Day Eleven: Artsy Goodness in Vienna (Wien I mean!)
July 4, 2008
Artsy Goodness Day! We awoke this morning in our crazy hostel (it’s basically one gigantic room separated into a few “rooms” by a curtain with as many bunk beads as can physically be squashed together, squashed together. We’re talking there are bunkbeds with less than a foot of space between them!) and ran down to the grocery store to pick up some cheap food before heading out for a long intense day of goodness.
So the (extremely ambitious) plan in the morning: Go to the Leopold Museum, then try and tour the Opera, then go to the Belvedere (the second art museum), and then figure out some sort of music thing to attend in the evening.
And I know what you’re thinking: “But Heather, I thought you favored tapping into the city’s zeitgeist via relaxing strolls along its cobblestone alleys? Not trying to kill both you and Leslie with a meth-fueled marathon!”
And it’s true- that’s usually my preference. Except! When there’s art involved. And not just any art, but really good more modern art. As much as I think Renaissance and Classical stuff is interesting (I mean come on, just read my stuff on David!!), for me starting at a trillion triptychs and pictures of Mary having rays of light and a little dove beamed into her from heaven (symbolism for the Immaculate Conception) gets a bit old after a while. But in Vienna we’re talking about seriously awesome, seriously unique, colorful, weird, grotesque, funky, gorgeous, romantic, art starting primarily in the 19th century. So in the Leopold Museum we were going to get our fill of this guy named Egon Schiele and a bit from Klimt and lots of German Expressionism (like some solid pieces from Kokoschka).
And at the Belvedere they had the super uber famous “Kiss” paining by Klimt and supposedly (as Leslie was told by the security guard at the Leopold when she was sitting waiting for me to finish up) lots and lots of other you-just-can’t-miss stuff.
So with all that! Leslie and I checked out the Leopold, got audio tours (I’m telling you: It’s the way to go!!! You will never get as much out of art if you don’t get the context), and finished up there in a smidgen over two hours. Then we ran on down to the Opera house but were disappointed to discover that we’d just missed the last English tour of the day. Boooo!!! But! We did run into a guy from the Palais Auersperg who was selling tickets to that night’s performance: which was a combination of big name pieces (think “Magic Flute”) with a few opera singers and ballet. So Leslie and I decided to pick up tickets for that and then make our way down to art museum number two.
The Belvedere, just from an architectural and landscaping point of view, is gorgeous. It has some awesome gardens and sculptures. Speaking of awesome sculptures… can you figure out what movie I’m referencing to the the right? If you can I will love and respect you forever! The moment I saw these statutes (hint: especially the first pair) I knew what had to be done (and what had to be done was me taking this picture)
After that, we went through the Belvedere (with audio tours, of course) and it was great. I really love Klimt’s stuff and there was a wider selection here than at Leopold. This place also had a lot of realism landscape stuff – which doesn’t do anything for me, but it was still neat to see.
After all that we had to boogie over to the Palace for the live performance and, of course, we got lost on the bus. I thought this was the case but Leslie was told by some other guy at the Museum that this bus line was the way to go. But I was like “Yah we walked far, but we didn’t walk this far!!!” We were both convinced right before we ended up in the Vienna woods!!!!
Luckily, a very nice adorable old couple helped us get back and we were only ten minutes late to the performance.
The performance was fun and very intimate. I think we were both imagining a bigger hall, but really, there couldn’t have been more than 200 people there. I love live classical music and all that, so it was a treat! At intermission Leslie got a flute of orange juice… because we’re nothing but class 
After that we ate dinner (where we took a video to introduce you to Viennese cuisine culture) and then headed down to the Giant Ferris Wheel!!! That was an awesome experience!
We had no idea the Ferris Wheel was actually next to an entire fair-like setup, complete with lots of other cool rides. It was funny because Leslie and I had randomly been talking about our favorite fair rides and we both agreed that, undoubtedly, the swings are the ultimate fun ride. And!!! As luck would have it, they had swings at this place!! So you’d better believe we paid our way and had some fun. I asked the guy running it to let us stay on for as long as possible and oh boy did he – we were up there forever! It was fantastic! I swear, in the videos I look like I’m about to pee myself with delight
After that we headed home and blogged for a bit. I actually started feeling sort of ill… which may be from the lack of water… in conjunction with the eating of way too many wafer cookies (in replacement of meals) and Coke Zero (for energy). I had to stop blogging a bit early because my poor head was starting to pound 
But all in all- a fantastic day filled with artsy and playful delights!!
And for all the pictures (minus pictures of me feeling ill) click here
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I can’t believe you found your favorite ride all the over there in Vienna by accident!
Atreyu!!!!!!! Valcore!!!!!!!