Today I was awoken by the funny sound of “Bo, we need to wake the fuck up!!” and then a dialogue about how their train was leaving at 9:30, and it was presently 9:00 after that they proceeded to get ready at a rapid rate and were gone within about ten minutes leaving a rather large mess for me or the cleaning staff to take care of. I was feeling rather generous, however so decided to take care of it, after I went downstairs and grabbed some breakfast and otherwise got ready. At breakfast I sat next to a pleasant girl, by name of Michelle, who came from Newcastle, Australia, and she talked to me partly about her experiences in South Africa, and how she wanted to move to Munich, among other things. After parting from there I went back upstairs cleaned up the room as best as I was able and went downstairs again, to begin the beautiful day, as it was rather clear out.
After catching the subway East, I went first to the Hofburg, where I walked by a very traditional looking Austrian man under an arch that said it was the Office of the President’s, and there was a flag which was specifically and only his (that I recognised being the hard-core vexillophiliac [flag enthusiast] that I am). This man was replete with a very nice and traditional suit, and he wore a hat that looked almost as much jägerhut as fedora. He looked very eloquent, and I was nearly astonished to see this in such a preeminent place as the President of Austria’s building. I am not suggesting for one minute it was the president himself, but rather that it was just neat to see that sight there. Anyway we made eye contact and I moved on, through by the Austrian Parliament building and such, and came out of there to find a very neat sight, it seems that the Austrian military was having a recruiting drive and had many of their tanks, helicopters and jets out there, to give the Austrian public a look at their impressive arsenal, the strangest thing of all of it to me, was the helicopter whose signs were in English (like ‘pull here’ for the door handle) and more interestingly had a painting of a Comanche Indian on it, not a sight I at all expected here, but it was fun to see all the same. All of this naturally made me think of Kevin, and I wish he could have been here to see it with me, as it was quite fun.
I decided to go inside the Imperial chambers after this and found myself finally holding an audio guide which seemed to be rather helpful, at first it was a bit boring, leading us through the cutlery and silverware of the imperial family, but eventually it really did begin to impress very much so. It eventually became a series telling about the Empress Elizabeth’s life, Sissy as she is affectionately called. She is apparently a very popular figure here, but to confess my own ignorance I knew nothing of her before I came to Austria. She was emperor Franz Josef II’s wife (he was the emperor during the first world war, until 1916), and she was a Bavarian princess before that. She was a beautiful woman, but a rather solitary figure, always jumping at the chance from freedom from her imperial duties. She championed the Hungarian cause sometime shortly after 1850 and was loved by them. The most interesting thing about her, was that she was assassinated in Switzerland, by an assailant who happened to be an anarchist wishing to kill a different monarch originally, but decided on her instead. She was stabbed, thought she was only pushed got up, and discovered that she was in fact stabbed, and she died shortly after that. Apparently she became a heroine to the Austrian people after that, but was never much respected in real life, which to me is entirely reminiscent of princess Diana, but what can one do? They made a popular film about her (I think in the 50's), but anyway that is a little crash course in her life, and if you ever go to Vienna, then you’ll know a little about why there is so much devotion to her.
After the little display about her life, they showed the actual imperial apartments of the Hapsburg dynasty. It was really rather impressive, and I felt very comfortable, oddly enough, being there. They had the room where Franz Josef would entertain visitors and where he would listen to pleas of his people from all over the empire, he heard up to 100 a morning. He would begin his day at 3:30am and continue until late at night, this all gave me a far deeper respect for what an emperor would have to do. His quarters were rather neat, and then moving on to the Empress’s quarters it was also rather fantastic how elaborate those were. We then left that building through the dining room, and that again was most impressive.
After this little trek, I decided to make my way toward the Kunsttechnisches Museum, or the Museum of Art and Technology. Unfortunately I wandered off a bit in the wrong direction and found a bit of a fashionable street full of merchants, but then headed back north (I think) and went to McDonald’s to eat, there I found it rather comical, because though my meal was relatively inexpensive, it was very eloquently decorated, complete with two semi nude statues a nice ceiling, walls and so forth, and my favourite part of all, four iconic columns. Anyway, after this, I went to the Museum Quarter, and found myself in the Leopold museum of impressionist art. I wandered around, finding most of the paintings okay, and wondering more or less about the point of art, especially more ‘creative’ art. There, though, I saw many things, some famous paintings by Monet, Toulouse-Latrec, and of course, Van Gogh, specifically his Starry Night, which was actually very impressive to see in real life, I was quite surprised about how well done it was. After this little trek, I went back to Westbahnhof, and there tried to reserve a ticket to go to Prague tomorrow, which I did, but I did not pay for it, so I am a bit nervous about that, besides that the train leaves at 11:08 in the morning, but better that than to be hanging out in Prague late at night when it is not only very dark, but cold. I then went back to the hostel, wondering who my new roommates would be, but finding noone there, I was much relieved to have the place to myself for the night (or so it seems so far). I then thought it best to write about what I had done today so far, and sat and wrote this until this point, hoping to update with a very small paragraph at the night’s end.
I thought it best, for company as well as for entertainment to go down and watch the nightly movie, that was to take place at 19:00, when I went down, I ended up talking to this Austrian fellow who was originally from Poland, in German. It was quite an incredible experience because I had a few conversations previously in German with people here, but nothing too significant, but I was apparently doing quite well, and I did understand nearly everything he said, so it was encouraging to find my fluency far better than I thought it was. Anyway, we talked about a lot of things, and I asked him how I was doing he said I was doing rather well, but that my lack of confidence in the language was reflected in my volume and that I ought to speak up. I thought after that a lot about it, and decided he was right, but I have found that mostly I choose to communicate far more in English or not at all in German if possible, but to know I can, and to know that nearly all the signs I read I understand is very nice. Let us hope that not having that reassurance in the Czech Republic will not be too devastating. Anyway, the film came on, and it was very poor quality, and it was Mercury Rising with Bruce Willis, and the greatest actor in the world, Alec Baldwin. Anyway, following that, I decided to wander out and find some food, and after a while of wandering, I decided to go back to the train station where I knew there to be a grocery store. When I returned to the room, there was a very nice Aussie there, though I remember not his name, and we talked about many things, apparently he is going on a year trip around the world, first through Europe then to South America. Then another couple or some such set of people came in, the girl from Colorado (I was rather excited to see this) and the guy from New Zealand. They were nice, and the Kiwi and I got into a brief discussion about the metric versus the imperial systems of measurement, a theme far more common here than I thought it might be. After that, we went to bed, the room not being nearly as solitary as I had thought it might be.