039 - thu 08 jun - vienna

this means nothing to me... this means nothing to me... ohhhh... vienna...

we had breakfast. and then our tour leader took us on a walking tour around the city pointing out a lot of interesting things that i assume i would remember if i looked at the photos. here's hoping. it was good though.

we then had the rest of the day to ourselves.

we took a tram around to a coffee house to have a slice of the local dessert delicacy (or tourist trap) sacher torte. which was delicious. and of course we had coffee. this was the only coffee house we made it to in vienna and perhaps it wasn't indicative of whatever it is about coffee houses that makes them special in vienna, because it was essentially a cafe. note to self: when you go back to vienna, seek out a real coffee house, whatever that is.

then we got back on a circle tram and took in more sights. we got off at the state opera house and decided that it might be cool to go to the opera tonight. then we went for a short walk and found the coolest market around, the nachtmarkt (sp?). wow. stalls after stalls of great food, continental specialties, fruit and veg, breads, nuts, and then - open air restaurants, and bars. and seated at the tables and on the stools - actual young people! after spending a lot of time haunting the touristy parts of these cities, and therefore spending a lot of time with a different demographic, it was cool to almost accidentally come across this market that was a gathering place for young cool vienna people. i instantly wanted to rent out an apartment, in this street, right next to the market. suz talked me out of it.

we made our way to vienna's museum quarter, where we struggled to pick one museum to spend the afternoon in. we ended up in the leopold museum, devoted to collections of austrian artists. we saw a lot of egon schiele, whose name is disturbingly similar to mine, and also some gustav klimt. and some other dudes. a lot of paintings. but it was cool, and i liked schiele, not just because of the name thing. suz liked klimt.

we went home and got changed. we made it back to the state opera house in time to join a short queue for standing-room tickets for tonight's show. the vienna state opera house is a hot ticket, and its apparently neither easy or cheap to get tickets in the real seats. but if you don't mind queuing up on the night, and you don't mind standing, you can pay the equivalent of five bucks to see what the posh, faux-posh and pseudo-posh people see. and between the acts, you get to wander out into the grand foyers of the theatre and rub shoulders (or other parts if you are some kind of pervert) with the aforementioned psuedo-quasi-posh people. it so happened that tonight's opera was actually ballet but that was ok. it was sleeping beauty, although i didn't realise that for some time. when suz turned to me and said 'do you know what we are watching yet?' i had to say no and she filled me in.

three hours is a long time however to stand in a poorly ventilated space crammed in with other cheap bastards. we had almost passed out by the time we emerged. to celebrate our night we stopped at the cafe attached to the opera house and ordered ice coffees. they were without doubt the most foul iced beverage to have graced this earth. disappointed with this poor example of vienna's attention to coffee detail, but happy with our night of opera (which was actually ballet) we returned to hotel mozart.

click here for photos