Still More Vienna

Bah. Teach me to start a post, get distracted by Feministing, forget to save and then sit around on my ass until Mozilla self-quits and eats my post because it hates me. Now I must describe again my last full Vienna day.

Since it was not entirely cloudy or pissing down rain, I started at the giant ferris wheel. I was expecting something along the lines of the London Eye, more of a sightseeing tool than an amusement park ride, but no, it was part of a small amusement park (the rest of which was closed, it being February). The ferris wheel is pretty massive, but it's like a luxury theme park ride. You can see a lot of the city from the top, though, and it's a gorgeous ride. Plus, the little amusement park, which has a couple of fairly small roller coasters, the usual throw-up rides, a water ride, etc., (it is very little though; think Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk without the beach, the boardwalk, or the good Mexican food) and is next to a minigolf course and a planetarium. If I lived in Vienna year round, and therefore spoke German, I think I would spend all summer at that place. Mini golf and a planetarium within three minutes walk from each other? I'm tempted to move to Vienna and learn German to get in on that action. As it was though, I settled for grafitiing the ferris wheel and moving on. In the corner of one of those cars is a teeny tiny 'Libby USA 2007'.

After that was the adventure of finding the Austrian Resistance Museum. I've been reading Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which, though dry, is very informative, and so I'm curious about any WWII memorial type things European cities happen to have lying around. There's a monument, in downtown Vienna, that I also saw, it's mostly just depressing without being super informative, but it's nice to see the effort. Living here is giving me stronger feelings about the war -- it's such recent and real history here that it's hard not to be affected. I don't notice, and don't notice, and then I saw this memorial erected on the site of an apartment building that was bombed by the Allies. In France, I see that kind of thing and feel guilty on my country's behalf for how little we valued the destruction of European cities in our invasion; we seemed to have no conception that people actually lived there. But in Austria I found myself having a much more emotional reaction -- something along the lines of well that's what you GET when you SIDE WITH THE NAZIS. Which is unfair, and sad, and inappropriate. I'm embarrassed that I had that reaction, but between being here and the reading, I couldn't quite suppress it right away. It's been... odd. One of the things I find most upsetting is the sheer numbers in support (although the Nazis did not in fact command an absolute majority of voters before they outlawed every other political party; interesting fact) and how quicky so many countries had to just turn their political philosophies completely on a dime. I can't even imagine... Obviously, of course, it wasn't that cut and dry; there were so many people and they had so many different opinions, and anyway that's what happens when you lose a war. But the difference between "in power over half of Europe" and "the byword for absolute evil" is so big, and the change had to take place so quickly... not that I'm questioning either of those labels, at all, but that's something else that just makes it so difficult. I have to just read more until it starts to make sense, I think.

Anyway, case in point is the Resistance Museum, which is what I was talking about before I got sidetracked. The Resistance in Austria, unlike its French counterpart, was kind of tiny and ineffective. (This is not my interpretation. The museum admits this upfront.) They passed out pamphlets, basically, which didn't change much except to get most of them killed. The museum itelf is small, although I think the library it houses, which is reserved for academics and people who speak German, is more extensive. It's very interesting, though, and the explanations in English were good.

After that, I wandered some, ate a salad, and tried to talk myself into doing something musical. You can't really visit Vienna and not do something musical, I argued to myself. But my appreciation of music is roughly comparable to a deaf dingo's, myself argued back. And I'm all alone, no one will ever need to know I blew off seeing anything remotely musical in the one European city that is completely famous for its composers. Bullshit, I argued back, how can you tell anyone you went to Vienna and didn't see Mozart's memorial at least? This continued until we struck a compromise... I would walk in the direction of the House of Music, the big, famous, music museum in Vienna, and if I could find it, and if it were open (it was nearly 5pm by this time) then I would go, dick around a little bit, and reward myself for it by going to the movies in English in the evening. Aren't you all glad you don't travel with me? Think of how confusing this stuff could be to negotiate! Oh, wait.

Anyway, it turned out to be an absolutely brilliant move to go there, so much so that I blew off the movie afterward because I'd had such a good time. It got off to a great start because first of all, it was open until ten, so I had as much time to poke around as I wanted, and second of all, the lady at the desk gave me student rate despite me actually being a teacher. The House of Music is divided into four or five parts, each dedicated to different things, and it's brilliant. The first part is about the Vienna Philharmonic, and is only moderately self serving. And I say that partly because after seeing a video of their New Year's Concert (well, part of it) I was inspired to buy the CD because they are awesome. That section was fine. After that there's a whole floor dedicated to how your ear perceives sound -- the different parts of the ear, sound waves and how they travel, even a room where you get to hear what a fetus supposedly hears in the womb. Plus computer programs that you can access, showing how you determine which direction a sound is coming from, and what things sound like based on different acoustics, and all that stuff. So that was pretty wicked. Next floor up is the famous composers floor, room for Beethoven, room for Mozart, room for Strauss, Mahler, and like six other ones whose names I don't remember. You know, the guy who had the parrot, the guy who everyone thought was shy except that he gave big parties for his friends (on second thought, possibly that was two different guys) etc., etc. They give you an audio guide for that part, which is nice; it's very informative, and they play musical selections from all the guys while you're passing through their rooms. My only complaint was that there was so much information on the audio guide, and really you can only spend so much time in each room before it's boring, so it's not paced especially well. After that, there was an experimental floor, where you could mix sounds like traffic and blowing your nose with Strauss's Radetzky-Marsch, and that was just awesome. There were also rooms where you could create different sounds by moving your body, or messing with your voice.

My family would have gotten such a huge kick out of the whole thing -- in fact I can't think of a single person I know who wouldn't have. This is the burden of traveling solo... but I did my best to make up for it in the gift shop. My family totally scored. Heee! Scored. Like a music score... okay, you know what, you can just shut up or you don't get your present, how does that sound? Hee! Sound.

Right, fine, shut up, I'm stopping. I left in a wicked good mood, eager to listen to my new CDs and not at all feeling like a movie, so I blew it off and wandered around to find something to eat. I ended up in a Mexican (-ish) place, where I sat at the bar and got a quesadilla. I should have gotten a wicked cool exotic drink while I was at it, because the place clearly specialized in that, but between the pear cider mishap on the previous evening and my somewhat-in-effect resolution to quit drinking solo, which is a bad habit, I settled for a mango juice. The best part though was just as I was finishing my meal (not bad; quesadillas are hard to fuck up. The salsa and the salad were questionable, though) they switched from the salsa stuff they'd been playing before, to ... the Beatles. I KNOW. So I was sitting at a Mexican bar, in Vienna, listening to "Hey Jude." It was totally excellent.

So that wraps that up... stay tuned for Prague!