Austria Journal 8- Vienna pt 1

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

Polish King Jan III Sobieski, who saved Vienna in 1683 from invading Muslims and discovered coffee all in the same day

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 12^th 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.

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.

Inside the Vienna Operhouse 

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.