I haven’t had a chance to write in a while, so I’m finding it hard to remember what has happened. Let’s see – after the laundry (which took a long time, but having clean clothes makes me feel less feral), we popped out to watch people’s umbrellas be destroyed by the wind at the Reichstag, and then headed into the Pergamon Museum. This turned out to be an extremely long line, which worried us, since it was only a couple of hours until closing time; luckily, C was able to work out that we could use our Museum Passes to jump to the head of the queue.
She asked to be taken to some awesome things; luckily, the Pergamon has quite a few of those, including the titular temple (which had been nicked by Russia, and given back at reuninification), a Greek market gate, and the impressive Ishtar Gate of Babylon. Our old friend Ashurbanipal made another appearance, as did muppet-faced lions. The special exhibit concerned a collection that had been in Dresden during the war – the building they were housed in was consumed by a terrible fire, and many of the stone sculptures that had been heated up exploded when firefighters sprayed them with water. The Pergamon Museum in West Berlin had kept the fragments, but the rights to the statues resided in the East; and people didn’t think that the statues could be reconstructed anyway. But it turns out that, with modern techniques, the documentation from the original excavation and patience, they could be; and the results are both impressive and sad.
We had a flight the next day, and we were a bit nervous about finding the airport and checking in, so we headed straight out after checkout; despite our misgivings, the flight out on Air Berlin was fine, and we had no problems getting to Vienna. After a few missteps, we managed to find our hotel – and discovered that we had free wifi and a free network cable. (If you were wondering where the last burst of photos and posts came from, wonder no more.)
It was getting a bit late to do too much sightseeing, so we decided to wander around the local neighbourhood, which seemed to have a bit of a Russian flavour, judging from the speciality dishes on the menus and the names on the businesses. But the nearest square and park was Mexicoplatz, which the city had dedicated to Mexico for being the only country to actively protest when Austria was annexed by Germany at the beginning of WWII. There was a wedding happening at the big church there, and we wandered back towards our hotel, looking out for somewhere to eat.
We picked somewhere that, to my eyes, didn’t look too hopeful – it was almost deserted inside, except for a woman smoking with her dog. (When we sat down, it turned out that she worked there.) But we had the special of the day: broth with shredded pancake, schnitzel with cabbage and potato salad, and some sort of chocolate cake. All of this, plus drinks, worked out to 10 Euro each; and it was pretty good, too.
(As a sidenote, we’ve had some dilemmas when it comes to tipping; we’ve tended to err on the side of caution, and add 10%. Yet another thing I will not miss when I come home.)
We got back and took advantage of the unprecedented internet access, and I said hi to my parents and Louise; unfortunately, there was some bad news from home for C from her Mum – C’s grandmother had suddenly gotten a lot worse. Fortunately, because we had access in our room, she was able to skype her Dad that night, and arrange to skype with both her parents the next morning. It was slightly odd to try to continue with a breezy update, which is one of the reasons I didn’t write anything much, mostly reading email and titling pictures.
The next morning, we got ready, and C talked to her parents. It’s times like this that Skype really comes into its own; I think it really helped them to be able to see each other. We then headed out to do something unchallenging at Schloss Schonbrunn.
But first, we accidentally went to a random antique fair. It all really happened because we were looking for a supermarket; we were on the Metro on the way to the palace, and thought that we’d poke our heads above ground, on the off-chance that we’d see one in or near the station. We had a bit of a look around, gawking at the Opera House like the tourists we are, and then… well, there was a sign. A “Sale” sign. How could I be reasonably be expected to resist?
I think that the place it was being held is normally an upmarket department store, but it had been given over to a score or more stalls of various antique vendors. I was particularly vulnerable to this, because I’ve been reading A Magpie’s Companion: A Guide To Things Found, which is full of useful tidbits like how to tell if British military uniform buttons are from the reign of a king or queen (round crown top vs. lobed crown top), and that they didn’t get the trick of weaving candle-wicks to curl over and be consumed by the flame until the mid-1800s, which meant you needed a special tool called a “snuffer” to trim the burnt wick off. I mention this because there were actually two snuffers at the fair (they look like scissors with a box attached to the blade, to catch the burnt wick), and I was very, very tempted to get one; but C correctly pointed out that 45 euro was a lot to pay for something that I really, really didn’t.
So I bought a bunch of old WWII-era notes instead; but I’m still thinking about those snuffers. I think I like them because they’re representative of how little changes in technology can eliminate whole classes of objects, and suddenly you’re left with this eddy of artifacts that young people look at and go, “What the heck was this for?” Like the screens you could buy to make your wee TV image bigger, or (increasingly) paper dictionaries.
The others had fun browsing the stalls, and I think that some purchases were made; and then it was back on the train, and out to the palace.
The first thing we did was to have a traditional Viennese apple strudel, as well as the untraditional accompaniment of a gin and tonic (in honour of C’s grandmother). We then continued our tradition when it comes to impressive, well-known palaces, and stuck to the gardens. I don’t know whether it was the drought, but the gardens at Schloss Schonbrunn seemed much prettier than the ones at Versailles. And while there were no musical fountains, there was a labyrinth section (with things like a foot-operated glockenspiel and puzzles, as well as a pretty cool children’s playground), and a zoo.
We went to the zoo, even though we realised that we wouldn’t get to see everything. Most of the explanatory signs were in German, so I had to rely on my extensive reading of Gerald Durrel books to guide me; though there’s no need to explain how cool it is to see a couple of rhinos, or hippos, or piranha, or archer fish, or mud skippers, or giant tortoises, or a baby panda, or jellyfish, or giant snakes… C commented that she was surprised by how freaked out the snakes made her. Oh, and there was a kea, who had a bucket with some holes punched in the top; we watched it tipping it around, making the fruit inside fall where it could get it.
We then ran the gauntlet of incredibly cute fuzzy toys with only minimal casualties, and then headed back to the hotel. Then we ran into a cuteness assault that we couldn’t avoid – we skyped with my second-youngest niece, who seemed gratifyingly pleased to see us. (Her mum might have been there, coughing away, too.) C also talked to her brother and his partner about what was happening.
The next morning, C talked to her brother, and found out her grandmother had died while we were asleep.
She managed to talk to her Mum & Dad, who told her that she had strict orders from her grandmother to finish her travel. Her mother had been sitting with her grandmother as much as she was able, and her grandmother had opened her eyes and looked at her mother for a little while before she passed away. C wanted to come home immediately, but her mother was adamant; and in this particular battle of wills, C’s mother has won so far.
We checked out, and went to the train station to drop of our bags. Operating the automatic lockers proved fairly challenging, especially since they did not return money if you got anything wrong; still, the prices were far, far more reasonable than London’s.
We then went to St Stephen’s Cathedral, which was impressive in the way that cathedrals are. The stained glass had almost all been destroyed during the war, and the walls were still discoloured from fires. The guy at the shop was the least helpful of any of the staff of such shops I’ve been to, but I got a history of the cathedral, and a German version of the myths and stories associated with the cathedral that I hope to read with the help of C and Google.
After that, we walked around Vienna for a bit, taking in some of the pretty bits. We went to the Sissi and silverware exhibit (though we were hustled through the silverware/tableware section, owing to the approaching closing time). You got a feel for the crazy opulence of the court, and the cost of it all; but the presentation was definitely not pro-Sissi (aka Kaiserin Elisabeth). She was portrayed as a bit of a narcissist, who was seized on as a marketing tool after she was safely dead and unlikely to mess up the image that people wished to portray and use. Kaiser Franz-Joseph, on the other hand, was portrayed as a besotted but dutiful and honourable man. But to modern eyes, there were a few weird things going on. For example, there was a rule that a course is finished when the emperor finishes it, and because he was courteous, Franz-Joseph did his best not to finish before others were done. But he didn’t eliminate the rule.
We walked around through the city a bit more, and then headed to the station for dinner and our sleeper train.
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