I [heart] Austria

I didn't really give a proper recount of my first trip to Austria, and I'd like to have a whole post about my first few days in Italy (which I will get to before too long)... SO, in a bold new attempt to use some format other than bullet points, here is an over-sized recap of my time in Austria:

Ramsau
This was my second time visiting Gottlieb and Margarita at their beautiful house in the amazing mountains of the stunningly gorgeous country of Austria. They are both so kind, and such wonderful hosts. The first day or so, the weather was as I had left it in Germany - cold and rainy. However, when we went to Salzburg (on Sunday?) we were lucky enough to have warmth and sunshine! Before we got to the city itself, we went to a castle (Hellbrunner, I believe) just outside of Salzburg. Fun fact: the gazebo from "the Sound of Music" (think "Sixteen Going on Seventeen") was donated to the castle, and I was very disappointed that the doors were locked, preventing me from reenacting the scene. The archbishop (?) who built it (?) apparently had a sense of humor, because we took a tour of the trick fountains in the garden. At first I was a little freaked out at the concept of getting wet, but I ended up getting sprayed by water that came out of a (seemingly harmless) deer head on the wall... hey, if I was gonna walk away wet, the water may as well get me with humor :) We then enjoyed the gardens and a few rooms in the castle before moving on to the main event.

When I came to visit in October, we saw Salzburg in the evening when everything was closed, so it was really nice to be able to go to the same city a second time and see even more. We started out by walking through a beautiful (castle?) garden, and then mosied over to Mozart's birth house (where I took a picture of the outside. I love Mozart and everything, but I'm not gonna pay 8 Euros to see a room. I could spend that money in ice cream... or jewelry...) There were vendor booths set up along the river, so we (after lunch and ice cream) wandered up and down to peruse the selections. I'm kind of a sucker for pearls, and I may or may not have been too weak to walk past a certain necklace... oops. We then walked up the hill to the castle, which was... quite the walk. I've been to castles before, but not one like this. It was more of a town than a castle, with little shops and a public square. The view of the city was stunning. It started to rain a little, but the sun was still shining, making it a unique end to the evening.

The next day we went to visit Margarita's sister in her hometown of Eferding. Her brother also lives nearby, so all in all I met several family members. We went for a walk along the Danube (Donau, auf Deutsch) in the nearby town of Aschach. It was clear that Margarita was excited to be in her hometown, and it was fun to see a different small town culture.

Wien
I knew it was supposed to rain in Vienna, but when it first started to drizzle I figured I could handle it without an umbrella. WRONG. On day one it really started to pour, so I gave in to buying a souvenir umbrella. Even though it was raining, the city was still beautiful. I knew that I wanted to take advantage of all of Vienna's musical offerings, so my first stop was the Opera house. That night they were performing Salome, which was very exciting to me since I studied it in a music history class. They were sold out of almost all of their tickets, and were totally sold out for the performances the next two days (which were shows I didn't know)... the only tickets left were very expensive, but - with the encouragement of my father and, um, monetary sponsor - I decided that I only get to live once, so I went ahead and bought a ticket. I had never been to a (real) opera before, so it was cool to get to see one in such a historical setting. I didn't have anything too fancy to wear, but I did my best and thankfully didn't stand out as being under dressed. I had an amazing seat, but to be honest I was a little baffled about the acoustics. In opera, you don't mic the singers- they just belt it out and should be able to be heard over the orchestra. However, from where I was sitting there were many times where the orchestra was overpowering the singers. All the dialogue is sung, not spoken, but not every phrase is some stunning melody that hits the sweet spot of the singers' voices... so unless it was in the sweet spot, I had trouble hearing it. However, the experience was still worth the money, and I'm glad that I did it.

The opera finished around 10 or so in the evening, so I wanted to make the most of my time. I had heard about some jazz clubs in Vienna, and although Birdland was sadly closed down, I managed to find another little spot called Jazzland. It was an ideal jazz setting, in a tiny basement bar that you probably wouldn't see if you weren't looking for it. There was a piano/drum duo playing, and the setting was really intimate. There wasn't room in the main room, so I went to the side where I could see half of the stage, but to my luck the musicians came and sat next to me before playing their final set. We somehow picked up a conversation, and it was really cool to just talk about music. The music was great (I stupidly bought one of their overpriced CDs... it seemed rude to decline after hearing the price, and it didn't seem appropriate to try to haggle a few bucks off) and it was the perfect end to my day.

I spent the majority of day two at Schönbrunn castle, where the weather had taken a turn in the right direction (I actually got a little sunburned). The castle itself is big, but the gardens are HUUUGE. I spent maybe 40 minutes doing the castle tour, and another 3.5 to 4 hours in the gardens. There just aren't words to describe how big and beautiful it was... you'll have to google it. I spent what little time I had left in the day seeing churches in the downtown area and wandered through a couple parks and even made it to the city hall. There are two things I love about big cities in Germany/Austria/Europe (?): they have city centers where everything is centrally located, so you can see a lot without going too far- you don't even really need to use the subway- and they all seem to have beautiful oasis gardens in the middle of the metropolis hubbub. Very cool.

I ended the evening with a small ensemble concert performed in a location where Mozart himself performed (I think when he was six or something). I'm pretty sure it was a tourist trap, in the sense that it wasn't the philharmonic or any recognized ensemble. There were five musicians (a string quartet with piano) who performed a two part program- first of some of Mozart's greatest hits, then of J. Strauss' greatest hits. They even had a singer for two arias and two ballet dances for a few pieces. The Americans behind me were wildly impressed, and it was difficult to lay dormant as they flaunted their lack of knowledge about Mozart or music in general... so I struck up a conversation with them during intermission. I was very friendly, and approached them in a way of also being awestruck and sharing "fun facts" with them. Thankfully, one husband (who apparently also studied music at one time in his life?) pointed out to his wife that Mozart (which she pronounced "Moe's art"... *shudder*) did not, in fact, compose Fur Elise (that one almost got me). Anyway, the musicians were definitely talented, but I think were clearly students studying music who were trying to make a buck. That's not a bad thing at all, but I wish I had gone to the Philharmonic (I got suckered into this concert because the guy told me that they performed in costumes - which weren't very impressive at all - and "Papagena, Papageno" was on the list and I wanted to see it performed in parrot costumes [the "Moe's art" American got very excited when I told her about it because she has two parrots... sigh]. It was not performed that evening). I then went to try out what was supposedly Vienna's number one jazz club (called Porgy & Bess, so I had high hopes). However, it was some trendy place with people trying to be posh. The band that was playing wasn't even jazz (apparently they are a "Jazz and Music" club) so I went home.

There was a festival going on in the city on my last day - I'm not exactly sure why - and there were lots of booths set up for various reasons. My feet were KILLING ME by then, so it was nice to sit and watch a *free* 45 minute outdoor concert. It was an octet with two clarinets, oboes, bassoons, and french horns. They also appeared to be a student ensemble, but were once again quite talented. I spent a good part of the day sitting (seriously, after Hamburg, Berlin, Copenhagen, Ramsau, and Salzburg before even getting to Vienna, my feet were DONE) so I went to the train station a little early and waited to catch my overnight train there.

SO- from here on out, it's all about Italy. No more looking back in the past or over analyzing what went right or wrong... so with that in mind, I'll see you in the future (not in the pasture).

Alles liebe,
~Julia~

My hostel experiences have been really good on this trip (save one mediocre). In hostels I've met people from Argentina, Singapore, and Iran... which is pretty cool! The Iranian woman was tiny, and so spunky- she went tango dancing every night :) Although we didn't go out together in Vienna, we ate breakfast together and talked about what we did during the previous day - it was nice to have a hostel friend.