could see the backs of the guys at the urinals (there was a mirror above the urinals as well, so if a guy did not realize at first, he soon noticed the aquarium behind him). Apparently Vienna rolls up its streets around 12:30-1am, so we were kicked out soon after. After that, we realized that on weeknights, the U-Bahn closes around 12:30, so we had to hail a taxi, which was even more difficult because we had 5 people and everyone needs a seatbelt. We finally got a minivan taxi back to the hotel, and briefly went to Sparky´s, a really weird American bar near the hotel. They have big statues of Avatars and a poster of Arizona, but otherwise had a very jungly feel. Very odd.
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Unfortunately, I still can´t catch up, because I am at a cafe and my battery is running out. So long for now!
Salzburg, Wien
Our morning was taken up by a tour given by a Salzburg resident, Clemens, a professor Dr. Souchuk knows from somewhere. It was pretty cool being on a tour given by a local. Lots of history and interesting stuff. After the tour, we went to a cafe that had been in existence since 1703 or so, and was the hangout of a few famous writers, as well as the Mozart family. We then had a few hours free, so we went to a Christmas market, where I got some Paprika Balsamic Vinegar, and the Manner store, to sate my minor obsession with "Oma cookies." After the market, a bunch of us went up to the fortress (Hohensalzburg Festung) that overlooks the whole city. Clemens had told us that the museum inside wasn't really worth the cost, so we just took the Zeilbahn (furnicular) up the mountain and looked at all the beautiful panorama views. It was really awesome up there. Salzburg is such a beautiful city, and its surrounded by the mountains, which only makes it prettier. I think its one of the prettiest cities I've ever visited.
We then made our way back to the hotel, where we picked up our bags and walked to the train station. After a fairly uneventful 3 hour train ride, we finally arrived in Vienna! Since it was about 6pm by the time we put all our stuff in our rooms, we were all quite hungry. Dr. Souchuk led us to her favorite cafe in the city, Cafe Diglas. Viennese cafes are something totally different than American ones. They serve all sorts of things, not just coffee but also dinner and alcoholic drinks. The waiters will never try to rush you and you don't have to pay until you ask to. I had Berner Würstl, which as I found out when they arrived, are basically hot dog-type sausages wrapped in bacon. Apparently that is how they do it in Bern, Switzerland. At any rate, they were delicious. The bathrooms in this cafe were also quite interesting. The doors of the stalls are clear, which is a bit disorienting, but then once you lock them, a light shines on them at just the right angle to make them fog up so no one can see through. It also shows a do not enter sign on it. It was pretty awesome. After dinner, Dr. Souchuk walked us around the city a bit, showing us some interesting things, and then we went back to the hotel for a good night´s sleep.
Donnerstag, 1. Dezember
Wien
So today was our first full day in Vienna. Drs. Souchuk and Rotenberg are switching off days for teaching, so today was Dr. Souchuk´s day. She took us around the Ringstraße and showed us all the buildings we learned about in the first week of class. Vienna used to be surrounded by a big wall, which, at the turn of the century, was torn down and replaced by a big thoroughfare with many fancy new buildings. If I remember correctly, Emperor Franz Josef began this project. He commissioned (as we saw on our tour) the Staatsoper (state opera house) [neo-romantic], the parliament building [neo-Greek], the Rathaus (city hall) [Gothic], Universität (University) [neo-renaissance], the Zwillingsmuseen (twin museums) [neo-renaissance], and a bunch of other buildings, all in different styles, but all built in the same small period of time. They are all pretty impressive, and since the Hofburg (court palace) was also on the Ring, it was the place to see and be seen at the turn of the century. Now, its a pretty busy street, with streetcars running through the middle, and the city is much larger than this ring [the ring now contains the first of 23 districts of the city].
After walking around for a while, we stopped at Cafe Landtmann for lunch. I had this soup that was a mix of so many things--beef stew with pieces of beef and chicken, as well as a Leberknödl (meat dumpling, kinda like a meatball) and a Semolinaknödl (Semolina dumpling). It was really tasty. Then for dessert, I got this really bizarre thing called Maroniblüte (click here and scroll down for a picture), which was chestnut mousse in a chocolate-covered waffle bowl, covered in chestnut-paste all thin like spaghetti, with an Amaretto cherry on top. It was extremely nutty, and very interesting.
After the cafe, we went back to Hofburg and went into the Sisi Museum and Imperial Apartments. Sisi, or Elisabeth, was the wife of Emperor Franz Josef; she was a very interesting person, and beloved by her people, to the point where the country of Austria, and the city of Vienna in particular, is pretty obsessed with her. Everywhere you turn, you either see Sisi´s, Franz Josef´s, or Mozart´s face. Anyway, so Sisi was really beautiful (picture of Sisi), which is mostly why the public loved her, and she really worked for that beauty. Though the rest of the imperial family frowned upon it, she had exercise things in her room (i.e. gymnastic rings, pull-up bar), and was very concerned about the health of her teeth, skin, and ankle-length hair. She was devastated when her son Rudolf committed suicide, and wore black mourning clothes the rest of her life. She wrote lots of quite melancholy poetry, since she felt very caged by court life, and felt she had no freedom whatsoever. She longed for death, and when she was eventually assassinated, the country and her husband mourned her deeply.
Since everyone went through the museum at different paces, I ended up leaving the museum by myself and just wandering around the city for a while. Later on, we all met to go to a Christkindlmarkt am Spittelberg, which is the artsy neighborhood of Vienna. Unfortunately, we left too late and the market was closing, so then we went to find some dinner. Most of us went with Dr. Souchuk to a pizza place, which was pretty tasty. Afterwards, I went out with some of the other students, and we ended up at a Mexican bar, of all places, with a really creepy waiter that was hitting on all of us. The bathroom in this bar was really bizarre though, because it just had an aquarium separating the men´s and women´s. The sinks faced each other, and when you were washing your hands, you could see the backs of the guys at the urinals (there was a mirror above the urinals as well, so if a guy did not realize at first, he soon noticed the aquarium behind him). Apparently Vienna rolls up its streets around 12:30-1am, so we were kicked out soon after. After that, we realized that on weeknights, the U-Bahn closes around 12:30, so we had to hail a taxi, which was even more difficult because we had 5 people and everyone needs a seatbelt. We finally got a minivan taxi back to the hotel, and briefly went to Sparky´s, a really weird American bar near the hotel. They have big statues of Avatars and a poster of Arizona, but otherwise had a very jungly feel. Very odd.
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Unfortunately, I still can´t catch up, because I am at a cafe and my battery is running out. So long for now!
Friday, December 2, 2011
Vienna Waits for You....
So I am currently on yet another study abroad trip, this one only 18 days over December Intercession. The two classes contributing to this trip are Turn-of-the-Century (Fin-de-Siecle) Vienna and Food and Culture in Vienna. The two teachers split fall quarter in half (Tuesdays and Thursdays), and then we meet with them on alternating days while here, and next quarter we will meet a few times before turning in our finals (probably done by midterms).
Sonntag, 27. November
Chicago, in the air
Today we left for the München airport. I ended up packing a lot later than I had planned, and we speedily left the house around 7:20 instead of 6:50 (to meet there at 7:30), I only got there about 5 minutes late though, so it wasn´t really an issue. Except for some intense turbulence at the beginning, the plane was fairly uneventful; we had personal TVs with on-demand, so that was kinda cool. I watched The Truman Show, which was good, and Bad Teacher, which was really awful. I think I got a few naps in too, but no major hardcore sleeping.
Montag, 28. November
in the air, München
We arrived at the München Flughafen (airport), but could not get to a gate, so they brought out the stairs and a bus to take us to the terminal. Our plane arrived about half an hour early, so our greeter took us on a brief tour of the city in our coach bus on the way to the hotel. The tour was alright...she was not that interesting of a person/speaker. After we got to the hotel (which was in the cheaper, Turkish, Casino-automats-on-every-corner part of town), we had the evening free to do whatever. We gathered most of the group (which, by the way, is 11 people, 10 of which are female) and walked around the city. We went to Karlsplatz (they have an ice rink there!), walked through die Alte Stadt (old town) until we found a Christmas market, which we followed into Marienplatz.
I discovered a few things in these adventures:
(1) Every Glühwein (delicious hot mulled wine) stand has different mugs.
(2) These are almost two times more expensive in Karlsplatz (very touristy, off a main thoroughfare) than deeper within the market.
(3) I am starting a collection of Glühwein mugs.
We then tried to find the Viktrolenmarkt, and after some difficulty, eventually found it. The amount of open-air markets and grocery stores with their wares outside is just so amazing to me. It´s cold out, but they don´t care. They still put out their fruits and veggies into the chilliness. Crazy.
After walking around for a bit, it got a bit chilly, so we went to the Hofbräuhaus. I got Kaiserschmarr´n, which had apple sauce instead of berry, so that was kind of interesting. Definitely not the best Kaiserschmarr´n I´ve had, but still alright. We then ambled back to the hotel, where I went to bed around 9:30ish or so.
Dienstag, 29. November
München, Salzburg
The next day, we basically woke up, ate breakfast (which was quite a spread....everything from breakfast and lunch in America and in Germany, plus with a really cool coffee machine), and left for the train station. We then took a 2 hour train to Salzburg, on which nothing too exciting happened. When we got there, we had the afternoon free, before we met up to go to Augustiner Bräu for dinner. The afternoon (for the majority of our group anyway) consisted of going to the Schloss Mirabel und Mirabel Gartens (Mirabel palace & gardens) and then walking around die Altstadt. At one point we went inside a church, and then Brendan couldn´t open the door, so we thought we were locked in, then we realized he just didn´t/couldn´t read the German instructions for opening the door.
That night for dinner, we went to the Augustiner Bräu, which is a brewery run by monks (we even saw a monk there). They had a sort of food-court atmosphere, where you go to each smaller station to get each thing (go the bakery to get bread, the butcher for meat, etc). Drs. Souchuk and Rotenberg got us a bunch of food to all share, including whole chickens, cucumber salad, sauerkraut, and a bunch of other things. Pretty tasty stuff. Afterwards, a few of us went on a small adventure to find some Gelato (one of the other girls had a craving for it). We found a Christmas market, but they were closing down for the night, and didn´t have any gelato anyway. We then ended up at a cafe called Cup & Cino, where I got a Cappuccino (so ironic).
Then we went back to the hotel, where I turned on the TV to find something to watch. The hotel had an entire channel of Sound of Music on loop. I ended up watching High Fidelity for a while, before I started falling asleep (around 10 or so).
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So now I must go, we are meeting up in about fifteen minutes to go to a cool Christmas market. I will post more either later this evening or whenever I have time.
Sonntag, 27. November
Chicago, in the air
Today we left for the München airport. I ended up packing a lot later than I had planned, and we speedily left the house around 7:20 instead of 6:50 (to meet there at 7:30), I only got there about 5 minutes late though, so it wasn´t really an issue. Except for some intense turbulence at the beginning, the plane was fairly uneventful; we had personal TVs with on-demand, so that was kinda cool. I watched The Truman Show, which was good, and Bad Teacher, which was really awful. I think I got a few naps in too, but no major hardcore sleeping.
Montag, 28. November
in the air, München
We arrived at the München Flughafen (airport), but could not get to a gate, so they brought out the stairs and a bus to take us to the terminal. Our plane arrived about half an hour early, so our greeter took us on a brief tour of the city in our coach bus on the way to the hotel. The tour was alright...she was not that interesting of a person/speaker. After we got to the hotel (which was in the cheaper, Turkish, Casino-automats-on-every-corner part of town), we had the evening free to do whatever. We gathered most of the group (which, by the way, is 11 people, 10 of which are female) and walked around the city. We went to Karlsplatz (they have an ice rink there!), walked through die Alte Stadt (old town) until we found a Christmas market, which we followed into Marienplatz.
I discovered a few things in these adventures:
(1) Every Glühwein (delicious hot mulled wine) stand has different mugs.
(2) These are almost two times more expensive in Karlsplatz (very touristy, off a main thoroughfare) than deeper within the market.
(3) I am starting a collection of Glühwein mugs.
We then tried to find the Viktrolenmarkt, and after some difficulty, eventually found it. The amount of open-air markets and grocery stores with their wares outside is just so amazing to me. It´s cold out, but they don´t care. They still put out their fruits and veggies into the chilliness. Crazy.
After walking around for a bit, it got a bit chilly, so we went to the Hofbräuhaus. I got Kaiserschmarr´n, which had apple sauce instead of berry, so that was kind of interesting. Definitely not the best Kaiserschmarr´n I´ve had, but still alright. We then ambled back to the hotel, where I went to bed around 9:30ish or so.
Dienstag, 29. November
München, Salzburg
The next day, we basically woke up, ate breakfast (which was quite a spread....everything from breakfast and lunch in America and in Germany, plus with a really cool coffee machine), and left for the train station. We then took a 2 hour train to Salzburg, on which nothing too exciting happened. When we got there, we had the afternoon free, before we met up to go to Augustiner Bräu for dinner. The afternoon (for the majority of our group anyway) consisted of going to the Schloss Mirabel und Mirabel Gartens (Mirabel palace & gardens) and then walking around die Altstadt. At one point we went inside a church, and then Brendan couldn´t open the door, so we thought we were locked in, then we realized he just didn´t/couldn´t read the German instructions for opening the door.
That night for dinner, we went to the Augustiner Bräu, which is a brewery run by monks (we even saw a monk there). They had a sort of food-court atmosphere, where you go to each smaller station to get each thing (go the bakery to get bread, the butcher for meat, etc). Drs. Souchuk and Rotenberg got us a bunch of food to all share, including whole chickens, cucumber salad, sauerkraut, and a bunch of other things. Pretty tasty stuff. Afterwards, a few of us went on a small adventure to find some Gelato (one of the other girls had a craving for it). We found a Christmas market, but they were closing down for the night, and didn´t have any gelato anyway. We then ended up at a cafe called Cup & Cino, where I got a Cappuccino (so ironic).
Then we went back to the hotel, where I turned on the TV to find something to watch. The hotel had an entire channel of Sound of Music on loop. I ended up watching High Fidelity for a while, before I started falling asleep (around 10 or so).
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So now I must go, we are meeting up in about fifteen minutes to go to a cool Christmas market. I will post more either later this evening or whenever I have time.
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