Chapter 46: Vienna

Vienna—Well last I wrote I was in Jaipur. Quite a while ago. Got a lot of ground to cover (both literally and figuratively speaking). Phew.

So I left India and got back to Vienna, la dee da. Food is great. Clean sheets (and streets for that matter) are great. I’ll just hit the highlights.

The first interesting thing I felt I actually wanted to write about was the Nausch Markt, which, when it comes down to it, I must admit I have no idea how to spell, or even what it actually sounds like in spoken German for that matter. Well hey, I just googled it and apparently it’s Naschmarkt. Not too bad for a wild guess, if I may say so myself. Anyway, it was quite fun and actually reminded me a lot of Pike Place market in Seattle. Stands everywhere selling fruit, cheese, olives, chocolates, kebabs, meat, juices, pizza, vegetables, snacks, clothing, flowers, honey, vinegar. Yes, there was an entire vinegar stand which sold vinegar out of these large bulbous bottles that looked like they had been transported out of a medieval alchemist’s workshop. There was another shop that sold sauerkraut and pickles out of barrels. Ok, let me repeat that in case you missed it. Sauerkraut. Out of barrels. Honestly this was the point at which I realized I needed to start writing some of this down. I mean seriously. A heaping barrel of sauerkraut?

There were many fruit stands which basically all sold the same things at similar prices, but among these same things at similar prices was the largest selection of completely bizarre and unidentifiable fruit I have ever found in one place at one time. Naturally, being the sort of person that I am, I had to buy one of each and every fruit whose name and/or appearance I did not recognize. This resulted in a rather heavy bag of mostly purply fruits that tended to have all sort of odd appendages hanging off of them. Once I took them home and tried them all I found that they tended to be whitish inside and to resemble eyeballs, but of course I’m generalizing severely here. They also tended to be on the more-bland-than-one-would-hope-for side. The combined eyeball consistency and plain water flavor I think might account for the fact that one rarely finds these fruits in normal places of fruit purchase.

Later that same night I went solo to the Volksoper to see the premiere of two short operas—a Ravel and an Orff, though it was of course the Orff that lured me there in the first place. It was absolutely fantastic. One of the more enjoyable shows I’ve ever been to in my life, enough so that I went to see it again two nights later. Orff is just genius. I mean, he can make a melody that literally has only three notes in the entire thing and still make it so epic that you’re gripping the edge of your seat. I have no idea how he does it. The seating arrangements were the really incredible part though. Would you like to hear the tale? Yeah, I bet you would.

So anyway. Not having an advance ticket, I showed up at about 6:15 to try and see if any of the cheapest seats were still available (Swan Lake was going to be my one expensive night out, and my wallet didn’t really feel up to another one). The woman at the counter told me to wait ten minutes. Ok fine. So as I’m waiting ten minutes I was approached by a man who had an extra ticket he was trying to sell. Unfortunately at 56 euros, it was the most expensive seat in the house. I explained to him that sadly I was not in that sort of financial league for tonight, but thank you anyway. Then we were both just sort of standing there, me waiting for ten minutes to pass, him waiting for a potential sale to walk by. He asked me where I was from. Shockingly, I answered New Mexico. He was absolutely delighted to hear that because his son had studied at the United World College in Las Vegas. I mentioned that I had played in the symphony with some kids from the United World College. At this point he decided the coincidence was just so fantastic that he was suddenly inspired to sponsor my night at the opera. He handed over a front row seat free of charge and absolutely would not hear of taking any payment for it. Well I couldn’t complain. What can I say, it pays to be from Santa Fe sometimes.

Ok, moving on. Actually I forgot what I was talking about, or rather what I was going to talk about. Ok think. I suppose I should mention how we went to see Swan Lake another night. Ah yes, I should mention how we went to Schönbrunn, a palace built in the style of Versailles though not nearly as large and pretty irritating to sketch if you dislike windows the way I do. How it had lovely views and made me want to wear a dress and waltz in the garden. How I think it’s the place where I lost 13 euros worth of stamps. Grrrr, still bitter about that.

On my last day in Vienna we were all the way downtown before I realized that I had forgotten my camera yet again. I had already been there fourteen days, so…. Zero out of fourteen? That’s kinda grim. Considering it was my last day and I did not have a single picture of Vienna, I decided it would be worth it to take the extra hour to go back for it. I didn’t want Lisi to poison me in my sleep when I went to put my pictures on the internet and there was not a single bit of evidence that I was ever in Austria. As you can see, I am still living, so it was obviously a worthy venture.

So then I came to England. Flying Ryanair involved taking a 6:00 am train to Bratislava, a space-age looking sort of thing with windows that were astonishingly large and almost unsettlingly clean. The fields were greener than any combination of yellow #5 and blue #10 could possibly conjure. I also passed a field filled with enormous rabbits. Maybe those are hares, I don’t know. But they looked like rabbits and they were about the size of dogs. And no I don’t mean dogs that are the size of rabbits, I mean large, normal dogs. Which means they were very large rabbits. Everywhere. Except they blended in like prairie dogs, which was weird. With prairie dogs you’re looking at what you think is an empty field and then suddenly some of the dirt moves and you say, “Hey, a prairie dog!” With giant rabbits you’re looking at an empty field and suddenly an entire hill ups and hops away and you say, “Hey, a giant rabbit!”

Then I got to Bratislava, which was intriguing. Right at about airport security, Bratislava ceased to be intriguing and started to be just plain unpleasant. I enjoyed it not. I did, however, enjoy the British security announcement they gave us on the plane: “Luminous floorpath lighting will guide your way to the nearest exit in the case of darkness.”

Awesome.