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St. Stephen's Gothic cathedral |
The day began bright and early with a
quick shower and breakfast before boarding the university buses. It was a
brisk morning, but at our travel meeting the night before, Mr. Pipp (the jolly
student life director) had promised us sunshine for our first overnight trip
with the school. The ride was long, a few hours, and we arrived in Vienna
well-rested. Or, at least I did. I have the wonderful ability to sleep anywhere
and everywhere, both a blessing and a curse really, as this extends but is not
limited to class, Mass, on top of my school books, and well, you get the
picture.
Vienna,
on first observation (thankfully an observation I slept through) appeared to be
filled with somewhat scandalous lingerie adds. This of course, did not set
quite the tone for our day that we had been hoping, but the sight of church
spires and the opera house somewhat alleviated our initial feelings of
distrust. Fortunately, the ads seemed to decrease within the central part of
the city.
The bus dropped us off by the opera house, and we made our way to a
Franciscan church containing the crypt of the entire Hapsburg family. In case
you are, as was I, completely ignorant of that which is Hapsburg, they basically
are/were the ruling family of the Ostro-Hungarian Empire. It is from this line
of royalty that Empress Maria Teresa of Austria comes, as well as her daughter
Marie Antoinette (perhaps you’ve heard of her?) This church, the burial spot of
kings, also forms the end of the Hapsburg burial procession. There is a nice
little tradition connected with it that when the procession arrives at the
doors, an old friar will answer the knock and ask who it is. The attendant
names the royal dead with all of his or her titles, to which the friar replies,
“I don’t know him/her.” This process is repeated until the attendant finally
says, “This is so-and-so, a poor sinner in need of God’s mercy.” I’m paraphrasing. Then the friar replies “Come
in and welcome,” and the royal body is placed below in the crypt.
We had Mass in this tradition-filled
spot with the bones of kings resting beneath us. After Mass, we opted not to
pay to see the crypt, but I’ve heard the tombs are gorgeous, encrusted with
jewels and such. Instead, we joined up with Mr. Pipps walking tour of the city
(we had him in Salzburg and really enjoyed his sense of humor and jovial
presence amongst all the unfamiliarity of a European city).
As we learned through the tour and the
rest of our stay there, Vienna is known for
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Polish King Jan III Sobieski, who saved Vienna in 1683 from invading Muslims and discovered coffee all in the same day |
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Alex in front of the Hapsburg Palace |
its culture, especially music. This
was apparent in the many red coat-tailed, be-wigged Mozart men that harangued
every poor, impressionable tourist that so much as glanced their way. These
imposters, who probably couldn’t carry a tune themselves, waved tickets to
classical Viennese concerts, emphasizing to the aforementioned tourists that to
not attend such an event would be akin to playing the Viennese waltz in 4/4
timing, thereby causing Mozart to roll over in his grave and bringing shame upon
all things cultured and good. Likewise, the architecture was refined and only
slightly less overbearing, having to it a sort of dignity, brought about partly
by Gothic influence, partly by the touch of time. Our tour made its way down
the main shopping drag, past the grounds and buildings of the Hapsburg Palace
(their winter residence), near St. Stephen’s Cathedral, a massive gothic
structure whose spires have pointed heavenward for centuries.
Our tour ended at an old pub for
lunch. Descending to the basement, a large beer hall, and down another flight
to the second basement and a room full of tables, we glimpsed stones even older than
St. Stephen's. The cellars date back to the 12th century, and it was
here, beneath arches that had supported the groaning beer hall tables above for
nine centuries, that we were served our first real Wiener schnitzel (the mensa
had served us something like it, but that doesn’t really count). Along with
that, we ate soup, vinegar-soaked potato salad, and delicious apple strudel. Mark
didn’t like the Wiener schnitzel (big surprise), but I did.
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slightly blurry picture of the ancient
restaurant basement |
We checked into our hostels after
lunch and were then on our own to explore the city for the night. The hostels
weren’t as bad as I expected, and Alex and I shared with two of our friends, Mary
Grace and Evelyn, so we were at least in good company. Honestly, we hardly
stopped there long enough to tell if the place was clean or not before rushing
off to discover the Viennese metro system and figure out how to get into the
standing room section of the opera. Along the way, we did end up talking to one
of the red-coated fellows—several of them in fact—but one in particular chatted
with us for a while, somehow managed to compliment everyone except Mark, and
got about as close as anyone could have gotten to convincing us to buy concert
tickets. We didn’t, however, and soon were in the queue to purchase 4 euro
tickets to a legit opera in the opera house in Vienna. Granted, they were
standing room spots, so by the end, our backs and feet were killing us, but it
was, nonetheless, an opera. La Traviata, to be exact. I had seen this in Dayton
a few years back (I mostly just remember that I couldn’t stop coughing and that
I sounded more likely to die than the tragic heroine), but the acting in this
production far surpassed the other. The set, on the other hand, certainly did
not. In fact, it was really weird and lame. Actually, I have yet to see a show with
a set that really surpasses those of the Schuster Center.
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Inside the Vienna Operhouse |
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Alex, Me, and Evelyn after the opera! |
The opera set the tone for the night,
in more ways than one. On the one hand, it was exciting and fancy and fun to go
out at night, dressed up, to a big opera house and experience such a show; on
the other hand, standing in such a constricted space for 2 ½ hours brought
misery upon my back for the rest of the night and the following day. That
wasn’t enough to ruin a fun night, though. We ate dinner at a little café in
St. Stephansplatz, the three of us (Mark, Alex, and me) but met up with some
other opera-going friends for a bit after. Later, after walking most of the
group back to the hostels, Mark, Katrina, Courtney, Caitlin, and I went out
again, but by then most things were closed and we just made a brief stop at
McDonald's before dragging ourselves through the maze of metro stops back to our
hostels.
Now, as this is the first recording of
overnight stays, it must be made clear that I have a deathly fear of bedbugs.
The others make fun of me for it, but I will not sleep in a hostel bed without
first examining every inch of it multiple times, including various “surprise
checks” throughout the night…just trying to catch the bugs off their guard!
That night, about halfway through the night, I dreamt a bedbug was biting my
knee. I actually felt the itch!
Gasping, I leapt out of bed, and rushed to the light of the bathroom where I
discovered no bug, no bite…no, not even an itch. Nevertheless, I still made
sure to doubly investigate the scene of the illusory crime. Sure enough, no
bugs. Mary Grace enjoyed relating this story the next morning, however,
dramatizing my gasp just a bit. I’ll admit, since there was not actually a
bedbug involved, it was funny...to be continued.