The day after the last Jeden Svet film festival was of course St. Patrick’s day. Let’s put it this way, you could really tell who was an American or Irish person on that day 'cause we were all wearing green. Obviously the other thing that St. Patty’s day is known for is as an excuse to drink (like study abroad students need one of those). This St. Patty’s, my first as a fully legal adult, was no exception. Most of AIFS went out to a club called ZaZaZoo, which turned out to be a lot more chill then I expected, of course it was a Wednesday night. There was green beer, and a really bad Bono cover band (I recognized a couple of the songs from when Bono, the real thing, performed for Obama’s inauguration). We stayed pretty late for a Wednesday. Overall I had fun inspite of myself.
I will say that getting up about four hours after I went to bed to go to two of the most boring classes I have was no fun at all, but I was very proud of myself, I managed to make it through both without going back to sleep, through a combination of sheer force of will and large amounts of Coke Light and Pepsi. The rest of Thursday was pretty much of a write off, I slept from about 1 to 6, and then just sort of chilled out.
That weekend, we got to experience some more or less authentic Czech culture that didn’t involve large amounts of alcohol, at least for me. We went to see a Sparta Praha hockey game…make the 300 jokes now I’ll wait…finished…good. Praha was playing another Czech team, who they pretty much creamed. It was pretty interesting; expect that, of course, I couldn’t understand the play by play. Fortunately the word for goal are pretty much universal.
The weekend over, we got into the week before Vienna. Monday night was another normal day, plus a trip to the National Theatre. That evening’s performance was Bartered Bride, a Czech Opera about peasants in the past. Aside from being able to lose the entire second, and really most third acts and still have the story work, Bartered Bride was pretty good for an opera.
Tuesday, after another invigorating day of classes, Jake, Allie, Kate, Ian, Walt and I headed out to a small club near Tesco were we saw a Czech rock group, Plastic People of the Universe perform ,and played some Fuzball. I suck at Fuzball, but Plastic People were pretty good. Apparently they started as a sort of Anti-Soviet group, and have just kept going since, and they had awesome rock violin thing. Anyway, they were cool.
Wednesday and Thurday were pretty much nothing, and then Friday it was time to head out to Vienna.
Vienna is an ancient city of 1.6 million people, almost twice the size of Prague. It was first founded by the Romans, almost two thousand years ago as a base of operations in the Danube basin. During the middle ages, and the early modern period the city flourished as one of the leading centers of art and architecture in Central and Western Europe. For almost three hundred years, from 1526 to 1918, it was the seat of royal House of Habsburg, which at one point ruled close to a third of Europe.
Vienna is about 6 hours drive from Prague. We left for the city at 9am. We stopped twice on the way to Vienna. One at a gas station just side of Brno, and then once close to the Austrian border at a place called Excalibur World. Like some hellish combination of every fantasy world ever made, and some sort of monstrous tourist trap, Excalibur World has a every bit of cheap stylish junk you didn’t know you needed, and they have a dragon, a big one, that breaths, and bumper boats, and bumper cars, so basically the most awesome thing ever. We only stopped there forty five minutes before pressing on to Vienna.
To say that Vienna in spring is the prettiest city is probably very unfair to Paris and Prague, but if it is not, it is certainly one of the top three. The downtown area, inside the so called Ringstrassa which is built where the city walls used to stand, is dominated by several of the old Habsburg palaces, particularly the Hofburg, the Austrian Parliament, St Stephen’s Dome(German for…I’ll give you guess…its church) and the Vienna Opera House. Between these beautiful buildings, there are a number of expansive, and well maintained, parks as well as easily accessible (if you’ve got 20 Euro or 30 dollars) bike trials. The first thing we did once we got settled into our hotel, just off the Ring, was to take a short walking tour from our hotel, past the parliament ,which is built in a style similar to, and of the same stone as, the US Capital, through part of Hofburg, down the Stephenplatz to the Cathedral. After that we were pretty much on our own for Friday night, so Kate and Adrian, Stef and Diego, Jordan, and myself set off to find some cheap Wiener Steinze (the national food of Austria, breaded and fried veal…can I move to this country?). We found it, and then walked back to the Cathedral. Here our little group split up. Diego, Stef, and Jordan headed back to the hotel, while Adrian, Kate and I headed out to find a place apparently called the Bermuda Triangle, which apparently earned this nickname because drunk college students go in, but never come out…and Zee, the incredible Czech tour guide told us it was a bad idea to go there…so of course we had to check it out. Unfortunately it was pretty much deadsville at 8 o’clock at night.
A Sampling of some of what Vienna has to offer.
So we headed back to the hotel. I read my book a little, but I was feeling kind of restless, so after Adrian and Kate and some other people headed out to a bar, I decided to wander around the area outside of our hotel a little bit. I walked a couple of blocks, and came a church dedicated to Maria Theresa, the only female ruler of the Habsburg Empire. After hastily snapping some photos, I wandered around the surrounding area, noting some bars and restaurants that I made have wanted to check out later. After about 45 minutes to a hour I came back to the hotel, and fell asleep.
The next morning we got up reasonably early, and took another walking tour of Vienna. This time we were guided not by Zee, but by a local, who was very knowledgeable about Austrian history, and culture. She took us not only to the sites Zee had shown us the day before, but also to a Church that was dedicated to the Teutonic Order, and were Mozart had lived, to the Church were Habsburgs are buried, and to the area just outside of the Vienna Opera House. After the tour, Jake, Ian, Ryan, Marnie, Ellen, Kacy and Walt, Katie and Adrian, and I headed back to the Stephenplatz to find a gulatto place that one of us had seen earlier. We ate there, it was only five euros, so about 7 bucks, and then wandered back to the Hofburg.
We hung around at one of the parks near the Hofburg for about an hour, and then decided to check out one of the museums, which contained knight’s armor, musical instruments, and quite possibly the most impractical weapon I have ever seen. It was a shield, with spikes, and a short sword, and a little lantern for blinding people. The armor was really awesome, though it showed just how short medieval people were.
After wandering around the museum, we head back to the park to wait for Zee, and our tour of Belvedere Palace. Belvedere was the home of Prince Eugene of Savoy, an ally of the Habsburg Dynasty. In the early part of the 1700s, Eugene was one of the Habsburg’s most successful military commanders and one of the best commanders of that era. He fought in several wars against the Ottoman Turks, as well as in alliance with Winston Churchill’s ancestor, John Churchill, the Duke of Marlboro, against the French. In retirement he built Belvedere, which with large Rocco styling’s, and extensive gardens was one of the nicest palaces in Vienna until the Habsburgs under Maria Theresa built Schonbrunn.(More on that later). Unfortunately, the interior of Belvedere has since been turned into an art gallery, but the outside was most impressive.
After walking to Belvedere, our group considered renting some bikes, but decided that they were too expensive. Instead, we headed back to the Hofburg to visit the Imperial Treasury. The Treasury is home to some of the most important and beautiful artifacts of the Habsburg Dynasty. These including Bohemian, Hungarian and Austrian coronation robes, the crowns used for Charlemagne and his successors as Holy Roman Emperor, and Rudolf II and his successor as King of Bohemia, and a piece of the true cross.
Charlemagne's Crown
From the treasury we headed back to the hotel. A couple of hours later, feeling pretty hungry I headed out to a restaurant located just down from the hotel. The night pretty much went downhill from there. A lot of people had a bit too much to drink there, and then, six or seven of us, me soberest of the group, headed to a Mexican bar near the ring. I didn’t see it, but I’m pretty sure the tequila flowed like water. I had a Marguerite and quit while I was ahead.
Sunday morning brought an early departure from the hotel, though not as early as the AIFS crew would have liked, as some people failed to note that Europe starts daylight savings time two weeks after the United States. Once we got everybody loaded and on the bus, we headed to a house on the outskirts of Vienna that was designed by a community of artists in the 80s. Words cannot describe and bizarre looking it is…so I’ll just post a picture.
From the 1980s we head back to the 1880s, and the Imperial Habsburg Palace at Schonbrunn. Schonbrunn was first built by the Empress Maria Theresa in the middle part of the 18th century as a summer retreat from the hustle and bustle of Vienna. In many ways the palace was the Habsburg’s answer to Louis XIV’s Versailles. The palace was remodeled in the later part of the 19th century during rule of the Maria Theresa’s Great Grandson, the Emperor Franz Joseph. Franz Joseph conducted much of the Imperial business from Schonbrunn, but he preferred a much more relaxed style then Maria Theresa. I headed into the palace to take what they call the grand tour, 22 of palaces 40+ rooms. The inside was very fitting for an Imperial residence, some gilding, some pictures, and lots of impressive mirrors.
With the audio guide, and the wait, it took nearly an hour and half to get through the entire palace. After that, we had about 45 minutes to get lunch at the Schonbrunn Café. The Café had be far the best Hamburger I think I’ve gotten since I left the United States, which isn’t saying much, but is totally true. We then had to run for the bus to be sure we got back to it in time. After another stopover at Excalibur World, and then the gas station in Brno, We made it back to Prague at about 8 o’clock in the evening. And then I hit books to study for my Czech and Central European History mid-term. More on that…later.
Next: Prague Party VIII: The Study Part of Study Abroad.
No comments:
Post a Comment