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Published: December 1st 2008
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October and November 2008 Well, we’ve been flat out lately with travel, job searching and English teaching, so this will be a quick account (I’ll try) of our time in Vienna in October and November. Note that we also went to Budapest in October (blog published 25 days ago!) and in November we went to Prague and Ireland (blogs to follow soon, we promise).
Firstly, we moved into our own apartment and it was so, so good to unpack our bags after five and a bit months of travelling..... my socks are actually in the sock drawer. We also think we stumbled across a great place. We are within walking distance to the 1st district and just off the main shopping drag (MariaHilferstrasse). The best part though, is that the place is fully furnished (complete with English books on the bookcase, kitchenware and linen). The landlord was going to leave the place empty, but took pity on us when she realised that we would have to beg and borrow absolutely everything to have a liveable place. Check out the photos of us moving in with our worldly possessions.....
I am not sure if all Aussies are like me,
but I always seem to be talking about the weather. I Google the forecast most nights and jump on the free newspapers on the train in the mornings to double check the Google forecast (it is about the only section of the newspaper I can understand). Anyway, this blog wouldn’t be complete without a sentence or two on the weather. Firstly, the many different shades of orange and red in autumn were spectacular, although watching the leaves disappear from the trees day by day was a little ominous at times. Come the end of November, I really didn’t think I’d be saying this but the weather in Vienna is actually quite good. We had a cold snap in September, but ever since it has been fairly mild. Autumn in Vienna is traditionally quite foggy though and I realised one day, as the train crossed the Danube that my perception of ‘a nice day’ had started to change. It was completely overcast, but the lack of any fog made me think how nice it all looked.
Without quite meaning to, we’ve also managed to visit most of the major tourist attractions over the last couple of months. We had a
great day at the zoo, which is located in the grounds of Shonbrunn Palace, particularly watching the two baby polar bears. They reminded me of Pete and I as kids - it always started out friendly....... We spent another day in the Lainzer Tiergarten. This is a former Imperial Hunting Ground and has lots of wild boar and deer roaming around (we didn’t see any). We just stumbled across this grand, old building called Hermes Villa (cause it has a statue of Hermes), towards the end of our walk. We tried to do the English tour of St. Stephan’s Cathedral - the most famous landmark in Vienna. There were so many people in the Cathedral and we were worried about getting a place on the tour, but when it was due to start we were the only ones standing at the sign and the guide said he would have to cancel it. So we decided to climb up the stairs of the South Tower to check out the views over Vienna. Unfortunately, we were disappointed a second time because we were only able to peek out of three little, closed windows and the view was partly obscured by scaffolding. Watching
the buskers below cheered us up....... A trip to the Imperial Treasury was also better than expected. Lots of rare, antique jewellry, weapons and paintings.
Vienna has a few cool events on during the year. One is called the Long Night of the Museums where 90 or so of Vienna’s museums stay open until 1am. You buy one ticket and it covers the entry to as many museums as you can cram into one evening. We started with the Museum of Natural History, which is just how I imagine a Natural History museum should be. Lots of wood and glass display cabinets, thousands of artefacts and a stack of stuffed animals. It also houses the largest meteorite collection in the world! Afterwards, we managed to have a quick look through the MUMOK (Museum of Modern Art). The main exhibition is called ‘Bad Painting - Good Art’, but I thought it should’ve been ‘Bad Painting - Bad Art’ and Sean just thought it should’ve been ‘S@#t’.
We also finally got to our first ‘Heurigan’, basically a traditional, Viennese wine tavern found in the outskirts of Vienna. They are famous for good hospitality, food and of course, wine. The one
we went to was called Mayer Pfarrplatz and its claim to fame is that it was Beethoven’s Summer House. We went with Sean’s ma (who was visiting for a week), Malachy and Adriana and Jamie, but only realised when we’d arrived that it was a surprise engagement party! Thanks Everyone! We had a great night and although the accordion player didn’t know any Australian songs, Sean managed to get him to play Danny Boy.....
So we have well and truly settled into Austrian life. Berlitz keeps me busy with teaching and since most of the teachers have come from somewhere else and have limited knowledge of German, it’s a good way to meet people. We’ve also learned an awful lot about the Habsburgs, the Royal Family that ruled most of Central Europe for over 600 years (think Archduke Franz Ferdinand of WWI status). Although our German conversation skills are non-existent, we can navigate our way around a grocery store ok (no more ham/schinken instead of bacon/speck), have found a couple of pubs that hold trivia nights in German And English and have developed a hankering for Jagermeister.
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Mum McCracken
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Translation from my Irish engagement message last time
Congratulations!It is between between betrothal and marriage you are.May your cup overflow with health and happiness.Well done!..(thanks to Kate and Meabh)