L'Europe de l'Est partie 2

On the 20th, we got on a bus that would take us to Vienna, only a few hours away. Prague was beautiful, but we were excited to get to a city where the currency was the Euro and where we would be able to better follow the language. Let me tell you, my Czech wasn't any more developed than Ahoj (pronounced "ahoy" = hello) and dekuju (thank you). German would seem a breeze after a language that puts accents on consonants. The bus ride over was great. We got free hot chocolate and magazines and they showed the movie Sherlock Holmes. It was a stunning day in Vienna when we arrived. Claire's friend Brad was on exchange there and was had kindly offered up his residence room while he himself was on holiday. It was great to know we had a home base we could call our own. Sharing his twin bed wasn't the most comfortable experience, but having the apartment meant that we could cook our own meals and come home to relax in the evenings. 

Every day we took the tram into the city centre (second city in a row where we didn't pay for public transit tickets... oopsies... I suppose Europeans are just more trustworthy than we are). I absolutely loved Vienna. Perhaps it was the Western European feel to it that made it seem so welcoming, or perhaps it was the beautiful weather, but we had a thoroughly good time. The architecture was halfway between the fanciful colours of Prague and the cool stone of the West. We enjoyed the royal residence, the old royal library, the globe museum (I have a thing for globes), the Esperanto museum (that language made up at the turn of the century that was supposed to become a universal language learnable and speakable by everyone), sunny parks, dazzling churches and cathedrals, Schönbrunn Palace and its sprawling Victorian gardens, 3/4 of an opera, and the Vienna Boys Choir on Easter Sunday. The last two are worth explaining.

At the Weiner Staatsoper (the Vienna State Opera), there is a side door where one can buy 3 euro standing room tickets to whatever is playing that night. Claire and I stood in line forever to get such tickets for Faust, a French opera by Charles Gounod. I had a vague memory of the story line, having studied the book Doctor Faustus in 1st year English. We made our way up the back stairs (the grand front entrance being reserved for better paying customers), stopped for a little glass of wine, then proceeded to our "seats". On the very highest balcony, behind all rows of seating and off to the side, stand the standing-room-only-ers. If you've got a good view, you can see a bit of the orchestra and half the stage. More likely, you're looking at the back of tens of heads shifting from side to side whilst being elbowed by your fellow standers. There are little subtitle screens attached the the ceiling which slopes conveniently down to below eye level (thus further impeding our already magnificent view). Now, I like opera. I like singing it, and I have much enjoyed the few shows I've seen. Faust, however, was not to my taste. Imagine cutting your grass with kitchen scissors, and how drawn out of a process that would be. That's kind of what this opera felt like. After two hours cramped into an unbearable hunch, the intermission had still not been called, but Claire and I figured that we had done our cultural duty. We skedaddled. I almost felt sorry for the poor suckers in seats who couldn't get away. We celebrated our escape with a fantastic Asian buffet near our apartment.

The Vienna Boys Choir is another good story. We had heard that they would be performing on Easter Sunday, but we assumed that the tickets would be far beyond our meagre price range. Nevertheless, we thought we'd see what prices were available. First thing on Easter morning, we arrived at the Hofburg Palace. There were already a few other keeners ahead of us, but the line was short. As the hour of the performance neared, we saw no action at the door where we were waiting, so I went to ask someone if he knew if we'd found the right place. He in turn asked me if I needed tickets since he had extras. 8 euros each later, Claire and I had seats. Just before the start, we filed into the royal chapel, up another set of back stairs (we should have taken that as a warning), and into a dimly lit narrow room filled with wooden chairs. This room, two stories above the chapel and off to one side, had a glass-less window at either end through which one could watch the mass below. Now, one would also have to be lucky enough to have a seat in front of these windows. Claire and I were lucky enough to have seats directly in front of a wall. We found ourselves plunked in front of a red damask wall covering with no chance of getting to the windows. There was a small TV screen in the corner that projected the scene below. Happily, we weren't all too fussed about missing the mass itself, not being Catholics. We just wanted to hear these boys sing (and sing they did!). And it makes for a good story, doesn't it?

On one of our days in Vienna, we made the impromptu decision to take a day-trip to Bratislava, Slovakia. It's only an hour down the Danube River, so we hopped on a bus and soon found ourselves surrounded by vestiges of communism. Dingy, dismal buildings from the Cold War era polluted the city streets save for the historic city centre. The contrast of beautiful old building styles with the hideous new was even more marked than in Prague. We had chosen Good Friday to go, probably not the best plan as nothing was open except for churches. Despite not being catholic, we both have a great love of church architecture, and ended up stopping by four different masses. I've never breathed so much incense in my life. The city castle was closed for the weekend, but we had a pleasant walk up the hill atop of which it was perched. Otherwise, nothing too remarkable about Bratislava. It seemed that a few hours there was all we needed.

We got on the bus back to Vienna, and cosied up in our little apartment for the night.

... to be continued