Fall Break, Part 3: Vienna

Ahh...Vienna. Vienna is one of the most elegant cities I have ever been in, and it completely changed my idea of what a city could even be. It's kind of hard to describe...I'll mostly let the photos do the talking. But if you ever get a chance to go here, you should totally do it.

I got to Vienna via train from Prague, which took about 4.5 hours...I finally got to my hostel around 3 (literally the nicest hostel in the entire world) and then went out to walk around the city. The plan was to get dinner and a little wine, which invariably turned into me getting kind of wasted walking around and meeting some actually really cool people. It was kind of a shitshow, and when I awoke the next morning I was sleeping on the couch in the common room of my hostel. You know though, you have to jump right into the deep end.

On my second day in Vienna, I visited the MUMOK museum, which is the Vienna Museum of Modern Art and is located in the Museums Quartier, or MQ. I visited the area a couple of times and it was just a couple of blocks from my hostel and contained really amazing museums all around a central courtyard. This one, the MUMOK, is very modern and is a newer addition, and the art was really great, although the museum was kind of small. However, I've included some of my favorite pieces.

Dan Flavin, Monument for V. Tatlin, 1964

Frantisek Kupka, Nocturne, 1910-11

I wish I could remember who this is by, but I thought it was really amazing.


Okay, this is the real story here. I happened to be at the museum at a time that I was extremely "under the weather" from the night before. So I saw this sculpture on the floor of the museum, and I assumed it was a sculpture, but I honestly thought it was like inlaid into the floor. You know, incorporated into the marble or concrete or whatever. It didn't have any signs around it or a line to not pass or anything like that you know?...So I go up to it and I swear I was so out of it I pushed a corner of it and like 8 of those metal strips flew across the room...I obviously cowered in humility as the guard came over and put on gloves and started putting it back together...So uncultured...

I also visited the Freitag store, something I've wanted to do forever, considering I'm the proud owner of a "Clark" bag that I got for my birthday 2 years ago...Anyway it's really amazing, hard to describe, but if I ever became a retail designer and designed something like this I would be very proud.

That night, I got an email from a girl that I met the night before, someone my age who I'd asked for directions. I had been sipping on wine so I didn't completely remember the conversation 100%, but I had been lucky enough to be invited to a party with some cool Austrian people at a place called the Rathaus. I looked it up online and was confused to find this, the Austrian/Vienna city hall:





She assured me I was correct and to meet her and her friends there at 11 in front of the big belltower. And she did! We went to this party thrown once a year by this huge radio station and they literally take over the huge event spaces in what is basically the White House and turn it into a club with like 10 dj's, 20 bars, huge lights and videos and general debauchery. It was amazing and we ended up leaving early the next morning...I was so lucky to meet them because under any other circumstances I would have never found this thing, and it was soo much fun!
(By the way, these aren't my photos of the Rathaus, I didn't think a camera would be allowed so I didn't bring one and didn't manage to get a good exterior shot of the building during the day. But at night it looks even better.)


The Naschmarkt the next morning, just 4 hours after getting home...


After the Naschmarkt, I visited a nearby museum. I can't say enough about the Naturhistorisches Museum in Vienna...It's right next to the MQ around a huge garden and has literally over 30 million objects in its collection, most of them meteorites, stones, bones, dinosaurs...and the coolest part to me, animals. Taxidermied animals, almost every kind known to man. And if they're not taxidermied they are in cabinets or jars or behind glass. It was an amazing place to take pictures and just wander around with my music. It was like a museum of taxidermy and display inside of a museum of natural history, and it was one of the most artistic and creative things I've ever seen.





On my last day in Vienna, I had a flight back to Milan that didn't leave until 7 pm, so I had some time to keep exploring...I decided to take a trip to Schonbrunn Palace. This was at one time the imperial residence of Austria and today is a museum and tourist attraction. I went during a time of the year when it was a little bleak and gray, and the gardens weren't really blooming, but it was absolutely beautiful. I also climbed to the top of the Gloriette which is a structure on top of a 100 ft. hill and overlooks the palace and the city.




You can see the Gloriette and the hill in the distance...That is where they intended to build the palace at first.

I really loved visiting Vienna, and unfortunately when I got home I realized I hadn't really taken an photos of the city itself besides monuments and museums. I wish I had captured some pictures of the streets and peoplel who actually live there. I'm a little disappointed by my photos for not showing the "real" Vienna, but I've learned from it. It was an amazing close to an amazing journey from Berlin to Prague to Vienna and then back to Milan.

On my way out of the hostel when I was signing the huge chest they keep as a hall table/guestbook, I noticed someone else who had written something, and it made me feel kind of close to home, even though I was so far away.


Lots more to catch up on for the blog, so check back soon...

Fall break 2011 was definitely the best trip of my life.
Jai'me

Fall Beak, Part 2: Praha

My trip to Berlin left me a little dazed and confused, so my trip to Prague was destined to be a time of relaxation, walking around, and listening to...well, you know the drill. I also decided to do something I was at first a little weary of...CouchSurfing. It turned out to be amazing though, and my host couldn't have been nicer. Ryan is from Australia and is 25 and teaches English at a local university, as do his 2 roommates. I was lucky enough to have my own bed and set of keys, which made it very easy to go out during the day and see everything I needed to, then meet up with them at night.

I have to admit that I didn't party very much in Prague, partly a result of being a little burned out and partly because Ryan worked during the day everyday and couldn't really party that hard. We did go to a lot of little pubs though, the kind of which I never would have found on my own, which I was grateful for. I love that smoking is allowed inside and kids are routinely brought to bars while strangers smoke weed and cigarettes around them nonstop. And drinking starts early...I don't think there was a lunch that didn't have an accompanying beer (Czechs drink more beer than anyone statistically, even Germans, who come in second).


View of the Charles Bridge, which leads from old-town Prague to the Castle



This is the Old Town Hall of Prague, and is located in Old Town Square in Prague. From the top, you can basically get a really scary 360 degree view of the city.



As my walk continued, I went to the Prague Castle and, while I couldn't actually get into any of the buildings, there was a really beautiful gothic cathedral there, but unfortunately it closed 2 minutes after I got there.


This is my favorite Czech dish! Svickova...i think. Anyway its soo good with this kind os stew, brisket-like meat, bread "dumplings", cream, and cranberries, it was so Thanksgiving appropriate.

On my 3rd day in Prague, I took the opportunity to go to a place called Kutna Hora an hour outside of Prague. Aside from being literally one of the most random places I've ever been, Kutna Hora is basically a shithole, but they have this tiny part of town that has this place called the Sedlec Ossuary. Basically there was this monastery that was demolished to make room for a bigger church and unerneath it with vaulted ceilings, kinda creepy, a chapel. They let this artist use between 40 and 70 THOUSAND bones to make decorations and art with. Kinda crazy, but really cool!

See what I mean? All that's missing are the death eaters



Coat of arms of the Schwarzenberg family, who funded the artist, who was originally a woodcarver.





Finally, there's a huge chandelier made entirely of bones, and it even has at least one of every bone in the human body...

This was Wednesday and I was leaving on Thursday, so I took a train back for a huge dinner and some beers and was finally able to smoke at this bar. In the morning I boarded a train for Vienna, where the pace picked up again...

Stay tuned!
xo
Jai'me