Sometimes when I'm on a special trip somewhere, I enter a dilemma between trying to take as many pictures as I can of the the sights around me and neglecting my camera to just simply enjoy the numerous things that would be too arduous to photograph. Today I experienced such a dilemma, as our bus tour with Dr. O ended up overwhelming me with so many things to see and places to experience! All I can say is that I'm glad I have a month to see them all.
The day really began with a walking tour around some of the landmarks of the Innere Stadt, namely all the places attached to the Hofburg. First was the Monument Against War and Fascism, erected on the site of a former apartment complex that was bombed during the Second World War with hundreds of people still inside. The monument features among other things a harrowing sculpture of a Jewish man on all fours, scouring the Viennese streets and kept down by barbed wire. The other stark sculptures definitely contrast with the grand buildings around it. Maybe that is part of the point of this particular monument.
We soon proceeded to walk around the Hofburg, going by the Josefplatz and then to "the ditch." The differences in the architecture in different parts of the building would soon become apparent to us - to me this was most obvious in comparing the rather old Josefplatz with the Heldenplatz, apparently the newst part of the Hofburg.
In the afternoon we all got on a bus (and thankfully out of the rain) for a driving tour around the city, accompanied by the instructor whom we simply call Dr. O. Our first stop was the Belvedere Palace, residence of the famous Austrian war hero Prince Eugene of Savoy. I amazed to learn that the grand Upper Belvedere was considered the guest house, what with its view of the gardens and the rest of the city! Supposedly, Empress Maria Theresia once looked out on this view and said "Que [sic] belvedere!" ("How beautiful!"), thus giving the palace its name today.
I unfortunately don't remember how I got into this conversation, but on the way back to the bus I struck up a conversation with Dr. O about Arnold Schoenberg, the Viennese composer of the 20th century who worked with the twelve-tone/atonal method of writing music. She asked me if I liked his music at all. I told her that I haven't admittedly heard much of his work, and what I have heard I haven't liked too much - it just sounds too strange and dissonant to me! Yet I said that I liked the idea of such innovation and pioneering in music composition. Actually, I have heard some of Aaron Copland's own twelve-tone works, and some of them don't sound as dissonant as Schoenberg's; I like those a bit. (Others of his take full advantage of the dissonance for deliberate effect!)
The bus then gave us looks at two buildings designed by architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser, whose style is quite different from anything seen at the Hofburg or Belvedere. One building was the Hundertwasserhaus, an apartment complex with uneven floors, un-alike windows, and a garden on top. The other was a factory incinerator that had been completely decorated with Hundertwasser's individual style. He apparently did not think that industrial buildings needed to be rigid, strict, and unappealing to the eye. He also supposedly hated straight lines, from what I've heard. He certainly sounds like an interesting architect worth reading more about.
Finally the bus took us to the top of the hills overlooking the city, where we saw nothing but a beautiful skyline barely interrupted by skyscrapers; Dr. O need not have apologized so much for having so little skyline. This view was certainly "belvedere."
The German word of the day is "meistens," meaning "mostly."
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Monday, August 2, 2010
“Wien ist anders.”
I am so lucky that I can look out my classroom window and see the Staatsoper right across the street!
This day's first class was mostly an orientation, both of the city and of ourselves. One of the fellows who works at the building - the Institute of Austro-American Studies - told us that just as New York is "the Big Apple" and Chicago is "the Windy City," Vienna ist anders: is different. This was used by him to explain why there is no U5 U-bahn line, despite there being five lines including a U6!
Lunch was spent in a restaurant a short walk away with many members of the program and Prof. Stuart included. It was nice to have her guidance and translation abilities for this first outing. I had my first Austrian meal - bratwurst, with sauerkraut and potatoes! The potatoes actually took me a bit of time to recognize as such, I haven’t seen them cooked this way in the states before.
The afternoon saw me taking my first ride on the streetcar, or S-bahn (I think). It was the 49 line, and it snaked past where our apartments were over to the western end of Vienna. I don’t know if I’ll be riding in it much often, considering how hot and humid it was inside! Maybe if the weather is cooler, I’ll consider it.
I did end up seeing something that caught my attention while riding the streetcar. It was a certain billboard. There are a lot of billboards and advertisements here in Vienna (and some of them would make a lot of Americans cry out about public indecency!) but this one seemed to have a political message. I can only say that from looking at the three initials in the corner: FPÖ – the far-right Austrian political party, and more or less the heir to the positions that the Nazis played. I was a little disconcerted by this blatant self-promotion of the far-right party, especially since I have not (yet) seen any posters from the two main parties, which are both far more moderate. I will have to see if I can figure out what the message means in German, though I cannot quite remember what it said anyways.
There is one more thing worth mentioning today, and that is that Austrian grocery stores 1) require you to pay a €1 deposit to use a shopping cart, and you can’t use one if you don’t have that exact coin, and 2) charge you for all the plastic bags you use! Hence, it’s much more economical to stuff all your food into your own bags, though I will be sure to bring more than my own backpack next time. I suppose the reason why they do this is to encourage less consumption of plastic. I like that idea, and I’m all for such environmental policies, but I still don’t understand the shopping carts.
The German word of the day is "verdienen," meaning "to earn."
This day's first class was mostly an orientation, both of the city and of ourselves. One of the fellows who works at the building - the Institute of Austro-American Studies - told us that just as New York is "the Big Apple" and Chicago is "the Windy City," Vienna ist anders: is different. This was used by him to explain why there is no U5 U-bahn line, despite there being five lines including a U6!
Lunch was spent in a restaurant a short walk away with many members of the program and Prof. Stuart included. It was nice to have her guidance and translation abilities for this first outing. I had my first Austrian meal - bratwurst, with sauerkraut and potatoes! The potatoes actually took me a bit of time to recognize as such, I haven’t seen them cooked this way in the states before.
The afternoon saw me taking my first ride on the streetcar, or S-bahn (I think). It was the 49 line, and it snaked past where our apartments were over to the western end of Vienna. I don’t know if I’ll be riding in it much often, considering how hot and humid it was inside! Maybe if the weather is cooler, I’ll consider it.
I did end up seeing something that caught my attention while riding the streetcar. It was a certain billboard. There are a lot of billboards and advertisements here in Vienna (and some of them would make a lot of Americans cry out about public indecency!) but this one seemed to have a political message. I can only say that from looking at the three initials in the corner: FPÖ – the far-right Austrian political party, and more or less the heir to the positions that the Nazis played. I was a little disconcerted by this blatant self-promotion of the far-right party, especially since I have not (yet) seen any posters from the two main parties, which are both far more moderate. I will have to see if I can figure out what the message means in German, though I cannot quite remember what it said anyways.
There is one more thing worth mentioning today, and that is that Austrian grocery stores 1) require you to pay a €1 deposit to use a shopping cart, and you can’t use one if you don’t have that exact coin, and 2) charge you for all the plastic bags you use! Hence, it’s much more economical to stuff all your food into your own bags, though I will be sure to bring more than my own backpack next time. I suppose the reason why they do this is to encourage less consumption of plastic. I like that idea, and I’m all for such environmental policies, but I still don’t understand the shopping carts.
The German word of the day is "verdienen," meaning "to earn."
Sunday, August 1, 2010
"Herzlich Willkommen"
There is something I must confess: most of the previous entry in this blog was written earlier today and not on Saturday as I would have you believe. I felt far too exhausted to write much on Saturday night and ended up completing it this afternoon right after moving into my room for the month. In the middle of writing it, Josh Lyons (the on-site coordinator) came by and asked me why I wasn't exploring the city. I replied by saying with honesty that I was going to venture out and get some food with fellow students at 4:00, but inside I felt a bit sheepish. Indeed, why was I sitting at my laptop when I could be out and about, exploring my European home for all of August?
No matter; after much walking around, looking for a suitable place to eat and trying to make sense of the menus, the six of us alighted upon a small place on März straße. (I should note here that grocery stores are closed on Sundays, so eating out was fairly necessary.) We communicated to the man behind the counter with simple expressions and finger-pointing at the pizzas behind the glass. I really wanted "ein schnitzel sandwich" but upon asking for one the man said something to me in German I didn't understand; another student next to me translated: "they're sold out." This bummed me out a bit, not necessarily because I couldn't get a schnitzel sandwich, but because I couldn't understand the man and was reluctant to have to use finger-pointing to get food (and I'm afraid of getting tangled in miscommunication in the process). I really wished that I knew more German. Discouraged, I stepped out of the line and sat down with everyone else, telling myself that I'm going to have to get used to using awkward forms of communication. Or learn more German expressions.
After returning to our apartments on Kandlgasse many of us decided to venture out again, this time towards Stephansplatz - more or less the center of Wien. (We'll have an official visit there Wednesday, but this outing was nice to gather initial impressions and to build up our mental maps of the city.) Even for a Sunday evening, the square had a ton of people, many of them watching a silent street magician make a bottle of Budweiser disappear. We watched him with the crowd for bit before wandering around the gothic cathedral, which appears to be undergoing exterior cleaning at the present. Eventually we found ourselves drifting off away from the Stephansplatz and wound up walking towards the Josefplatz at the Hofburg. I actually had trouble remembering what the place was, but as someone else said we'll come back to it later and will undoubtedly learn more.
Around this time I started to take notice of all the art in the architecture. So many buildings seemed to have statues on their roofs and in their walls. Every where I turned, there was something grand to look at. This was especially apparent while walking through the exterior courtyards of the Hofburg. (Though while stepping out into what I would later recognize as the Heldenplatz, I was at first awed by the majesty of the semi-circular building before receiving an inner chill; I knew that I was looking at the same balcony that Hitler stood on immediately after the Anschluss with Germany.)
Our impromptu journey took us counter-clockwise down the Ringstraße past the Museums-Quartier, stopping to visit statues of Mozart and Goethe before deciding to have some drinks at a cafe on Kärntner straße. It seemed like a good conclusion to our evening's exploration and my first full day in Wien. As we were leaving, our waitress said "Danke!" towards us; I wanted to politely say "you're welcome" but wasn't quite sure if I knew the correct term in German. So I asked her earnestly and after a quick pronunciation lesson, she gave me this:
As I had enjoyed the Wiener wein I had drunk and because I ended up having a nice chat with her about why a group of Californians were in Wien, I'll consider it my first souvenir. I've scratched the surface of the city, and am ready to dig more tomorrow - our first real day of Vienna: At the Crossroads of Central Europe.
The German word of the day is "Beispiel," meaning "example."
No matter; after much walking around, looking for a suitable place to eat and trying to make sense of the menus, the six of us alighted upon a small place on März straße. (I should note here that grocery stores are closed on Sundays, so eating out was fairly necessary.) We communicated to the man behind the counter with simple expressions and finger-pointing at the pizzas behind the glass. I really wanted "ein schnitzel sandwich" but upon asking for one the man said something to me in German I didn't understand; another student next to me translated: "they're sold out." This bummed me out a bit, not necessarily because I couldn't get a schnitzel sandwich, but because I couldn't understand the man and was reluctant to have to use finger-pointing to get food (and I'm afraid of getting tangled in miscommunication in the process). I really wished that I knew more German. Discouraged, I stepped out of the line and sat down with everyone else, telling myself that I'm going to have to get used to using awkward forms of communication. Or learn more German expressions.
After returning to our apartments on Kandlgasse many of us decided to venture out again, this time towards Stephansplatz - more or less the center of Wien. (We'll have an official visit there Wednesday, but this outing was nice to gather initial impressions and to build up our mental maps of the city.) Even for a Sunday evening, the square had a ton of people, many of them watching a silent street magician make a bottle of Budweiser disappear. We watched him with the crowd for bit before wandering around the gothic cathedral, which appears to be undergoing exterior cleaning at the present. Eventually we found ourselves drifting off away from the Stephansplatz and wound up walking towards the Josefplatz at the Hofburg. I actually had trouble remembering what the place was, but as someone else said we'll come back to it later and will undoubtedly learn more.
Around this time I started to take notice of all the art in the architecture. So many buildings seemed to have statues on their roofs and in their walls. Every where I turned, there was something grand to look at. This was especially apparent while walking through the exterior courtyards of the Hofburg. (Though while stepping out into what I would later recognize as the Heldenplatz, I was at first awed by the majesty of the semi-circular building before receiving an inner chill; I knew that I was looking at the same balcony that Hitler stood on immediately after the Anschluss with Germany.)
Our impromptu journey took us counter-clockwise down the Ringstraße past the Museums-Quartier, stopping to visit statues of Mozart and Goethe before deciding to have some drinks at a cafe on Kärntner straße. It seemed like a good conclusion to our evening's exploration and my first full day in Wien. As we were leaving, our waitress said "Danke!" towards us; I wanted to politely say "you're welcome" but wasn't quite sure if I knew the correct term in German. So I asked her earnestly and after a quick pronunciation lesson, she gave me this:
As I had enjoyed the Wiener wein I had drunk and because I ended up having a nice chat with her about why a group of Californians were in Wien, I'll consider it my first souvenir. I've scratched the surface of the city, and am ready to dig more tomorrow - our first real day of Vienna: At the Crossroads of Central Europe.The German word of the day is "Beispiel," meaning "example."
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Europe Endless
It feels like only this morning I was in the lower floor of LAX, waving goodbye to my mom and sister and setting off on my first solo sojourn to a foreign country. But it's night now one day later, and I find myself typing this in the lounge of the Westend City Hostel, close to the heart of Wien.
Here's some thoughts I had while waiting for my connecting flight in London-Heathrow. I wrote them in a little notebook which I intend to carry with me throughout the month in order to document my experiences better.
"A few minutes ago I called Westend City Hostel to inform that I wouldn't be coming in until after 18:00. It took me a while to summon up the courage to call, I was nervous of speaking to an Austrian for the first time. Yet I got a 'Yes' after my tense "Sprechen Sie Englisch?" and the call went smoothly after that. The man on the other end said it was no problem, though I wish he had asked for my confirmation number so he'd know who I am. Hopefully when I arrive my bed won't have been canceled." [I ended up having no such problem, though I was mistakenly placed in a room with four middle-aged French women who had asked for their own private quarters. This was soon remedied by the competent and multilingual staff.]
Later, while passing time in Heathrow...
"It's weird to walk into a bookstore, pull a USA travel guide off the shelf, and read about California from the outside."
Had I not had a window seat on the plane to Wien, I might have written more in my notebook then. But as I am a guy who could spend hours just watching scenery go by, I was too distracted and excited to pull it out. Excited, that is, by descending towards the ground and seeing a river winding through farmland. I knew what it was, and immediately "An der schönen blauen Donau" started playing in my head. Eventually the city itself came into view and I tried to figure out where my apartment would be, based on the location of the canal from my perspective in the air. Finally, after so much studying and anticipation, I was seeing Wien for the first time with my own eyes.
(I'm sure you've noticed this, but I am using the German words for "Vienna" and "Austria" in this blog. I have no great reason for doing so other than it's part of my wish to not experience the location like a complete foreigner. This linguistic choice of mine may or may not change later.)
Navigating the airport wasn't much of a problem; English signs and simple pictures were next to the German ones, pointing the way to go. The conductor of the City-Airport-Train that took me to the city center (Wien Mitte) also spoke in both German and English as I watched traditional neighborhoods and modern industrial buildings flash by. The ticket machine for the U-bahn was accomodating to my lack of fluency in German, and finding the right U-bahn train to Westbahnhof was simple enough. I did have some trouble figuring out which street was which upon exiting the Westbahnhof station, but that was solved after I figured out where north was. After checking in at the hostel and relaxing a bit, I decided to explore a bit of the city I had just arrived in.
I set off along Mariahilferstraße, trying to formulate observations along the way. This particular street seemed like a somewhat trendy part of the city, with many colorful neon signs over the clothing stores and restaurants. I encountered two of the würstelstands that supposedly dot the city's streets the way that hot dog stands dot New York. I considered buying some sausage from one, but didn't feel competent enough to place an order in German. The vast majority of the words seen on Mariahilferstraße were unilingual, though I did hear some passerby speak in American English. Speaking of people, I noticed that most of them will wait at a streetcrossing for the signs to turn from red to green; they won't jaywalk, even when the street is a one-lane one-way road with no cars coming. I kind of like this orderliness, this refusal to flaunt a simple law. I shall see if it is prominent throughout the rest of Wien.
There is still so much more to see, and the program has yet to even begin...
Here's some thoughts I had while waiting for my connecting flight in London-Heathrow. I wrote them in a little notebook which I intend to carry with me throughout the month in order to document my experiences better.
"A few minutes ago I called Westend City Hostel to inform that I wouldn't be coming in until after 18:00. It took me a while to summon up the courage to call, I was nervous of speaking to an Austrian for the first time. Yet I got a 'Yes' after my tense "Sprechen Sie Englisch?" and the call went smoothly after that. The man on the other end said it was no problem, though I wish he had asked for my confirmation number so he'd know who I am. Hopefully when I arrive my bed won't have been canceled." [I ended up having no such problem, though I was mistakenly placed in a room with four middle-aged French women who had asked for their own private quarters. This was soon remedied by the competent and multilingual staff.]
Later, while passing time in Heathrow...
"It's weird to walk into a bookstore, pull a USA travel guide off the shelf, and read about California from the outside."
Had I not had a window seat on the plane to Wien, I might have written more in my notebook then. But as I am a guy who could spend hours just watching scenery go by, I was too distracted and excited to pull it out. Excited, that is, by descending towards the ground and seeing a river winding through farmland. I knew what it was, and immediately "An der schönen blauen Donau" started playing in my head. Eventually the city itself came into view and I tried to figure out where my apartment would be, based on the location of the canal from my perspective in the air. Finally, after so much studying and anticipation, I was seeing Wien for the first time with my own eyes.
(I'm sure you've noticed this, but I am using the German words for "Vienna" and "Austria" in this blog. I have no great reason for doing so other than it's part of my wish to not experience the location like a complete foreigner. This linguistic choice of mine may or may not change later.)
Navigating the airport wasn't much of a problem; English signs and simple pictures were next to the German ones, pointing the way to go. The conductor of the City-Airport-Train that took me to the city center (Wien Mitte) also spoke in both German and English as I watched traditional neighborhoods and modern industrial buildings flash by. The ticket machine for the U-bahn was accomodating to my lack of fluency in German, and finding the right U-bahn train to Westbahnhof was simple enough. I did have some trouble figuring out which street was which upon exiting the Westbahnhof station, but that was solved after I figured out where north was. After checking in at the hostel and relaxing a bit, I decided to explore a bit of the city I had just arrived in.
I set off along Mariahilferstraße, trying to formulate observations along the way. This particular street seemed like a somewhat trendy part of the city, with many colorful neon signs over the clothing stores and restaurants. I encountered two of the würstelstands that supposedly dot the city's streets the way that hot dog stands dot New York. I considered buying some sausage from one, but didn't feel competent enough to place an order in German. The vast majority of the words seen on Mariahilferstraße were unilingual, though I did hear some passerby speak in American English. Speaking of people, I noticed that most of them will wait at a streetcrossing for the signs to turn from red to green; they won't jaywalk, even when the street is a one-lane one-way road with no cars coming. I kind of like this orderliness, this refusal to flaunt a simple law. I shall see if it is prominent throughout the rest of Wien.
There is still so much more to see, and the program has yet to even begin...
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Last night in the States
Well, I'm leaving tomorrow. I've been anticipating this day for months, and now it's almost unreal to think that it's actually here. I can only hope that I have everything packed and that I'm prepared for anything. This is my first time flying into a foreign country on my own, so it will be a little scary, but hopefully a good confidence-builder in the end. I fly out of Los Angeles tomorrow afternoon, transfer planes in London (Heathrow) on Saturday, and then should be in a Viennese hostel by the time Saturday is over. The program begins the following morning. If all goes according to plan, my next entry for this blog will be at the Westend City Hostel in Wien, Österreich! Auf Wiedersehen, Vereinigte Staaten!
Monday, July 26, 2010
Pre-departure Thoughts
I shall write more on this later, but at the moment there are so many thoughts going through my head about Vienna. It is so hard to believe that in less than a week I will be spending a whole month of my life there, and possibly other cities too. I am both incredibly excited and a rather nervous. I am trying to learn as much as I can about Wien before I go yet I wonder just how much knowledge I can carry with me. I really want to get to know the place in depth and wholeheartedly hope that I don't leave it with regrets. I can only guess at what my adventures at the crossroads of central Europe will be like. I shall see.
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