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!
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