I’m sitting in a café in the seventh district, tucked away on a back street just far enough from the Mariahilferstrasse to be laid-back and just close enough to the city center to be full of life. In one corner, university students are enthusiastically discussing a group project—something about protecting open space from construction companies. In another corner a little girl not older than 8 or 9 is reading the daily newspaper while she waits for her mother to finish her shift at the organic grocery nextdoor. Lunchtime has just passed and now customers are strolling in for cake and coffee and tea. Everyone is either engaged in conversation or simply enjoying the moment, or both.
I’m sitting by one of the full-length windows on the second floor, reminiscing over the past week I’ve spent in Vienna with my friend Stefany from college. We did everything that one “should” do when visiting Vienna—went to the opera, the art museum, palaces, gardens, and parks; we only missed the Wiener Schnitzel. I wonder how that would fare through international shipping. I can imagine the customs officials now: “Out of all the meats you could send from Austria to the U.S., you chose to send a flat piece of breaded pork?!” Umm, yes …
Below I’ve written a bit about what we did during the week. It’s as accurate as my memory is. The dates and events may bit a bit out of order, but if I’ve missed anything crucial, I’m sure I’ll be corrected ;-)
TuesdayStefany’s flight arrived in Vienna right on time. We hadn’t seen each other in at least a year and a half, so it was quite a happy reunion.
We took her luggage back to my apartment, catching a speed tour of the city via public transportation along the way. We rested in my apartment for a while, chatting and catching up. In the late afternoon, I had to study for an exam and Stefany was trying to stay up for the sunset, so she took a walk around the neighborhood while I studied. Then we made dinner and went to bed.
Wednesday The next morning I had to be on campus, so I gave Stefany directions how to get downtown and we met up for the afternoon. We had a late lunch of sandwiches and grape leaves at a traditional Turkish-Viennese restaurant. After hearing us speak English, our waiter wanted to know where we came from and what we were doing in Vienna. I told him we were both from the US and that I had been studying and teaching in Vienna and Stefany had come to visit. When he didn’t seem to believe that Stefany was from the US, I elaborated and said she was originally from Colombia. Only then did he seem satisfied. “Where are you from?” is an interesting question in German. It not only means “Where do you live?”, but also “Where were you born?” or “What is your heritage?” I wonder how many times the Turkish waiter had been asked exactly the same question.
After lunch, I had to finish studying for my exam, which was the following day. We spent some time reading and studying in the evening and went to bed early. Between jet lag and pre-exam stress, we were both pretty tired.
ThursdayI took my exam Thursday morning. It was for a class on sustainable engineering (theory, history of sustainability, politics, etc.) We had to answer a set of four essay questions in 90 minutes. (Imagine having your entire grade depend on the answers to four essay questions!) Although I could have definitely used more time, I think I did pretty well. Now I just have to wait until the grades are reported.
After my exam, I was finally completely free to spend time with Stefany and to be a tourist again. We made Thursday our “museum day”: first the Freud Museum and then the Art History Museum. The Freud Museum is built around the former office of Sigmund Freud. It was incredible to walk through the rooms where he worked, practiced, and wrote so many texts that have profoundly influenced psychology and today’s society. The museum also features the work of his daughter, Anna Freud, who was a children’s psychoanalyst. Aside from two school groups, we were two of only a few “individuals” visiting the museum. One woman, who we later found out was from the East Coast and also a psychiatrist, commented: “Isn’t it interesting that Freud had so many of his personal belongings in his office; his clients could learn so much about him by just looking around. Today we would never do such a thing.” (What was it again that Freud said about the ego?) After the Freud Museum, we went to the Art History Museum (Kunsthistorisches Museum). Stefany was our personal tour guide for this museum since she had majored in art (and English) in college. We kept on attracting the guards’ attention because we were standing so close to the paintings. We were just looking, but they must have thought we were actually going to touch the paintings. Hardly any of them were protected from the public. We saw about a quarter of the exhibits in the museum, after which point we needed a break. Looking at art can be exhausting work!
After the Art History Museum, we finished the night with soup and sandwiches at a local café in the university district. Before even ordering our food, though, we ordered cappuccino and hot chocolate because we were so cold and tired from our travels. The waiter just looked at us and smiled: “Is that all?” he asked since people usually order hot beverages after a meal, not before it. “No, just first.” He smiled. Yep, we definitely stuck out as tourists. Oh well. We
were tourists, after all.
Maria Theresia statue in front of the Kunsthistorisches MuseumFridayOn Friday, we took the train to Linz. Approximately three hours west of Vienna, Linz is Austria’s third-largest city yet still has the European feel of a small town.
As soon as we arrived in Linz, we bought day tickets for the public transportation and set out to explore the area. We started at the “Hauptplatz”, or Main Square, marked in the center with the Trinity Column in remembrance of those who have died in periods of war, fire, and plague. From the Hauptplatz, we walked toward the Danube River and onto the Nibelungen Bridge. Linz was home to Hitler for most of his youth and he built the Nibelungen Bridge in 1938. During World War II, US troops captured the bridge on May 5, 1945, after which point it became Austria’s version of Checkpoint Charlie, the border crossing between East and West Berlin. After a walk on the bridge, we set out to find Martinskirche, the oldest church in Austria (dating back to the 8th century). We climbed up a hill to the Federal Museum of Upper Austria, past a construction site and ruins of a former castle, through a park, up another hill, and finally found the church. Its simple structure reminded me of a one-room schoolhouse. The doors were locked and we seemed to be the only visitors around. I’m pretty sure the town watch was keeping an eye on us, probably wondering what those crazy tourists were doing. After finding the church, we made our way back down to the city center and took a walk along the Danube. We actually wanted to take a ship ride to see all the castles and vineyards, but unfortunately those tours don’t start until April, so this was the closest to the river we could get. We eventually took the train back to Vienna, feeling like we accomplished a lot during the day and having visited most of what Linz had to offer.
Park near St. Martin's ChurchSaturdaySaturday we met up in the city with some of my friends from Vienna and Upper Austria. They were all excited to meet Stefany—another person from the US!—and practice their English. In the evening, we went to the “Wiener Deewan”, which is one of my favorite restaurants in Vienna. Most people come to the restaurant for its buffet of Pakistani food, which is very similar to Indian food. A lot of the dishes include lentils, all sorts of vegetables, chicken, lamb, rice, and come with salad and sesame bread. The list of drinks is exhaustive: everything from typical juices and sodas to more “exotic” drinks, such as mango lassi with yogurt and homemade hot chocolate. What attracts many people to the Wiener Deewan, however, is its pricing scheme. Customers are only charged for drinks and then are expected to pay whatever the food is worth to them. For example, you could pay for only the drinks or you could pay upwards of 20 Euros. Most people pay between 7 and 10 Euros. For a buffet of delicious food, friendly waitstaff, and a really cool atmosphere, 7-10 Euros is definitely worth it!
Saturday night we went to see a samba musical performance. The band was comprised of about eight people with drums ranging from bass to snare, as well as some tambourines and other smaller percussion. The entire audience was moving to the beat and having a good time. The last time I had been around so many drums at once was in high school. It reminded me of marching band practice, competitions, and watching drum corps shows—but with a Brazilian flair, of course. I had rhythms playing in my head for the rest of the night.
SundayWe started Sunday morning by going to a mass at Stephansdom, the main cathedral of Vienna and the landmark for the center of the city. As we quickly walked to the area where the service was being held, an official stopped us to warn us that tourists were not allowed in the church while the service was in progress. I stared at him for a split-second, surprised and not quite comprehending what he said. He pointed at a sign in at least 10 different languages that said: “Service in progress. Tourists not allowed.” I regained my composure and told him we were there
for the service, not to tour the cathedral, and he let us in.
The service was fancy in the way that Roman Catholic services can be fancy and the fact that it was held in a huge 12th-century cathedral added to the effect. Stefany and I worked as a team during the service. She understood the structure and I understood the language, so as I translated the sermon for her, she explained the rituals and customs to me. Who ever thought you’d need two separate people to make sense of a simple Sunday morning mass?!
We spent the rest of the morning in the city center around Stephansdom. It felt as if spring had already arrived. It was at least in the upper 50s, if not 60s, and the sun was actually shining for once. Street performers lined the streets while families strolled by. We stopped at the famous “Zanoni & Zanoni” gelateria for ice cream, Italian-style. There were so many flavors to choose from, so Stefany asked me to ask the server for a recommendation. He said: “Everything. Everything’s good.” She tried again with another server, this time in Spanish. He replied in Italian: “Everything.” In the end, we both chose random flavors and were quite satisfied. You really can’t go wrong with gelato.
After Stephansplatz, we went to the Burggarten, which is a garden and park behind the Hofburg palace. It was essentially the Habsburg’s backyard; that must have been nice. Now the city has made it into a public park for everyone to enjoy. After the Burggarten, we walked the “ring” of Vienna, a street that circles past City Hall with its now-melting ice skating rink, the national Parliament, the city’s original fortification wall, the Burgtheater (“people’s theater”), the opera, and other historical landmarks.
Stefany at the BurggartenThat night we went to see Puccini’s opera “Turandot”, a love story about a prince and princess in Peking, China. The opera was sung in Italian and had German subtitles on an electronic display above the stage. Half the time I was so enthralled with the live orchestra and the costumes that I forgot to look up to read the subtitles. Oops. I enjoyed it, even if I didn’t catch every little detail. After the opera, we went to a classical Viennese café for dessert. We both ordered hot chocolate and split a piece of “Mozartkuchen” which is a cake flavored with cocoa, hazelnut, and a tiny bit of marzipan. Even though the cake has absolutely nothing to do with Mozart, Austria prides itself in naming everything possible after the composer. There’s Mozart chocolate, Mozart Street, the Mozart House, why not a Mozart cake?! ;-)
MondayOn Monday, we finished our sightseeing tour with the Naschmarkt, Secession, and Schönbrunn. The Naschmarkt is Vienna’s largest outdoor market with goods ranging from farm-fresh produce to cheeses, nuts, and falafel to tapestries and collectibles. Across the street from the Naschmarkt is the Secession. Founded in 1897, the Secession was created as a gallery for artists who opposed the traditional Conservatism of Vienna’s main artist collective, the “Künstlerhaus”. (No one particular style united the artists; rather, they were united in their opposition of the prevailing Conservative style.) The Secession is where Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss” is housed, though unfortunately we didn’t get to see it because the gallery was closed. When we left the Secession, we took the subway to Schönbrunn to see the palace, gardens, and Roman ruins. There is no better place to end a tour of Vienna than at Schönbrunn.
one of Stef's Schönbrunn photos from Gloriette, above the palace
Stef and me in front of the Schönbrunn palaceTuesdayStefany left by train on Tuesday morning to visit another friend in Croatia. When I returned to my apartment afterwards, the rooms suddenly seemed so empty. We had an incredible time together and I especially enjoyed touring “my” city with a fresh perspective. I’ll be traveling again soon. Over Easter, I’ll be visiting my host family from high school in Germany and then I’m hoping to go to Hungary and Italy with some friends. Spring will be the perfect season for new adventures!
