Wiennese Weekend

 It's taken a while, but I have finally got around to doing some tourist stuff. I must say, Vienna is a lot more pleasant when you are actually doing things rather than sitting around watching TV. Who knew? On Friday Stella and I went to the Hofburg:

We paid 9.50 and that included the Silberkammer, Sisi Museum and the Imperial Appartments. It was well worth the money, I think in England you would have paid at least £20 for the same thing. The Silberkammer was interesting for about 20 minutes but there are only so many plates and spoons you can see before it all starts to get a bit samey. The Sisi Museum was brillo, possibly because she is my favourite Austrian ever (v stylish, she's the one with the stars in her hair) though I did go off her a bit when I found out she had ankle length hair. That is just not on. The rest of it was good and although you only see a tiny part of the Hofburg, which is MASSIVE, you see quite a lot and the audio guide is good. There was a tour group of children and I was a bit jealous because they were dressed up as Sisi and I wanted a go. Maybe next time...

this is just another picture from the Hofburg. 

On Sunday we went to the Kunsthalle because Stella was desperate to see the pop art exhibition. I should have looked it up before going because it turned out to be FEMINIST pop art. I was not impressed, it was far too weird for me. I do not have enough issues to be able to relate to all that. So I left after not very long at all and went to take a few photos. Sadly it was too cold, so I soon retreated to a cafe

this is from just inside the National Library. I will have to go one day when it is open.

A sure sign that spring might finally be on its way is this:

 Whistling Mozart is back! I haven't seen him since about October! He normally stands up by the museums but yesterday he was by the Hofburg. He is sure to brighten a gloomy day. He didn't even mind me taking a picture without putting money in his tin like some of the statues on Stephansplatz who chase unsuspecting tourists. He is a very talented whistler (wonder what his Mother is like) and does all the good Mozart tunes. I'm not sure he even stops for breath!
Not much else to report other than that I have started thinking about what to do after Austria. I am in a bit of a quandary actually. What will I do? Where will I go? I am actually kind of kicking myself for not applying to JET but oh well, I could always do that next year if I still want to. I do not like having to think about grown up stuff like careers. Meh.
TTFN dears!

Die Zauberflöte

As I am now officially grown up and cultured, I decided to go to the opera instead of staying out until all hours. It was a good choice. I am still having difficulty believing that I can go to one of the most famous opera houses in the world for only 3 Euros. We saw Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) and it was brilliant.

It's hard to believe it was written over 200 years ago. I thought that Mozart wrote both the libretto and the music but I was wrong, it was actually Emanuel Schikaneder. It was a kind of weird performance and I am still unable to decide how much of it was the opera that was weird and how much was that particular production. Anyway, here we go for those of you who have never seen it...

Lovely overture, lots of which I recognised from my youth when I was something of a musician. Sounds a bit better played by the orchestra than it did on a squeaky, poorly played clarinet I must say!

Act 1

A man all dressed in white, whom I worked out in the second act is called Tamino is being chased by a big dragon/snake. You know it is going to be a good opera when within 3 minutes there is a dragon/snake and fireworks. The dragon/snake is killed by the Three Ladies, all of whom are very buxom and painted different shades of blue and are wearing very big dresses. They all fancy Tamino, who is lying on the floor and they fight over who gets to look after him but then they get bored and leave him on his own. In comes Papageno, a little Diddy Man style green man. He is a bird catcher and sings a song about this and how much he would love a girlfriend. Tamino recovers miraculously from the dragon/snake attack and Papageno tells him that he killed it. The Three Ladies are not best pleased with this so they come and padlock Papageno's mouth shut to punish him for lying. They then explain to Tamino what really happened, and for some reason they show him a picture of Pamina. Even though it is just a painting, he falls in love with her straight away, and this seems a bit silly but I suppose it is just the way things worked in the olden days. At this point, the Queen of the Night comes in wearing the biggest dress I have ever seen. It is lovely, a very dark blue covered in sparkly silver stars. She sings a song and tells Tamino that Pamina (who is her daughter) has been kidnapped by Sarastro and that he must go and rescue her. If he manages, he will be allowed to marry her which is kind of handy for him because he has decided he loves her already! The Queen swishes off and the Ladies give Tamino the eponymous MAGIC FLUTE which will protect him from loads of bad things. It seems that when he plays it loads of weird animals with big heads appear (crocodiles, hippos, a giraffe and several kind of big cats) Tamino decides to take Papageno with him for moral support, even though he talks a lot. Oh, and three boys dressed up as Mozart go with them to help them find Pamina.

The scene changes and suddenly the stage is a kind of wonky cube with lots of different panels and lights that look like lines. It is a bit strange, and eventually I work out that it is Sarastro's house or something. A black monster type thing is being very mean to Pamina. Papageno finds them and tells her that she is about to be rescued in like a second, and while he's at it he has a quick moan about not having a girlfriend. Poor Papageno, I would be his girlfriend. I find his green hair and baggy trousers rather attractive. Then things got a bit weird and I am not really sure what happened, Tamino arrived and wasn't allowed to do something, or had to do some kind of challenge or something. This was the point I wished the people in front of me were using the English lyrics screen rather than the German because then I would perhaps have understood a bit more! Somewhere along the line, Sarastro becomes a goody, not sure how though. Oh, and obviously when Tamino and Pamina saw each other it was love at first sight because that is what always happens. They all go off to have a party or something and Papageno is left on his own with two guards and what appears to be an old woman in a funny mask and a cloak. They talk for a bit and then it was time for the interval, during which we got told off for drinking from bottles of water that we had taken in and not bought in the theatre, shock horror.

Act 2

Ohhhhh, it is all very confusing. Lots of stuff happens, the Queen of the Night sings her famous aria (which I can recreate v accurately, maybe another good choice for kareoke in Japan). Basically everything works out alright in the end, the baddies are thwarted and the goodies all have a good sing and dance about how brilliant everything is. Sorry the synopsis got a bit rubbish, it was TOO HARD to say everything. If you're that interested, either go and see it or Google it, there are probably 16 gazillion synopsises/synopsi/synopses floating around.

Nobody likes you when you're 23

I have been waiting for pretty much as long as I can remember to be able to legitimately quote this song and now the time has finally come. While I am glad to be reliving my Blink 182 days, it does mean that I am getting OLD. So old. Having said this, it has been a nice weekend of Birthday celebrations. After the stress of Thursday, Boyo arrived and we went ice skating outside the Rathaus. It was brilliant, not least because we only had to pay for skate hire as it was the first day. I like ice skating anyway but when it's outdoors it's even better, and when there are different paths then it is like a dream. Maybe this is why they called it an Eistraum. Anyway, I would have taken about a million pictures but my battery was dead and I have not worked out how to use the flash when using the screen on the front of my camera. It's a shame, but it just means we will have to go again!

It is still cold in Wienna, so the only thing to do still is eating. On Friday we had falafel at the Naschmarkt but not from my favourite man (who now recognises me!) as he wasn't there. It was alright but not as good as Mr Man's stall. On Saturday Boyo and I did not really know what to do so we went to the Naschmarky again but this time we decided to be brave and get Japanese food, mostly because we wanted to use chopsticks. I am actually quite good at it now. 

 I think this picture captures Boyo's immense fear when he was presented with a plate of what looked an awful lot like sushi. It was actually tempura maki, whatever that means. We also ordered tempura vegetables and noodles and it was berry derishusu. Even the Boy enjoyed it, and until recently he has not been keen on eating anything even vaguely adventurous. Maybe he will not completely starve on our trip to the East!

 Sunday was my actual Birthday and although it was sad that I had to send the Boy back home (though luckily I didn't have to take him to Bratislava!) it was actually quite nice. Thank you all for the cards and presents and Birthday greetings. I am feeling very old. This is only counteracted by the fact that I received a Gruffalo. As I came out of the U Bahn at Stephansplatz, there was a parade:

 It cheered me up no end, I felt like they'd all donned their Trachten in celebration of my Birthday! It reminded me that I really need to look into getting another Dirndl, because one is never enough...
Anyway, I met some friends and went for some Birthday cake at Aida:

While the black forest gateau was delish, it was no substitute for a real home made cake from Mother. I am crossing my fingers for a belated one when I go home for a couple of days next week but fear that my hopes will be dashed, as she only seems to do baking when school is cancelled because of the snow these days. After some ice cream too (come onnnnn, it was my Birthday!) we went to queue up for opera tickets. We went to see The Magic Flute and it was fabulous. Keep your eyes peeled for a separate post about that later. So yes, all in all a good Birthday!

A Bureaucratic Nightmare and A Moment's Hesitation

Considering that this week was a Bad School week, it has actually been surprisingly good. This possibly has something to do with the fact that one of my worst classes was away on their ski trip but nevertheless, I was pleasantly surprised to have almost enjoyed going into work. Turns out the lesson I did about Jamie Oliver and school dinners using this article provoked quite a reaction and a lot of discussion which I really wasn't expecting. I also got to meet a couple of new classes as I offered to make up the hours I was missing because of the ski trip which made a nice change because I usually only see the same people every fortnight. Hopefully things have turned a corner. In fact, I was so taken aback by how much better things have been going, I almost made a very big decision on impulse. I was sitting in the staffroom, minding my own business when my Betreuungslehrerin came over and said "Hi Ruth, what are you doing next year? Would you like to stay another year? If you like I can just put your name down on this form and it would all be sorted." Well, she kind of caught me off guard. I thought "Wow, things are really not that bad and I do actually quite like Wienna at the moment, what would be the harm in saying yes?!" So I actually hesitated! Then I remembered how much moaning I have done about everything and thought better of it so thanked her very kindly for the offer but said that I was planning to return to the UK to do... something. Anything (barring Toys R Us)!

In other news, I finally decided to go and sort out what I hope is the last bit of stupid paperwork that is necessary for living in this country. Some of you may remember that when I lived in Bischofshofen I was hunted down by the police and ordered to either pay a 50 Euro fine or spend 18 hours in prison. Why? Because I didn't fill a form in. Yes, seriously. Despite this whole charade causing much hilarity amongst my friends, I decided that I couldn't be bothered with the faff again this year and that I would just sort out the paperwork. If there is one thing the Austrians love (apart from racism and miniature dogs), it's forms. Oh, and inconvenient opening times. Of course, the office I needed to go is only open from 8-12 which just so happen to be the hours I work pretty much every day. I had Wednesday off but that's when they're closed all day. Luckily, for the convenience of everyone they are open for an EXTRA 2 hours a week- from 3.30-5.30 on a Thursday. This was when we, and what appeared to be the majority of the migrant population of Vienna decided to go and sort ourselves out. After trekking down the longest road I have ever seen, we got to the Magistrat. Stella and I joined the back of the queue, which was well over 100 people long before the office even opened. It actually moved pretty quickly and as EU citizens, we had to do a lot less messing about. First we joined a queue to photocopy our documents. Then we joined the queue to speak to someone. Next we had to leave the queue to fill in a form and then join the back of the queue again. After quite a wait I got to the front, only to be told that I had to photocopy something else. Obviously the queue to use the copier was huge, and by the time I got to the front it had broken. So I had to fix it. I finally got back to the desk and the lady stamped everything and told me I had to pay 30 Euros. Somewhere along the way I had bumped into another assistant so I decided to wait for her. She was not told to pay for anything, so she questioned it saying that I had had to pay. This woman was very rude to me, telling me I should have mentioned that I am only here until the end of May. Luckily, the other lady who had served me overheard the conversation and ripped up the form and told me it was "erledigt" (don't know what this is in English!). So, after all that faff I had basically wasted an entire afternoon and got my blood pressure up for nothing!

Other things that have amused me in Vienna this week: the street artists seem to be back after a break over the festive season. My favourite from this week was by Stephansdom, an old man wearing neon lycra and a neon headband pretending to play a tennis racquet as a guitar along to either the Klaxons or Hadouken, I couldn't tell because it was turned down low. V funny. Another thing is that three people have talked to me on public transport this week, just because I was reading. They have all commented on how unusual it is and how nice to see. For all they are a bunch of miserys, sometimes the Wiennese are not all that bad. I cannot believe I just said that so I think I had better go and have a lie down. Goodbye.

Culture Vulture

At the end of last term I went to the theatre with Good School, and on the walk home one of the teachers was berating me for not having done anything cultural in Wienna. She was practically shouting at me that I should make more effort to go to the theatre. So I went to the opera (see previous post). In the same week, I have also been to an art gallery AND a church. Times are a-changin' people!

On Thursday afternoon it was absolutely chucking it down with rain and I of course was not wearing sensible shoes. Despite this, we decided to go to the Oberes Belvedere which is an old imperial palace

It is now an art gallery where some of Klimt's (famous Austrian painter) paintings are. After trying to con the woman at the desk into giving us student tickets, citing my NatWest Railcard as my student ID, we begrudgingly paid for full price tickets. Just because I'm no longer an actual student doesn't mean I am rich! While it was not worth 9€50, it was still nice. We were there about an hour and a half and looked at a lot of paintings. My favourite bits were the Klimt bits obviously because I am not an Art Lover. The Kiss (most famous Klimt painting) was v impressive. There were lots of boring landscapes and portraits which I was not that fussed about but there was an exhibition about Mahler and Music which had lots of paintings by Max Oppenheimer which were really good actually, there was a brilliant one of an orchestra. I would copy and paste one from Google images but that is probably infringing some kind of copyright so go and look it up, I think it was called "The Philharmonic" or something like that.

The rest of the week was much less cultural (ie I spent a lot of time watching trashy TV and lying in bed) but on Sunday Abby and I decided to go and see the Otto Wagner Kirche which is a Jugendstil (think this is Art Nouveau in English) church in the grounds of the Otto Wagner Spital which is a psychiatric hospital. Typical Austrian weirdness. Anyway, as you walk up the hill, this is what you see:

 Now, I am not a big fan of churches AT ALL (seen one, seen them all etc) but this one is B E A Utiful. Seriously.

 It was particularly nice because it was super warm and the sun was shining. There is loads of gold and turquoise (perfect colour combination if you ask me!). It was a bit sad that we couldn't go inside as it is only open on Saturday afternoons for tourists. Either that or 9am Mass on a Sunday but I do not think I am that bothered. I will go again though because inside must be stunning.
As most of you know, I got a new camera for Christmas. I love it because it has an LCD display on the front. I realised I needed something like this about 4 years ago when Al and I went to Rome and were trying to take an arms-length photo in front of the Colesseum. It did not go well. I thought a camera with two screens would solve everything. Our visit to the church seemed like the perfect time to test out my new skillz. It did not go so well. A lot of hilarity (and unattractive photos) ensued...

 ...

 ... but we got there eventually! Kind of.

"Please don't sing, please don't sing"

Until now, my most regretted trip to the cinema was to see Crossroads, in which Britney Spears made me want to gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon. However, I think this has been surpassed by Burlesque. It was HORRENDOUS. Not even five minutes into the film I had my face covered with my scarf, trying to block out some of the wailing from Christina Aguilera as she gyrated round a chair for some reason. The one good thing that has come from this film is that two divas (Christina and Cher) in one place is TOO MANY. I spent most of the film whispering "please don't sing, please don't sing" to both of them, and wondering when Cher got so wise. Every two minutes there was some kind of inspirational speech from her, telling someone or other that they had to be true to themselves blah blah blah. My favourite Cher line without a doubt was "Remember how many times I've held your hair back as you've thrown up everything but your memories." She really does have a way with words. And I think she is too old to be dressing like a man dressed up as a strumpet. It was like Coyote Ugly (which I also did not care for) but with more sparkle, more bad wigs and more uneven red lipstick. Christina Aguilera was not only a terrible actress but she seemed to deem every single second of the film appropriate for singing and wailing like she's caught her finger on the iron. Oh, and the costume budget can't have been all that great because she was falling out of nearly every outfit and never wore underwear. All in all, a terrible film that could possibly have been saved were it not for Christina, who was quite frankly god-awful. Rant over.

Tosca

OMG I have got a new favourite thing in Wienna. The opera. It was amaaaaazing. All last term we kept saying we would go as you can get standing tickets for 3 Euros but never got round to it. Last night we finally went and I will be going again ASAP. We saw:

Before I went I knew very little about it, other than that it's by Puccini. Some extensive research told me that it  is Mother's favourite. It is "set in Rome. The usual, love triangle, deceit, lies". So I was all set. Even just going into the building was totally worth the ticket price:

It is really amazingly beautiful. Any prospective visitors, let me know if you would like to go and I am sure we can sort something out. It was the third opera of my life (Porgy and Bess which I didn't really like much because I didn't understand even though they were singing in English and Carmen in German came before) and it was easily my favourite. I am not really that keen on female opera voices so I was lucky that this one only had one and she was incredible. There was lots of manly singing which was also nice.

For those of you less cultured than I, here comes a synopsis.

Act 1- A church in Rome

Angelotti is an escaped prisoner who comes to the church to hide. Mario Cavaradossi is a painter and he is in the chapel doing a painting of Mary Magdalene. The painter agrees to help Angelotti as they are old friends, so they make up a brilliant plan for him to escape dressed as a woman. Angelotti runs off to hide, and in comes Tosca. She is the lover of Cavaradossi and is a singer and has lovely clothes and looks a little bit like Catherine Tate. She is v jealous of pretty much everything and moans to her boyf because his painting is of a beautiful woman who has black eyes, and she knows it isn't her because she has black eyes. She is convinced that he is cheating on her but he isn't, she is just being silly. BOOM! A canon goes off, and this means that Angelotti's escape from the Castel Sant Angelo has been discovered. Oh no! Cavaradossi and Angelotti run off to escape. Meanwhile, there is a big celebration at the church because of something to do with Napoleon. I think he has lost a battle or something. In comes Scarpia, a policeman in one of those white old-fashioned wigs and he is looking for Angelotti, obviously. There is no sign of Angelotti, but a policeman finds a fan which was part of the disguise he was going to wear. Tosca comes looking for her lover but he isn't there. Scarpia makes her think he is off with some other woman, using the fan to play on her jealousy. Oh, and Scarpia decides he is in love with Tosca. She is cross and runs off to find Cavaradossi and the police follow because they reckon she will lead them to the prisoner.

Act 2- Scarpia's apartments (v fancy)

Scarpia is having his tea, when suddenly Cavaradossi is brought in. He has been arrested. Tosca arrives too and after they talk (sing, actually) for like a second he is taken away to be tortured. Meanwhile, Scarpia tells Tosca that if she reveals where Angelotti is hiding, her lovaaaah will be let go. She refuses but not for long because when she hears Cavaradossi scream she says "oh he is in the well in the garden." Cavaradossi is brought back into the room and is really mad when he finds out that Tosca blurted out where Angelotti was hiding. Cavaradossi is taken away. Then Scarpia has a brillo idea; if Tosca gives herself to him, Cavaradossi will be set free. She is not too keen on the idea, obviously. A soldier comes in and says "Oh no, Angelotti has hanged himself!" which makes Scarpia pretty cross, so he decides that Cavaradossi must be executed the next morning. Now, here is where he plays a trick on Tosca. He tells the soldier that the execution is to be faked like that in the case of Mr Soandso. Tosca thinks this is great and so agrees to some kind of funny business with Scarpia as long as she and her lover will be able to escape safely. He signs some important document then tries it on with Tosca. While he is getting frisky, she grabs a (remarkably blunt looking) knife from the table and stabs him like a million times. As a good Christian woman, she lights candles around him and puts a crucifix on his body before running away to tell her man of the new plan.

Act 3- Castel Sant Angelo

It is v early in the morning. Cavaradossi starts writing a letter to Tosca, I think saying how brilliant she is but she comes in and interrupts him with the brilliant news that she has killed Scarpia and actually the execution is not going to be real and that everything will be totally fine. She makes a big deal of telling him to make sure he falls convincingly, pretending that he has died from being shot. So, along come the firing squad and they shoot Cavaradossi and he falls to the floor. Tosca waits until the soldiers are gone then runs to Cavaradossi. UH OH. Turns out Scarpia was lying and that he was really shot and was dead after all! Not cool. Scarpia tricked them! Obviously Tosca is gutted. So gutted in fact that she throws herself off the top of the Castel and into the river. The End.

So, it would appear that I have made another resolution: see more operas. Oh and my other one is to use moisturiser but that will probably last about two days before I get lazy. In other news I am feeling a bit happier about Wienna, it is obviously nowhere near as bad as I was expecting it to be. I am pretty sure this is because it's a Good School week, but we shall see!

2011- onwards and upwards

Hello and a (very belated) Happy New Year to all. I have not updated because I have been busy enjoying doing nothing in the UK. New Year's Eve was nice, a quiet affair with friends I have known for a million years. For some reason unbeknownst to me, there are no photos. Must try harder in that area. So, 2011 began with me not leaving the house for 4 days, which sounds terrible but was actually terreBRILL. I made loads of things including:

origami cranes, inspired by my little Japanese boy

and loads of soup. Also probably quite a lot of mess but that goes without saying really!

On Friday I trekked down to Wales to stay in a house much more conveniently placed than mine when flying from Bristol airport. Oh, and I suppose to see the Boy too. It was nice, he took me out. To a restaurant. And I behaved almost appropriately. The only thing that went a bit wrong was that I dropped mango chutney  everywhere but that is only a minor mishap, I didn't even spit drink anywhere! Also, we did cooking. Well, I say "we" but actually mean "I". It was delissssssssssh.

stuffed peppers with ricotta and spinach

I think the Boy even surprised himself by enjoying a meal made entriely from vegetables. It was a triumph!

Now I am back in Wienna and it is freezing. I am in bed wearing as many layers as is humanly possible. I am contemplating my earmuffs (courtesy of Spaddock) too. I am totally dreading this term but let's see shall we? A bit of positive thinking might make it easier than I am expecting! That is all for now, I need to go and find yet another pair of socks before I develop frostbite!