First Bank Holiday of the year! Hurray! I asked several classes why 26th of October is a Bank Holiday. Some students had no idea. Others told me it was to celebrate when the last Russians left Austria at the end of the Second World War. Actually it's to commemorate the signing of a treaty to restore Austria's neutrality in 1955. I was quite surprised that they had no idea about their history. I asked them if there would be anything worth seeing going on in the city and they told me no, it would be boring. Well, they were wrong! I normally hate the days when the shops are shut in Austria (they are wayyyyy too frequent!) After looking online I discovered that there would be things going on all day in Heldenplatz, though the things in the morning didn't look particularly interesting so a group of us met up and headed over at about 12.30. There were lots of military looking people around, including what looked like a genuine Habsburg, complete with ridiculously Austrian facial hair and plumed helmet. I could see that it was going to be a good day because there were tanks and helicopters and lots of interesting things like that. The first actual event we saw was a kind of parade, though I was a little disappointed at the lack of marching.
There was lots of shouting and synchronised rifle twirling though, which was vbeery impressive. What was more impressive was that the soldiers doing the display were the newest recruits who only joined the Bundesheer in July. At one point the man who was giving a commentary (I liked to think of him as an Austrian Terry Wogan) commented on how well they were doing and how amazing it was that nobody had dropped a rifle. Literally seconds later there was a loud clatter as a rifle hit the floor. I felt bad for the poor boy who dropped it. Sadly, a lot of the parade looked like this:
because two very inconveniently placed military policemen kept getting in my way. There was a marching band as well, and they were very good. They played a nice selection of American military tunes which I thought was very fitting. Oh, and at one point there was a promotional video for the Bundesheer of lots of men running around looking manly and shooting things. The soundtrack: techno followed by Pirates of the Caribbean. I kid you not. The Austrians are ALWAYS trying (and failing somewhat) to make things "cool".
After this, we wandered towards the Ring because Bill had read somewhere that there was going to be a huuuuuuge parade. Turns out the article he'd read was out of date by FIVE YEARS! Presumably for the 50th anniversary there had been a celebration on a much grander scale. Whilst wandering around, Joe spotted a soldier with the same surname as him. Using our best tourist German we asked if he could have a photo taken with him. The soldier was only too happy to oblige. In fact he launched into telling us in great detail about how many other Zabinskys there are in Austria (15) and gave Joe his and his brother's email address. Sometimes the Austrians can be so friendly! So, after we finally got away from Joe's extended family our meandering took us a bit further and we ended up going for a look around the Außenministerium which was actually really interesting. I talked to a man about studying to become a Diplomat (potential new life plan), entered a competition to win a trip to New York and got a bag of free stuff, including a USB stick which I thought was very nice.The band from earlier on were playing again so we listened to them play more American sounding military music. I must say I was a bit sad that there was no oom-pah band. Still, they were very good. Further proof that brass bands can't swing though, a long since forgotten fact that I discovered years ago when I was still young and talented enough to be considered a musician.
On this National Holiday (which I was beginning to like more and more) you can go inside all of the government buildings for free and meet all the important politicians. The queue the meet Heinz Fischer, the president was massive, so we decided to get in the queue to meet the Bundeskanzler, Werner Faymann. He's the equivalent to the British Prime Minister. We queued all the way through the Bundeskanzleramt, which was very fancy- lots of chandeliers and gold, but when we got to the door to the room where he was we were told that we were too late, the last people had been admitted. We missed him literally by seconds! So I am not very keen on Mr Faymann I don't think, when I am a diplomat I shall have plenty of time for my subjects!
here I am sitting at the Bundeskanzler's desk!
this was what we saw in one of the offices. I suspect the wings belong to Faymann and he could not see us because it was time for dressing up.
After our state visit we decided to go to Centimeter for lunch. I forgot how awesome it was there, will definitely be going back again! Refreshed, we went back down to Heldenplatz to go and look at some machines. They were SO COOL. Here I am with a tank (the Austrian soldiers laughed at my pose):
This picture was possibly my favourite part of the day. I WENT IN A TANK! I was so excited. I also held a machine gun but sadly there is no photo of this. I decided I could definitely not be in the army as I am too weak. Weapons are really heavy! All of this military fun had completely worn us out so there was only one thing for it- we had to go for some Punsch. My first of the season. Hurrah!
No comments:
Post a Comment