Monday, May 5, 2008

Super Saturday Austrian Chapter



In downtown Vienna there is a fresh air food market, the naschmarkt, and on Saturdays they have a flea market behind it. So we began our day by tasting fresh fruits and the many sugar coated-candied fruits that they sell at the naschmarkt and scouring for gems at the flea market. I found one! I bought a typewriter for about 15 dollars. It works really well, and I was really excited because they are about 50 on EBay ( I just got one for my birthday but this one has the option to use German letters, which will be helpful when I’m fluent, right?) Anyways it came in a really cute case, so I will have a fun time lugging it through the airport on my way home.

After we dropped our things off at home we (my roommate and I) went to the secession building.

It’s beautiful! Secession was an art movement in the late 1890’s by artists like Gustav Klimt (he painted “The Kiss”… you’ve seen it) Anyways, the building is basically the first art exhibition house devoted to contemporary art. I love their motto “To everytime it’s art and to art its freedom” My roommate didn’t really like the exhibits… it reminded me of the time I took GrannyBird, My Parents, and Jake and Jamie to the Modern Art Museum in London . While we were going around the museum we came upon a painting that was all blue by . GrannyBird looked at it and said, “ They forgot to put up a painting here…” Ok, so not a lot of people like modern art. MY favorite exhibit was by an American woman named Frances Stark , you will like this one! It is really playful and pretty. I broke down and bought the book.

After the Secession building we ran into some guys on our study, Blake and Bryce. The four of us decided to get on the U Bahn (the train), get of in 3 stops, turn right and then go and find somewhere to eat. On the way we went into a small church, it is amazing how many beautiful buildings there are here. We got sandwiches at a grocery store and some fresh squeezed orange juice (it was really cool there was a machine, like the ones that squish your pennies into souvenirs, but it squished oranges into a bottle. Oh those crafty Austrians) Then we went to the Stephansdom…

It is amazing how big this church is. There you are just waltzing down the karntner strasse, shopping at H&M and eating at McDonalds, and BAM a giant church that was built in the 14th century. After this I got a great Hot Dog, it was a roll with a bratwurst slid inside of it, and got in line for the opera. The performances at the Opera House start at 7:00 but if you get in line at 4 you can buy what is called a standing room ticket. You wait until 6 and buy a cheap ticket (3 Euro as compared to 25) and then you get to stand in these really narrow rows for the 3 hour opera. Sounds great, huh. I think the next time I go to the opera it will not be after a day of walking! My legs were really tired. However, the opera was very good. It was Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. It was in Italian so they had these little screens in front of every seat (or standing space) with enough translations to understand it. I really enjoyed it, but like I said I was real tired, so I got a piece of Chocolate mousse Cake afterwards…

Oh, Austria…

3 comments:

katie speed said...

you look so cute with your typewriter! great outfit... its very euro. That chocolate mousse cake looks tremendous.

Terra Zobrist said...

It sounds like you are having a wonderful time. How do you say "I am jealous in German"? Keep up the blogging I love seeing all your adventures.

jezebel said...

i also am very jealous. type up something good on that typewriter. blogging may just save my life in the end karl. so thanks!