Vanderings through Wien

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Well, I did promise that I'd put up the second half of the week of wanderings at a less lazy time, and any time after two cups of coffee and possibly a gallon of tea is certainly that. This is going to be long, so bear with me here. Never mind anything else I might be doing at the time, no! To hell with that. Anyways, the second wing of the trip was going to be spent in Wien, and after another four hour trip in a swaying metal box (I've been told to call them trains), we arrived. In what was simultaneously a happy surprise and a surreal moment, my lodging in Vienna wasn't in a hostel, oh no, no living with six other people in the same room for me! No sir! This time the program stayed in an honest to god hotel, with multiple beds, maid service, solo showers and all the other comforts that the western world can provide. There was even a "discount" (Vienna's expensive) supermarket next door so I could cook my own fo-
What the hell do you mean there's no kitchen?
So it turns out that there are some things about a hostel that I really enjoy. Namely, common kitchens with common dishware that's easily co-opted for simple pastas etc. Also, bars in the basement are a must now, it's cold out there. Without an alternative it didn't take long for lunch to become whatever fit in my admittedly expansive trenchcoat pockets from the breakfast our program had bought. By the end it's fair to say I felt a little like a drug dealer, sneakily producing goods from within the depths of a creepy black coat, but what can you do? Poor college student life's just part of my time in Europe.
Regardless, for my more astute readers, counting the days off from this week puts my arrival in Wien on Halloween. With a lovely moon outside and a somewhat spooky new city in front of us, it seemed like the night beckoned. Apparently though, no one else agreed, Europe's still getting used to the idea of Halloween, so wandering down the streets there really wasn't a lot in terms of costumery. Still, at some point a friend of mine, Brace, and a few others got acquainted with a group of Erasmus kids living below us. To our joy, it turned out they had something in mind already, a little Schloss (palace) from the Hapsburg era was being opened up for the night as a dance club. Good lord I love Europe sometimes.
So what can a bunch of college kids do on Halloween night with no money? Well let it never be said that students are lacking in innovation. Like Jesus breaking loaves and fish for the masses, two sets of zombie makeup soon covered the majority of our motley group; and a pair of mirrored sunglasses and the surgical removal of my sparkling personality turned me into Neo (I wear the trench coat already). With that, the town was hit. Outside of playing "where's the damn sunglasses" for over an hour (found on the face of Caesar himself), and forgetting not only the hotel's name but the Bahn stop as well that night (it took us a while to get home), it was a hell of a night. I learned later that the sunglasses were worth over a hundred dollars, so the hour spent playing "Where's Waldo" with my dance partners was well spent.
The morning wasn't particularly fun though, but the memories have a habit of outlasting the hangover. Regardless, most later nights weren't quite as insane, so I'll throw most of them under the hood of "hung out with people in a bar" for most of them here.
Anyways, the days were spent at some truly impressive sights. We had the normal city tour of the old city, which included the monumental Stephansdom. I wish I could describe the church, it was a humbling and intensely beautiful Church. We were there on a Holy Day, and Austrians apparently take that more seriously then we do. Sitting in on a mass for a little while was a fascinating, and bizarrely peaceful experience. Also, organs are still cool in my mind, and this place had two of them. Moving on though, I had a bit of time to sit with Nils, one of the student assistants and a few others for a cup of Vienna's specialty, coffee.
Good lord they take this seriously. Any cafe worth its salt brings out the cup on a silver tray with a small cup of water next to it, and in our case it was brought by a man in a tux with pant creases so sharp they could slice diamonds. Being the home of Red Bull all I can assume is that every Austrian is a tank when it comes to caffeine, frankly that's the only explanation for why I didn't see people just zipping down the street at light speeds and ricocheting off of the walls, this stuff was strong.
When the night rolled around, so did an old friend. For the second time in a few months Jake and I found the time to meet up, and it was a happy afternoon. Austria's a strange place in some ways, a place best summed up as trapped between the old and the new, and characterized hilariously by a singing opera toilet (no lie) we found. It was a moment.
Anyways, the night was a special one, and not just because I got lost trying to find Jake later that. No, actually, in a moment that I'll be quite grateful to the program for, Dirk had bought everyone a ticket to a concert of some of Europe's finest musicians in the Hofburg, the former Hapsburg Palace now a museum/presidential residence/Bundestag/concert hall/cheese grater etc. (seriously this place is huge). What I had been expecting was glorious music and opera pieces from Strauss and Mozart, what I hadn't been expecting, was how much damn fun it would be. Little skits dotted the entire two hour performance, and at points the conductor and the percussion man would throw in little jokes that made an entire room packed with normally reserved Austrians roar with laughter. In short, a magical evening, and the best damn performance of music I have ever heard, bar none.
Moving on, another one of the more interesting trips involved a little foray out to see the town of Melk, and the fortified monastery that looms over it like some kind of doom fortress. There is a reason for its imposing profile, mainly the several hundred year period when the Ottomans were trying very hard to burn it down. It puts life in perspective when you realize Austria was once the front line in a war that seemed to threaten all of Europe. I suppose to some it might still fit that definition, since the monastery remains a functioning school for about nine hundred. The town underneath was rather pretty, even if the weather was all variations of the color gray, and if it wasn't for the H&M's and other modern stores dotting its winding streets it'd be easy to think it had never left the 18th century. A definite highlight was a tiny store near the base that sold, of all things, Apricot and cherry liqueurs. After trying a sample and discovering it was essentially an alcoholic, liquid cherry Starburst, I ended up buying a flask for my family; apparently the place is famous, since they seemed to love it (note for the future, alcohol's always a good gift.). But I digress. The monastery itself was quite impressive, dotted with the usual collection of relics, in this case segments of some particularly holy monk's spine were artfully arranged for one (wait, what?), along with what is apparently a sliver of the True Cross (one of the forest's worth of slivers out there).
If you ever want to discover a universal mute button for college students, take them here. Like Stephansdom the actual church inside the monastery was surprisingly modern, but at the same time had a deliciously old timey feel to it. Watching seventy twenty somethings stop talking and quietly file into the pews just to get a glimpse at the gorgeously painted ceiling really shows the kind of power these places could command.
So at the risk of bankruptcy, I think it's pretty clear I ate well on this excursion, but the best time had to be the trip out to a Heuriger we took later that night. Like Germans with beer, Austrians have a major thing for wine, and actually have vineyards in the neighborhoods around Wien. Where everyone goes to drink this lovely stuff are the Heuriger in the suburbs north of the city. A sizable group of us wandered out thataways, and after looking at maybe eight of the damn things we finally settled into a large and cozy place that had seen everyone from the Pope to the Dalai Llama (another one of those photo walls adorns the entrance), and more recently had seen an invasion of Japanese tourists. Fortunately the latter left quickly, and we were left to enjoy about forty euro of wine in several carafes. That, along with the absolutely essential Wiener Schnitzel (done with pork, not veal, and thus massaging my conscience) made for a wonderful time. Ok, there was a violinist who made the place sound like someone was torturing a cat, but in some ways that just added to the ambience (it was a homely kind of cat torturing I guess?). So long and the short of it if you find yourself in Vienna and up fifteen euro it's worth a visit, though this was easily my most expensive meal.
What else? Let's see, I think the last thing of note, outside of me losing my phone on the last night in a nightclub, which is only notable for karmically rebalancing those damned sunglasses I found; I guess I'd like to toss out a final word about the other half of my Medieval love that was seemingly absent. So if Neuschwanstein scratched the castles itch, then the Hofburg certainly scratched the one for knights in armor. I suppose the nice thing about the Hapsburgs is that over their seven or so centuries of scheming to conquer Europe they really had a lot of wars, which in turn meant a lot of fancy armor for their museums now. Ok, let's be more precise. This is the largest single collection of Medieval armor in the world, and my word was it pretty. Wandering through the exhibits (there was another one on instruments, but that was rubbish), it became clear at which point the armor stopped being about blocking swords and became more like a sweltering, eighty pound tuxedo. Basically a way of flashing your money to the world with every lumbering step you took, some of these suits are really exquisite. Ok, I'll stop gushing about the medieval murder suits now (one had all the labors of Hercules on the front), though really, they along with some of the weapons looked like hilariously impractical death traps for their owners, but it was a good three hours. Oh, there was also some exhibit about Rembrandts and what have you at their equally large Kunsthistoriches Museum but how cares? Armor!
Anyways, it really was a good trip out for a week. We returned last Saturday, all suitably exhausted, and my liver has been quietly thanking me for the short break I've been giving it while I plot the next course of action. Next up on the travel list is London, and in the mean time I'll try my best to visit someplace bizarre to give you all your next travelling fix. Til next time!

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Photos

Wien Rathaus
Welcome to Vienna! I hope you enjoy beautiful churches and crappy weather!

A coffee setup
The glass of water's presumably there to remind customers that coffee is not the only drink in the world.

Coffee house
just a reasonably nice photo, Nils, one of the SA's, is on the far left.

Concert
Ok, the photo's awful quality I know, but hey, it's a room where Mozart once performed. I'll live with that.

Melk
meet the monastery! And possibly a nice place to build a monstrous death ray!

the Melk Church
again worth noting, a very pretty ceiling.

arm gauntlets for real men
Remember that random bit in the Truman show where Truman's wife advertises a knife with like...four blades? Meet the impractical medieval version of that! Also comes with shield and a lantern.

Skirt knight.
I'm serious. I took a million photos of this. I think there was some other work as well but who cares? Knights!