Showing posts with label Austria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Austria. Show all posts
Thursday, June 28, 2012
The Miniature Mountaineering Man I Forgot
Thanks dear brother for making me aware that I forgot this dear picture of the most creative gravestone ever. You definitely don't want to miss this, so sorry. That was my bad.
Day 15: The Alps and Driving to Hiedelburg
Today was rather adventurous (except, of course, the six hours of driving). Let me recount, including all the breathtaking, vomit-inducing, and hungry-making details.
When I woke up (or more, when i gave up on the whole sleep thing) in Kitzbuhel it was raining, the town church outside my window was making an unholy fuss about it being seven o'clock, and my head was killing me. You see, despite it's many merits, the hotel Tiefenbrunner has possibly the hardest beds I've ever slept on. Dad, never sleep there.
But it had a lovely breakfast with a gorgeous assortment of granolas and cereals and meusli and fruits. And also more of those scrambled eggs. Seriously, what does Europe put in their scrambled eggs that make them so damn good? I thought The US was supposed to be on top of the "American breakfast" thing.
Anyway, it was still cloudy when we left, so we decided to hit the road instead of going up the mountain in the cable car. But as we were driving the clouds cleared miraculously (stupid clouds), so we turned around and sped back into town. After some tense disputes with the ticket lady about what the definition of "student ID" was and whether I really was 18, we hopped on a car and went to the top (1900 meters up?) where we then hiked downhill through an Alpine garden to the next station. The evidence of this adventure is below, including my encounter with a curious cow on the roadside. The other cows ignored me, but this one seemed to be very friendly and think I was interesting. Nice cow. We also saw a deer and some kind of hawk.
Fast forward several hours and we're in the road again. We stop for lunch at a rest station and I get a croissant. When I pull off a piece of it I discover that its not just any croissant - it's a ham and cheese croissant! I eat the piece and go in for another bite - only to glimpse, in one horrifying moment, a fat black fly living inside the pastry.
Oh my god. I don't even want to think about that anymore. :-S
You can imagine how difficult it was to explain to the German boys who'd sold it to me. But yeah. That whole situation was awful and I'm not sure I'll ever be able to eat a ham and cheese croissant again. Oh god.
So after that rattling incident, we continued on until we reached Hiedelburg, where we are now. We found dinner at a delicious Kurdish restaurant down the street. You know how good Mexican food is in Texas? Well, Middle Eastern food is that way here, because Arabic people are the main immigrants. Mmmmm. I love Middle Eastern food. :) And no insects! :D
So yeah. Now I'm sitting on a bed that is about as wide as my bed is long and is hopefully more comfortable than the one in Kitzbuhel. Tomorrow, we go back to Brussels, completing our European Circuit, and from there back to London, where I will strike out on my own the day after tomorrow. Hopefully that will go well. Ahem.
Stay tuned! :)
When I woke up (or more, when i gave up on the whole sleep thing) in Kitzbuhel it was raining, the town church outside my window was making an unholy fuss about it being seven o'clock, and my head was killing me. You see, despite it's many merits, the hotel Tiefenbrunner has possibly the hardest beds I've ever slept on. Dad, never sleep there.
But it had a lovely breakfast with a gorgeous assortment of granolas and cereals and meusli and fruits. And also more of those scrambled eggs. Seriously, what does Europe put in their scrambled eggs that make them so damn good? I thought The US was supposed to be on top of the "American breakfast" thing.
Anyway, it was still cloudy when we left, so we decided to hit the road instead of going up the mountain in the cable car. But as we were driving the clouds cleared miraculously (stupid clouds), so we turned around and sped back into town. After some tense disputes with the ticket lady about what the definition of "student ID" was and whether I really was 18, we hopped on a car and went to the top (1900 meters up?) where we then hiked downhill through an Alpine garden to the next station. The evidence of this adventure is below, including my encounter with a curious cow on the roadside. The other cows ignored me, but this one seemed to be very friendly and think I was interesting. Nice cow. We also saw a deer and some kind of hawk.
Fast forward several hours and we're in the road again. We stop for lunch at a rest station and I get a croissant. When I pull off a piece of it I discover that its not just any croissant - it's a ham and cheese croissant! I eat the piece and go in for another bite - only to glimpse, in one horrifying moment, a fat black fly living inside the pastry.
Oh my god. I don't even want to think about that anymore. :-S
You can imagine how difficult it was to explain to the German boys who'd sold it to me. But yeah. That whole situation was awful and I'm not sure I'll ever be able to eat a ham and cheese croissant again. Oh god.
So after that rattling incident, we continued on until we reached Hiedelburg, where we are now. We found dinner at a delicious Kurdish restaurant down the street. You know how good Mexican food is in Texas? Well, Middle Eastern food is that way here, because Arabic people are the main immigrants. Mmmmm. I love Middle Eastern food. :) And no insects! :D
So yeah. Now I'm sitting on a bed that is about as wide as my bed is long and is hopefully more comfortable than the one in Kitzbuhel. Tomorrow, we go back to Brussels, completing our European Circuit, and from there back to London, where I will strike out on my own the day after tomorrow. Hopefully that will go well. Ahem.
Stay tuned! :)
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Day 14: Kitzbuhel, City of Oh-Wait-This-is-Definitely-a-Village
And quite a cute one at that! After driving from Vienna all up into the Alps (past Hitler's infamous Eagle's Nest) and stopping at a breathtaking mountain lake at Zell am See and to get fresh strawberries, we arrived at this adorable little fold in the mountains containing this gorgeous little retreat, quite in contrast, as you can see, to my previous adventures on this trip.
We're staying at a Fancypants hotel - the Tiefenbrunner, where everything is decorated like a lodge and the staff wear traditional Austrian dress (think liederhosen and the female version). Below you can see the view from my window (as well as my window!) and the fancy light and fancy key.
After checking in we wandered around a bit and found, in the churchyard, the most fascinating cemetery. Each gravesite contains, at the foot of a wrought iron grave marker, A small 3' x 4' garden plot, each one unique and lovingly tended, obviously by the family of the deceased and the community at large. The plots are usually family plots, dating as far back as the 1800s and as recent as this year. Just being there for twenty minutes, we saw at least six people tending various plots. It was truly a neat concept, somehow so much more respectful and caring than the standard grey rock in the middle of a field of grey rocks. This cemetery was a happy place; perhaps mournful, perhaps full of death, but also overflowing - literally - with life. Also, it contained the most creative and personal grave stone I have ever seen - see the miniature mountaineering man below.
Lastly, I feel I must record for you the magnificent four-course meal we had in the hotel. It was a set menu with limited choices, but oh! It was delicious.
Melon with prosciutto (I only ate the ham)
French Onion soup (amazing!)
Salad bar with about a dozen different gourmet vinegars and oils and plenty of unique add-ins & a make-your-own bread basket with French baguette, seeded rolls, German black bread, and others
Spaghetti with basil, olive oil, and garlic (my choice out of three fancier meals, but it was surprisingly flavorful!)
Apricot strudel with vanilla ice cream and red currants (yummmmm!)
Near-perfect meal for a hungry Ariel. :)
We're staying at a Fancypants hotel - the Tiefenbrunner, where everything is decorated like a lodge and the staff wear traditional Austrian dress (think liederhosen and the female version). Below you can see the view from my window (as well as my window!) and the fancy light and fancy key.
After checking in we wandered around a bit and found, in the churchyard, the most fascinating cemetery. Each gravesite contains, at the foot of a wrought iron grave marker, A small 3' x 4' garden plot, each one unique and lovingly tended, obviously by the family of the deceased and the community at large. The plots are usually family plots, dating as far back as the 1800s and as recent as this year. Just being there for twenty minutes, we saw at least six people tending various plots. It was truly a neat concept, somehow so much more respectful and caring than the standard grey rock in the middle of a field of grey rocks. This cemetery was a happy place; perhaps mournful, perhaps full of death, but also overflowing - literally - with life. Also, it contained the most creative and personal grave stone I have ever seen - see the miniature mountaineering man below.
Lastly, I feel I must record for you the magnificent four-course meal we had in the hotel. It was a set menu with limited choices, but oh! It was delicious.
Melon with prosciutto (I only ate the ham)
French Onion soup (amazing!)
Salad bar with about a dozen different gourmet vinegars and oils and plenty of unique add-ins & a make-your-own bread basket with French baguette, seeded rolls, German black bread, and others
Spaghetti with basil, olive oil, and garlic (my choice out of three fancier meals, but it was surprisingly flavorful!)
Apricot strudel with vanilla ice cream and red currants (yummmmm!)
Near-perfect meal for a hungry Ariel. :)
Day 13: Vienna, City of Culture and Class
First of all, sorry I did not post yesterday. If you must know, my post would have been titled: Vienna, City of Dinner. Because that's basically all we had time for when we got here, apart from a walk around Schwedenplatz (I have no idea if that's how to spell/say it) and a ride on the Ring Tram after dark to get a feel of the city's most important places. Some of these pictures are from today, some from yesterday, but I'm lumping them together because I am exhausted. (It didn't help that there was a light in my room that was apparently not connected to a light switch and therefore could not be turned off...that is, until the maintenance guy came this morning and ripped out the lightbulb. Hopefully tonight will be a better one.)
Anyway, this morning we got on a bus to go to the Hofburg when we saw the huge outdoor market. It was raining pretty heavily, but we decided to go anyway. It was wonderful - much like Seattle's Pike Street Market, selling fish and cheese and olives and dried fruit and vinegars. I bought some dried strawberries, kiwis, and mango. If you don't know this, I adore dried fruit. Dried pineapple, papaya, apples, raisins - almost (ALMOST) anything. So that was a wonderful way to spend a few Euros. :)
After we'd seen everything and wandered around a bit, we hopped back on the tram and got off when we saw the famous Mozart statue - Mozart lived in Vienna during his most productive years, and the Viennese are very proud of that fact. Hence the statue. And if you look closely on the picture below, you'll see that the flowers in front are in the shape of a treble clef (that's what it's called, right?). How cute!
Just before going to the palace, we looked at the museum square where there's a big statue of Queen Maria-Theresa, the great queen of Austria. So there are pictures of that.
Next we went to the big palace of the Hofburgs, which today is home to the Spanish Riding School, where horses dance; the Austrian Boys' Choir, which we've all heard and maybe also fear; the Royal Treasury, containing the crown jewels; and the Royal State Rooms, where we went. First was an exhibition on Sisi, or Queen Elisabeth, the beautiful and adored queen of Imperial Austria who was shot in the early 1900s. She was a carefree fifteen-year-old duchess of Bavaria when her cousin the Emperor, then twenty-three, fell in love with her and asked for her hand in marriage. They were married and she became the reluctant Queen. Throughout her life as a royal, she always longed for freedom and was frequently depressed. The only time she ever interfered with politics was in favor of the Hungarian people, whom she felt a fondness for, which led to the Austro-Hungarian agreement or whatever and she and her husband were crowned as rulers of Hungary. Skip a bit, and her only son, Crown Prince Rudolf, who had been a celebrated ornithologist until he got infected with a venereal disease that made him depressed and turn to drugs, committed suicide in the Austrian forest with his young lover. This crushed Sisi, and she wore black and longed for death until she was assassinated. After her death, the Austrian people idolized her.
This exhibit was fascinating, and, together with the family's luxurious apartments, made me realize how little we are taught about European history. I think it is reasonable to suggest that we scrap "Texas history" (Texas is not the whole world, you know) and instead teach kids European and Asian history. I mean, yeah we take World History once (or whatever that was, Maxey -_-) but there's so much more than it is possible to cover in two semesters, even with a teacher who's not a creepy deadbeat - so much more that everyone, not just history majors, need to know. It's ridiculous that we get Texas History twice, American History twice (though yeah, I realize thus is important), and the whole of everything else stuffed into one measly year. Really, it's just prolonging the narrow-mindlessness and ignorance Americans are internationally known for. And believe me, I have felt ignorant seeing all these historical places and monuments and having no idea what they're for but knowing that I SHOULD know. Then again, I pretty much always feel historically ignorant because Jackson. :-P He likes to talk about things in history I wasn't even aware existed, because I'm pretty sure he knows at least something about everything in history.
Anyway, I could rant forever about all the ways education in our state should be changed, but I digress. Back to Wien!
After the palace we ate Sachertorte cake, which is a beautifully rich chocolate Wiener specialty (in case you don't know -Vienna:English::Wien:German). Also, apple strudel. So that was awesome. Then we walked through Schwedenplatz to the Mozart house, which I wasn't allowed to take pictures of, but was basically three stories of wood floor and white walls and Mozart artifacts. It's where he wrote The Marriage of Figaro, and they had plenty of original scores and paintings and some clothes of his. I learned some facts, too - Did you know Mozart was a passionate Free Mason? Because I didn't. Also, he died trying to finish a Requiem for a guy who was just going to steal it anyway. Also, he wrote six pages of music a day at his most productive. And Vienna hated Figaro, but Prague adored it. And he loved his wife, which is always nice to hear in a history lesson, because the assumption is usually that it was eh.
Anyway, I had seen a poster for an Elliot Erwitt exhibition at the Kunst Haus, which is basically a funky art gallery (see black and white checkered building below). Elliot Erwitt is my favorite photographer ever. He's mostly famous for his black-and-white photography, a healthy mix of photojournalism, street photography, and portraits of dogs. His photos all have beautiful symmetry, clever parallelism, and wonderful humor. If you've never heard of him, look him up, and you will realize that, in fact, you have. The exhibition was amazing, full of pictures I'd never seen before but loved. He has pictures of beaches, pictures of children, pictures of dogs and nudists and strange coincidences and odd situations. It's truly brilliant.
Check it out: ellioterwitt.com
So that was my day. :)
Anyway, this morning we got on a bus to go to the Hofburg when we saw the huge outdoor market. It was raining pretty heavily, but we decided to go anyway. It was wonderful - much like Seattle's Pike Street Market, selling fish and cheese and olives and dried fruit and vinegars. I bought some dried strawberries, kiwis, and mango. If you don't know this, I adore dried fruit. Dried pineapple, papaya, apples, raisins - almost (ALMOST) anything. So that was a wonderful way to spend a few Euros. :)
After we'd seen everything and wandered around a bit, we hopped back on the tram and got off when we saw the famous Mozart statue - Mozart lived in Vienna during his most productive years, and the Viennese are very proud of that fact. Hence the statue. And if you look closely on the picture below, you'll see that the flowers in front are in the shape of a treble clef (that's what it's called, right?). How cute!
Just before going to the palace, we looked at the museum square where there's a big statue of Queen Maria-Theresa, the great queen of Austria. So there are pictures of that.
Next we went to the big palace of the Hofburgs, which today is home to the Spanish Riding School, where horses dance; the Austrian Boys' Choir, which we've all heard and maybe also fear; the Royal Treasury, containing the crown jewels; and the Royal State Rooms, where we went. First was an exhibition on Sisi, or Queen Elisabeth, the beautiful and adored queen of Imperial Austria who was shot in the early 1900s. She was a carefree fifteen-year-old duchess of Bavaria when her cousin the Emperor, then twenty-three, fell in love with her and asked for her hand in marriage. They were married and she became the reluctant Queen. Throughout her life as a royal, she always longed for freedom and was frequently depressed. The only time she ever interfered with politics was in favor of the Hungarian people, whom she felt a fondness for, which led to the Austro-Hungarian agreement or whatever and she and her husband were crowned as rulers of Hungary. Skip a bit, and her only son, Crown Prince Rudolf, who had been a celebrated ornithologist until he got infected with a venereal disease that made him depressed and turn to drugs, committed suicide in the Austrian forest with his young lover. This crushed Sisi, and she wore black and longed for death until she was assassinated. After her death, the Austrian people idolized her.
This exhibit was fascinating, and, together with the family's luxurious apartments, made me realize how little we are taught about European history. I think it is reasonable to suggest that we scrap "Texas history" (Texas is not the whole world, you know) and instead teach kids European and Asian history. I mean, yeah we take World History once (or whatever that was, Maxey -_-) but there's so much more than it is possible to cover in two semesters, even with a teacher who's not a creepy deadbeat - so much more that everyone, not just history majors, need to know. It's ridiculous that we get Texas History twice, American History twice (though yeah, I realize thus is important), and the whole of everything else stuffed into one measly year. Really, it's just prolonging the narrow-mindlessness and ignorance Americans are internationally known for. And believe me, I have felt ignorant seeing all these historical places and monuments and having no idea what they're for but knowing that I SHOULD know. Then again, I pretty much always feel historically ignorant because Jackson. :-P He likes to talk about things in history I wasn't even aware existed, because I'm pretty sure he knows at least something about everything in history.
Anyway, I could rant forever about all the ways education in our state should be changed, but I digress. Back to Wien!
After the palace we ate Sachertorte cake, which is a beautifully rich chocolate Wiener specialty (in case you don't know -Vienna:English::Wien:German). Also, apple strudel. So that was awesome. Then we walked through Schwedenplatz to the Mozart house, which I wasn't allowed to take pictures of, but was basically three stories of wood floor and white walls and Mozart artifacts. It's where he wrote The Marriage of Figaro, and they had plenty of original scores and paintings and some clothes of his. I learned some facts, too - Did you know Mozart was a passionate Free Mason? Because I didn't. Also, he died trying to finish a Requiem for a guy who was just going to steal it anyway. Also, he wrote six pages of music a day at his most productive. And Vienna hated Figaro, but Prague adored it. And he loved his wife, which is always nice to hear in a history lesson, because the assumption is usually that it was eh.
Anyway, I had seen a poster for an Elliot Erwitt exhibition at the Kunst Haus, which is basically a funky art gallery (see black and white checkered building below). Elliot Erwitt is my favorite photographer ever. He's mostly famous for his black-and-white photography, a healthy mix of photojournalism, street photography, and portraits of dogs. His photos all have beautiful symmetry, clever parallelism, and wonderful humor. If you've never heard of him, look him up, and you will realize that, in fact, you have. The exhibition was amazing, full of pictures I'd never seen before but loved. He has pictures of beaches, pictures of children, pictures of dogs and nudists and strange coincidences and odd situations. It's truly brilliant.
Check it out: ellioterwitt.com
So that was my day. :)
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