Spanish Riding School

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It was rise and shine early this morning as I was so excited to watch the Lipizzaner stallions “Morning Exercises to Traditional Viennese Music” (so proper!). After getting ready and eating a quick breakfast I started walking toward the city center, I soon realized that nothing was looking familiar (I had just done this the day before) so I looked at the map, and sure enough I had turned the wrong way out of the hostel. The metro takes you right outside of the ticket office for the Spanish Riding School, so I just took that instead (but I do like walking so much better, you get to take everything in, but when strapped for time it’s very helpful). I walked back up in the right direction to the metro stop, bought my ticket, and arrived right outside of my final destination. As I exited the Metro I thought to myself that no one had checked my ticket and I wondered if people just don’t buy tickets often since there isn’t any security. But once I got off and started walking there were people standing checking tickets. I showed one of the men my ticket and he started talking in very fast German and pointing at the ticket (enter “stupid face” stage left) – if you don’t get it read the blog before this one) but he keeps on talking in German, I am so confused since I bought my ticket fair and square, no foolin’! I have no idea what I am in trouble for, and I finally eek out the word “English” and the guy breaks into a great smile (it was a warm smile, but a mix of “why didn’t you say so in the first place” and “geez, the things I have to go through”) he takes my ticket over to this blue box and sticks it in and it stamps it. Oooooooh it wasn’t validated, got it for next time nice ticket man 😉
I made it out into the daylight again; I survived (just barely). Now to find the office from the metro stop, (I had found it on foot the day before, so this should be interesting). Luckily, without too much trouble I found it. On the way there I was thinking about whom on earth besides crazy horse people would want to get up and pay to watch a bunch of horses going around doing dressage things. No performance, no script, just riders riding talented stallions. I had images of me and two other people just standing ring side as the riders went around. Not so! The waiting area was already packed and the ticket office had only been open for 15 minutes! Oh boy. I bought my ticket then poked around in the shop until they opened the doors to the arena. You would have thought they were advertising a free trip to the Bahamas, or all you can eat prime rib buffet, or the chance to be on the price is right (insert reason for the mass migration to the ONE door to enter). As I am being pushed and squished (where am I supposed to go people?! There is only one door) it was not how I thought the experience would start out, but once I got through THE door (was that the pearly gates? Am I in heaven now?) it was a short walk to the giant arena. Seats were filling up fast and some elderly people in front of me were having a hard time figuring out that if you go around to the other side there are more seats, so it was a traffic jam of people until I made my way through and showed them the way. I found an empty seat, but one of the giant pillars was a bit in the way so I leaned forward. The other ladies sitting next to me kindly asked if I didn’t do that because then they couldn’t see. I understood and complied and the view wasn’t too bad from where I was sitting so I stayed.

First let me say this place is very grand, with 2 giant chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and pillars lining the entire seating area. There were massive sculptures at each end of the arena as well, the footing for the horses was immaculately groomed, and there wasn’t any dust being created when the horses were being ridden (this is a very hard thing to overcome in an indoor arena). The first set of 4 horses came out and honestly there isn’t much to say except that they did their thing, most of them behaved and the riders were working on some areas of trouble, pretty much same old same old in the world of schooling horses. It was good that they offered this “show” not only for the public, but it also got the horses used to being in the arena with a lot of people, so that when it came time for the performance they were used to it. They did their thing to traditional Viennese music for about half an hour then the riders dismounted in the ring and a groom came out and took the horses away. The riders went back in and brought out another round and this continued from 10:30 until 12:30. Luckily most people had enough after the second round of horses and left, so I moved to one of the best seats in the house!

After everything was over I was walking out and saw that my guidebook had lied, they were doing their morning exercises the next day as well, (it had said only until June) but I probably would have come today either way. I then went on walkabout around the city, I had seen some advertisements for original works of Monet at the Albertina museum and I thought it would be cool to see that, and as luck would have it the Albertina was just around the corner from the Spanish Riding School. I bought my ticket and went inside.
There weren’t any signs saying no photographs but I could just get the vibe that it wasn’t allowed. There were attendants in every room of the art exhibit, and one of them stopped me and started talking to me in German (ok I got this in the bag all I have to do is say “English” and it’s like a switch, a magic word if you will) I try my magic word and only to my epic fail I find out her “switch” is broken. (This is the German only channel, and now it’s time for the hand signals). She kept pointing to my pack and saying something, so I finally just took it off and kind of half handed it to her, and it turned out that she had just wanted me to put it on my front. No clue why, maybe not to accidentally bump into the art, or is she being over cautious of pickpockets for me, or maybe . . . just maybe it’s because little Austrian elves might jump in it while it’s on my back but I can protect it better if it’s on my front, I will never know! (I should have learned more German before I came). In the end I was just happy that she was nice and did not get frustrated with me for not knowing any German (note: sticking to stupid face in the future).

It turned out to be a private collection that was then donated to the Museum; of those pieces donated, original works of Monet and Picasso were included. I am in no way shape or form an Art buff, but some of the stuff I really liked, and some of it I really felt like a 5 year old could have done better. Then there was the stuff that didn’t make any sense, for example a giant piece of canvas painted black. That was it. (I thought to myself a). Someone paid money for this?!? b). its hanging in a museum next to some amazing pieces of art and c). I paid money to see this?!?) Then there was the photography collection, as you walked along you see early photographs of people and fruit, then I came upon these WWI looking booths, that had a place for you to look into (I seriously felt like it should have been a gas mask I was putting on) and I was looking at naked women! Is this the way the museum protects young eyes from the art of the time? I just had to take a picture, I mean there wasn’t a sign saying you couldn’t not (that’s such an American way of thinking, in Australia you had to watch out for signs saying you could do something and you had to assume you couldn’t until you saw a sign) take a picture. So I went for it. Click, flash, “NO PICTURES!” is what I then hear from an attendant who apparently speaks English. I apologize, and he then goes into a little spiel about how bad and forbidden it is to take pictures (kind of ironic in the photography collection if you ask me) and I promise him I won’t take anymore. I walk around some more and I noticed that he was keeping an eye on me the whole time, I found it amusing so I stayed a little longer seeing what he was going to do (he couldn’t watch me the entire time, there were other places to patrol in the photography exhibit). He finally tired and trusted that I wouldn’t do it again and left me alone, I left the room soon after that. The final part was a palace of some sort, I don’t know much about it because all of the signs were in German without English translations, but it looked old and nice (imagine your typical palace and you get the idea).
I left feeling mentally fulfilled, but my stomach was growling so I headed on over to a little café I had read about that serves organic vegetarian fare and I just had to try it! It was in a small side street and it turns out it was more cafeteria style than sit down restaurant which I was ok with. I just ordered what the person in front of me ordered (which seemed to be standard), paid, and sat down and tried to figure out what I was eating. It was all very tasty (I had never had tofu before, and the way they prepared it was good!) I finished up and headed back to the hostel.

I met up with Elyane and she told me Emma had decided to come to Vienna! Yay! It wasn’t goodbye after all, and that she would be arriving at 6:00 pm. Elyane was cooking dinner when Emma texted her to ask her how to get to the hostel, it was just easier for me to go get her than for Elayne to type everything so I set off. When I saw Emma I gave her a big hug and said hi to Margot, her backpack (in Sweden they have celebrations for your name, each day of the year 2 names are celebrated, it’s kind of like a small birthday celebration, you get treated extra nice and you get a gift or two on your name day, the day Emma bought her pack it was the day for the name Margot – when Elyane and I learned about this we asked, what happens to people without one of the 730 names celebrated, Emma didn’t know). We got back and Elyane had cooked us all dinner! We sat down family style and ate in the hostel common room.

After dinner, Emma was still hungry so I went out on a walk with her to find more food (with such a huge Turkish population there is a kebab shop on every corner and they are open until the wee hours of the morning, if not all the time) we passed a little grocer and I thought they looked Turkish, so I just threw out a Turkish word to see if they would bite, and bit they did! They invited us into their shop and offered us tea and wanted to sit and chat, I would have loved to but I knew Emma was hungry and she was too polite to say anything, so I bid them goodbye, they are such great people!

Emma found a place to get a sausage then we walked back. It was such a wonderful day, everything clicked into place and I couldn’t believe Emma made it to Vienna! We all decided that the next day we would take a day trip into wine country together, I can’t wait!

B

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Photos

Everyone fighting to go through the door
Its a surprise that I'm not the only one here!

Inside the Albertina
She is just decoration, but I thought she was cool :)

These are the WWI thingys I was talking about
This picture got me in trouble!

Comments

[Tiffany Heese]

Picasso
I love that you got to see Picasso! They had the traveling Picasso exhibit come to Richmond and it was really wonderful. We got to see so many different paintings it was like culture overload. We even bought a reproduction for our anniversary gift. I would love to see a real Monet though..