Good Night, Vienna

After a close call with my connecting train in Břeclav, I arrived in Vienna, sweaty, but relieved to have made it. I peeled off the sweater that I'd needed in chilly Prague that morning, and set off on the 2-kilometer walk to my hostel. 

The streets seemed strangely empty as a wound my way through the city. It kind of freaked me out that I'd booked four nights in a ghost town, until I remembered that it was Sunday, and, unlike in America, people actually take a day off. 

I was delighted to find, upon arrival at my hostel, that the Wi-Fi was far better than at my hostel in Prague; I could actually Skype with my family, and update my blog! I shoved my things into my locker, and headed out into the city to get oriented. Though there were many impressive buildings that I thought easily could have been palaces, it wasn't difficult to find the Imperial Palace, the grandest of them all, and the city center just beyond that. That's the first thing that I do in a new place: find the center of the city. I have a pretty good sense of direction, so once I know where the main part of town is in relation to my hostel, I rarely use a map. It's way more fun to wander.

Not wanting to be out in a new city after dark, I snapped a few pictures of the palace in the fading light, then made my way back to my hostel. On my way back, I grabbed some lo mein and spring rolls from an Asian carry-out restaurant (one of the few businesses open on a Sunday).

I got up early the next day and got moving, exploring the city for a bit on my own before the walking tour at 10:30. I discovered that my hostel was located in Vienna's equivalent of Chinatown, and that I was right across the street from the Naschmarkt, which was just beginning to open up as I walked through. The Naschmarkt is a 1.3-kilometer long open-air market, supplemented by a few cafés. Most of the businesses within the Naschmarkt offer fresh produce, candies and dried fruit, or a mind-boggling array of spices. It's the kind of place I knew my dad would love. (Hear that, Brucie? Get your passport renewed and get yourself to Vienna!)

As 10:30 drew nearer, I returned to the hostel for the walking tour, which ended up being 3 hours long, during which our garrulous tour guide led us a grand total of about 1.5 kilometers from the hostel. In spite of the crawling pace at which we moved through the city, I was glad I went on the tour, because I learned a good bit about Vienna's history, both as part of the Holy Roman Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Now, I'm not a huge history buff, but it's pretty cool learning about what happened centuries ago right on the spot that you are now standing. 

Some of my favorite facts included: 
--It's often said that, in spite of his pop-star status, Mozart was given a poor person's funeral, but in fact he was buried according to the laws of the emperor at that time, whose philosophy was something along the lines of "waste not, want not." (Under his rule, people shared graves. He also invented a reusable coffin. Not the sentimental type, Joseph II.)
--The giant colored rabbits all around the city aren't rabbits; they're hares. They were a publicity stunt by the Albertina museum to advertise their new exhibit, featuring Albrecht Dürer's "Young Hare." The original work is now in storage to preserve it for future generations, but the giant bunnies--sorry, hares--are still all over the city.

--It's kind of a Viennese tradition to go to the hot-dog stand after the opera. The Bitringer, right between the Albertina and the State Opera House serves a wide variety of sausages and beverages, including champagne.

At the end of the tour, I got to chatting with two Americans and two Brits (having a common language bonds people pretty quickly, I'm finding). We decided to check out the Frauenhuber, which is the oldest coffeehouse in Vienna. It was also the venue for Mozart's final performance. We ordered a variety of coffees, and my new friends quickly followed suit when I ordered a Sachertorte (a Viennese specialty; a chocolate ganache-covered chocolate cake, named for the Hotel Sacher, at which it was invented). Technically, I suppose it was a knock-off, but it still paired really well with the Schockocino that I'd ordered.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the city, mostly along the river, then went our separate ways for dinner, with a promise to meet up at the hostel bar later to use our free drink coupons. I returned to the Naschmarkt and ordered a falafel wrap, speaking entirely in German! Upon my return to my hostel room, I found a note from my now-absent roommates saying that they had found bedbugs and had switched rooms. I handled the situation as any rational adult would: I called my mom in a panic. She talked me down, and, even though I found no evidence of bedbugs, I switched rooms anyway. Chalk up another mishap.

My second evening in Vienna ended in a rousing game of giant Jenga at the hostel bar, a much-needed distraction from the entirely imagined skin-crawling feeling.

I was determined to have a more structured day on Tuesday, so I planned to visit the Belvedere gallery in the morning to see some Gustav Klimts, including "The Kiss," and the Albertina in the afternoon to see some Van Goghs. It was a bit of a hike to the Belvedere, but I still managed to get there with enough time to explore the botanical gardens before the museum opened.

I'm still kicking myself for not packing my student ID, because the non-student entrance fee for the Belvedere was pretty steep. Resolving to ask my mom to send it to me, I entered the gallery and headed straight for the Klimts, which were pretty spectacular in person. However, aside from the Klimts, almost everything else in the gallery was a Renaissance or Baroque portrait or sculpture. I left the museum feeling pretty drained after my efforts to be interested in such art, and decided to save the Albertina for the next morning.

I wandered around town and bought a few souvenirs, then stopped at the Bitringer (which has a green hare on the top, by the way) for lunch. While wandering around the University part of town later, I once again got mistaken for a local, both by some very turned-around tourist, and by real locals. My cover was blown when the locals started speaking to me in rapid-fire German. Clearly, nodding and smiling hadn't been the response they'd been looking for, so I confessed my true identity as a tourist in disguise and hurried off, red-faced and wishing I'd brushed up on my German a little bit more before this trip.

Wednesday morning, I decided to splurge just a little bit, and went to a café for a traditional breakfast, rather than buying another croissant at the grocery store. Whilst ordering a traditional Viennese breakfast and a cappucino, I managed to communicate with the waiter entirely auf Deutsch, which was a much-needed confidence boost for my German skills. I then headed off to the Albertina, hoping that it would be better than my experience at the Belvedere. 

I. Love. The. Albertina.

The exhibit in which the Van Goghs were located housed works by many of my other favorite painters, like Monet. As you walked through, you saw the development of Impressionism from Pointillism, and saw samples from many other smaller, spin-off art movements. Every piece was incredibly expressive, and my soul felt so full when I finally got to the Van Goghs that even my unskilled fingers itched for a sketchbook and pencils. If only there weren't so many guards and security cameras...I would have selfied it up, big time.

After wandering through a self-portrait exhibit by contemporary American artist Jim Dine, I explored the staterooms of the Albertina for a little break from all the paintings. A couple of the staterooms in particular reminded me of "Anastasia," the animated movie I'd been somewhat obsessed with as a child. I caught myself humming "Once Upon a December," and figured I'd better get out of there before I started twirling around the ballroom.

The last exhibit that I saw in the Albertina was of contemporary art, including an Andy Warhol. It was a pretty fun exhibit to walk through, and I got a good laugh out of Ad Reinhardt's "Black on Black no. 8;" it was--no joke--an enormous, entirely black canvas with a black frame.

In my wanderings after the Albertina, I ran into my two roommates (from New York City and Las Vegas), who were finishing up the same tour of the city that I'd taken on Monday. We decided to quickly pop into H&M before grabbing lunch, and somehow managed to lose track of one another almost immediately. My Las Vegas roommate and I checked each of the four (!) floors several times before our hangry-ness (or is it hanger?) got the best of us and we went off in search of food, figuring that our NYC roomie had done the same. 

We found a café tucked off the main street, where I ordered a Radler and, of course, a Wienerschnitzel. My roommate ordered ghoulash and tap water, but somehow ended up with an extra empty plate instead of a glass of water. I don't think German was our waiter's first language, either. 

Upon returning to the hostel, we found that there was a guy sleeping in the previously-unoccupied fourth bed in our all-girls' room. We went to the incredibly unhelpful staff at reception, who claimed that there was nothing that they could do, and in fact seemed to deny that there was even a problem. It was only after asking to speak to a manager (who, conveniently wouldn't be in until the next morning) and starting to complain about the bedbugs issue in a slightly raised voice that we finally got some results. 

I'm getting real tired of hostel staff, real quick.

Our third roommate now found (we still aren't quite sure how we managed to lose one another), we headed to the hostel bar, where we amused ourselves for several hours by swapping hostel horror stories and inventing elaborate backstories for everyone else in the bar. 

Vienna, it's been...well, it's been interesting.

On to Salzburg!