Settling into Vienna

Vienna is a city planner's nightmare. The streets go in any direction they feel like it, and buildings seem to be plopped down in the oddest of places. That said, the public transportation here is amazing. There is an underground train, a tram, and busses that cover the rest. Everything shows up often and on time... Portland may have a good system, but it could learn a thing or two.

I have managed to find my way around pretty well and have become comfortable here, dispite not speaking the language. I have wandered around most of the downtown area and find myself accidentally coming to the same places over and over. The day before yesterday I went to the museum quarters and visited the Leopold Museum, which had a lot of Shiele and Klimt paintings, and to the MOMUK, which is the modern art museum. There was a pretty interesting fluxes show, a retrospective of Polke, and a lot of very, very angry and disturbing Viennese art from the 1960's. Not something that I wanted to see before lunch. The courtyard of the museums was a great place to people watch. There were all of these cast cement blocks that everyone was lounging, napping and sunbathing on. In the center was a shallow pool where children were playing, very nice to dip my feet into after walking around for so long.

Yesterday I visited Schloss Schonbrunn, a huge castle where Marie Antoinette was raised. The gardens are expansive and beautiful, perfect to stroll through on a sweltering day. There is also a large zoo there, which I considered going to, but really do hate caged animals (well, the cages, not the animals). The grounds have a beautiful glass atrium, the Palmenhaus and nearby is the Wustenhaus, a desert atrium. Due to the amazingly hot weather, I decided to skip going inside these... somehow being inside a greenhouse sounded like a really bad idea. There are crows here that look like a mixture between our regular black crows and mockinbirds. They have a gray patern on their bodies that I haven't seen before. I will try to upload pictures of all of this later. Okay, off to explore again. I just spent an hour on this computer trying to figure out my trip to Prague on Thursday, and I can't sit here any longer.

Finally here

I had a terribly long layover in Atlanta, where they needed to fix the emergency equipment on our plane. Somehow, I feel better knowing that we just switched planes, even though it took four hours to do. I finally got into Vienna around 4pm (it is about 9 hours ahead of west coast time here). I am staying in a family member's appartment here while he and his wife are in Oregon for the summer. It is wonderful to have a nice peaceful place to stay at, especially since it is free. However, I kind of feel disconnected: not just because it is on the fringes of the city, but also because there is no one to talk to or meet. That is one of the plusses of staying in hostels. I hope to meet some english speaking travelers soon and tag along with them. I am deeply regretting not studying german in high school and I definately feel like the blundering American right now. Today I tried to catch up on sleep and I wandered around aimlessly for hours this afternoon. I managed to make it down into the center of town, which you can only tell is the center because the number of tourists increases dramatically. Vienna is full of beautiful architecture and stately buildings. I am quickly discovering that I enjoy quaintness more than pomp and circumstance. Hopefully I will figure out how to download my photos at one of the internet cafes... but first I suppose I will have to start taking some. Tomorrow I plan on going to a few of the many museums that they have here and maybe spend the rest of the day in a beer garden, the other thing they have a lot of.... well, that and sausage. Lots of sausage.

Leaving on a jet plane

I should be packing right now, but instead I am trying out this new bloggy type thing. Somehow I am always a step or two or behind the times.... maybe this will catapult me into the modern age. Or not.

This picture doesn't have anything to do with leaving for Europe, but it was taken on a recent rafting trips with some good friends that I am going to miss, and I thought it was pretty great.

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I leave for Vienna, Austria. I have no idea where all I am going to visit while I am there, but I think I will leave that to chance. After that, I have a six week artist residency in Switzerland, and then I am going to play in Italy for a while. And now, back to packing.