Lange Nacht der Museen
This morning I spent most of my time cleaning/waiting to hear from Amanda, who came to Vienna today and met me to drop off some of her stuff at my apartment while she travels.....I was more than happy to help her out, and it was nice to see her and hear about what she's been up to. While at home I managed to piggyback on someone's wireless internet, so for a little less than an hour I had internet, but only if I sat on Mike's bed, which is at the easternmost point in the apartment. Apparently the people on the top floor get the same network all the time, and with no lost connections....what eventually happened with me is that because the signal was so weak it would recognize that there was a signal, but it would not be able to reliably transfer any data, so I couldn't get online at all. But it was fun while it lasted, and if there's any emergency I can always go Dave or Jess' apartment upstairs. I also went shopping for groceries at Hofer, which was fun...I don't know why, but it seems I get all my heavy stuff there, so the walk back is always arduous, especially on Saturdays when I have to walk through the stupid flea market on the Wienzeile....after meeting up with Amanda I tooled around for a while before Dave (California Dave, as he's known....a different Dave than percussionist Dave with whom I went to Heiligenkreuz, the Musikverein, etc.) came downstairs with the enchiladas he had made....the were sooooo good! He had bought the tortillas, but he had made the both the salsa/enchilada sauce and the beans (which was apparently a two-day affair) completely from scratch. It was delicious, and he had made enough beans for both tonight and another enchilada night in the near future.
After the delicious dinner Mike, Brad, Jess, Dave and me went out to the Lange Nacht der Museen. Basically it's an event where 61 museums throughout the city are open from 6:00 pm until 1:00 am, and it only costs €10 for a pass into any and all of the participating museums, with a free shuttle service between different parts of the city. As we had expected there were tons and tons of people everywhere, but it was really fun to walk around the city with everyone else and be able to go to basically any museum for free! We went to the MQ first to buy our tickets and then went to the MUMOK, which is the contemporary art museum. I'll definitely be going back there at least twice....they had lots of really good pieces, and the museum is arranged in a very cool way. Somewhat similar to the modern art museum in San Francisco, the museum is tall and relatively thin with a bank of elevators and a large open space all the way down the center.....I won't go into many specific details because I'm so tired, but sufficed to say I will have to go back there and write more later! Perhaps the most interesting thing I saw there was these two guys dressed in yellow and black climbing up ropes to this large metal nest-looking thing which was suspended in the middle of the museum, sort of over the entryway. We watched them for about 10 minutes as they climbed up their cables towards the metal cage, thinking that it must be some sort of strange performance art....when they finally were inside the cage, they hoisted a bag into the cage, which turned out to contain two pizzas, which they started to eat. At that point we left to see the rest of the museum, but on our way out we saw them wrapping large strips of duct tape around each of the intersections of metal rods which made up the cage. We got very curious, and hearing them speak to each other in obviously American English, Brad asked them what they duct tape was for. (Jess had some very lofty theory about how it symbolized some internal struggle, or something cerebral like that) It turns out they did that so that the metal cables didn't cut one of their ropes, because apparently it had happened before......nothing cerebral at all, but purely practical....when we went downstairs we read the plaque and apparently they're just working on their art project which will be finished around the 15th of this month, and the performance aspect (the fact that we get to watch them work and eat pizza) is secondary to the simple completion of the project. So, that was interesting, and I got some good pictures of them.
After that we went across the street to the Naturhistorisches Museum (Museum of Natural History) and tooled around there for a while looking at many many pretty rocks and stuffed animals of amazing variety. Of course the building (one of the original Ringstrasse buildings) is just gorgeous both inside and outside, so half the fun is just being inside such an amazing building. The highlights: the absolutely huge stuffed walrus, all the crocodiles, the really cool birds, and the huge section of all things amethyst, especially the geodes. After that we crossed the ring towards the Hofburg and got some refreshments....I had a Krapfen which is basically a large jelly-filled donut......it was SOOOO good, especially at 10:00 at night when I was tired and my feet were exhausted. From there we meandered to the Schatzkammer, which is a museum that contains a bunch of relics from the Hapsburg monarchy and the holy roman empire, including the crown jewels, which were a real sight to behold. Almost as beautiful was the harpist in period costume playing pretty 18th century stuff in the courtyard outside (she must have been hired...she didn't have a hat out or anything, so I doubt that she was a busker). After gazing at all the beautiful symbols of the imperial power this region once housed, we meandered back towards the MQ to see if the line to get into the Leopold had gotten shorter. (It was ridiculously long when we first got there...) The Leopold is a private museum which is really expensive to get into normally, so I was glad to get the opportunity to scope it out before shelling out so many euros to see it....unfortunately the only exhibit they had open was their Schiele gallery, which was pretty neat, since the Leopold has the largest collection of Schiele in the world, and I was not very familiar with his work......all of his paintings were quite beautiful, and the sketches were even more interesting, I think. I did take advantage of the 10% discount at the store to get some more postcards, which hopefully I'll start mailing soon....(I did finally figure out how the postage works....but it's €1.25 per letter/postcard!) After leaving the Leopold we headed down the Mariahilferstraße back home, where due to some weird power failure we had to ascend the 3 flights of stairs in total darkness, only to discover that our door had been open the whole time we had been out. (recently our door has been doing this thing where even if you close it hard it can still get stuck open slightly, leaving it vulnerable to even slight winds blowing it completely open. None of our stuff was gone, of course, but it was still kind of a disconcerting thought. And I've been writing ever since! And now, much-needed sleep!
After the delicious dinner Mike, Brad, Jess, Dave and me went out to the Lange Nacht der Museen. Basically it's an event where 61 museums throughout the city are open from 6:00 pm until 1:00 am, and it only costs €10 for a pass into any and all of the participating museums, with a free shuttle service between different parts of the city. As we had expected there were tons and tons of people everywhere, but it was really fun to walk around the city with everyone else and be able to go to basically any museum for free! We went to the MQ first to buy our tickets and then went to the MUMOK, which is the contemporary art museum. I'll definitely be going back there at least twice....they had lots of really good pieces, and the museum is arranged in a very cool way. Somewhat similar to the modern art museum in San Francisco, the museum is tall and relatively thin with a bank of elevators and a large open space all the way down the center.....I won't go into many specific details because I'm so tired, but sufficed to say I will have to go back there and write more later! Perhaps the most interesting thing I saw there was these two guys dressed in yellow and black climbing up ropes to this large metal nest-looking thing which was suspended in the middle of the museum, sort of over the entryway. We watched them for about 10 minutes as they climbed up their cables towards the metal cage, thinking that it must be some sort of strange performance art....when they finally were inside the cage, they hoisted a bag into the cage, which turned out to contain two pizzas, which they started to eat. At that point we left to see the rest of the museum, but on our way out we saw them wrapping large strips of duct tape around each of the intersections of metal rods which made up the cage. We got very curious, and hearing them speak to each other in obviously American English, Brad asked them what they duct tape was for. (Jess had some very lofty theory about how it symbolized some internal struggle, or something cerebral like that) It turns out they did that so that the metal cables didn't cut one of their ropes, because apparently it had happened before......nothing cerebral at all, but purely practical....when we went downstairs we read the plaque and apparently they're just working on their art project which will be finished around the 15th of this month, and the performance aspect (the fact that we get to watch them work and eat pizza) is secondary to the simple completion of the project. So, that was interesting, and I got some good pictures of them.
After that we went across the street to the Naturhistorisches Museum (Museum of Natural History) and tooled around there for a while looking at many many pretty rocks and stuffed animals of amazing variety. Of course the building (one of the original Ringstrasse buildings) is just gorgeous both inside and outside, so half the fun is just being inside such an amazing building. The highlights: the absolutely huge stuffed walrus, all the crocodiles, the really cool birds, and the huge section of all things amethyst, especially the geodes. After that we crossed the ring towards the Hofburg and got some refreshments....I had a Krapfen which is basically a large jelly-filled donut......it was SOOOO good, especially at 10:00 at night when I was tired and my feet were exhausted. From there we meandered to the Schatzkammer, which is a museum that contains a bunch of relics from the Hapsburg monarchy and the holy roman empire, including the crown jewels, which were a real sight to behold. Almost as beautiful was the harpist in period costume playing pretty 18th century stuff in the courtyard outside (she must have been hired...she didn't have a hat out or anything, so I doubt that she was a busker). After gazing at all the beautiful symbols of the imperial power this region once housed, we meandered back towards the MQ to see if the line to get into the Leopold had gotten shorter. (It was ridiculously long when we first got there...) The Leopold is a private museum which is really expensive to get into normally, so I was glad to get the opportunity to scope it out before shelling out so many euros to see it....unfortunately the only exhibit they had open was their Schiele gallery, which was pretty neat, since the Leopold has the largest collection of Schiele in the world, and I was not very familiar with his work......all of his paintings were quite beautiful, and the sketches were even more interesting, I think. I did take advantage of the 10% discount at the store to get some more postcards, which hopefully I'll start mailing soon....(I did finally figure out how the postage works....but it's €1.25 per letter/postcard!) After leaving the Leopold we headed down the Mariahilferstraße back home, where due to some weird power failure we had to ascend the 3 flights of stairs in total darkness, only to discover that our door had been open the whole time we had been out. (recently our door has been doing this thing where even if you close it hard it can still get stuck open slightly, leaving it vulnerable to even slight winds blowing it completely open. None of our stuff was gone, of course, but it was still kind of a disconcerting thought. And I've been writing ever since! And now, much-needed sleep!
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