Europe So Far

We'll start this thing with London.

Actually we'll start by saying I can't type. But this has already been established.

Maria and I flew from Chicago on Tuesday and arrived in Great Britain the day after, where we met with Mom, Daddy, and Ioan. We took the metro and eventually reached our hostel, which was recognizable thanks to the construction stuff around the entrance-y bit. We slept on the top floor, which happened to be the fifth. Thanks to the teeny-tiny elevator and the long wait required for it, we preferred the stairs. The internet was only available on the ground floor, so the stairs were used quite a bit.

We met up with our grandparents and sightsaw a bit, going to the Tower of London and seeing the Crown Jewels, Buckingham Palace (sans parents), saw the changing of the guard (yawn. Yawn yawn yawn yawn yawn. Yaaaaawn.), was rushed around the Queen's Gallery which happened to be showing a very interesting exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci (the rush was to see the yawn changing of the guard), saw Westminster Abbey which is less church and more graveyard.


No seriously. What kind of psychotic freak puts bodies in the floor? Where people step and walk? I'm serious. Bodies belong outside. The floor is not to hide bones. It is for the living, not the living dead, not the dead-dead, to utilize for their own live purposes. So long as their live purposes do not involve cadavers. Because that is sick and wrong. Do you know how hard it is not to step on graves when they're everywhere?!! In all that cemetery, I only saw one other person (an American, for those of you wondering) avoiding the graves. He nearly stepped on one and then he jumped back just in time.

"Dude, chill out," said his traveling companion (also a dude).
"It just feels weird." The first guy explained. And I nearly hugged him. But then I would've had to step on a grave. And that would have been ghastly.

I don't know why I don't step on graves. I'm blaming my mother on this, personally. I remember once I went to a graveyard when I was younger, and I was playing around and Mom said not to step on the graves. I can't remember the reason (maybe something about how it's disrespectful), or how young I was, or where I was, or really anything to support this theory as to how my little superstition came to be. But I digress.

We also went to St Paul's Cathedral, which in the catacombs also had some (but much less graves) in the floor, but that makes sense as it's the catacombs, where dead people are buried. So it's acceptable. Also there was much more space to circumnavigate said dead people. Plus most of them were buried in big raised thingies that would be pretty hard to step on accidentally, as you would need wicked long legs to get even half-way over them.

Then after London we went to Vienna where I met my second cousin Victor for the first time. He's about nine years old. We stayed in his mom Alina's apartment for the duration of our visit. We didn't get to see his dad Septimiu, but I think we will in Romania. Maybe.

On the first day we had some ice cream (yum) and walked around (uhhh) and saw some churches with Alina while Maria, Ioan, and Victor stayed back at the apartment. We also went into a few coffee shops and purchased nothing (because this is possible). Then Alina went back home and Mom, Daddy, and I went to Haus der Musik which was really interesting. It's an interactive museum about music. Pretty cool, amirite?*

*Amirite: pronounced "am I right". Means "am I right". It has been introduced to the English language by both those unable to spell or press the space bar and those who want to confuse you into saying "ah-me-ree-teh", convincing you that this is some sort of cool Spanish slang.

And basically in Vienna we mostly just stuck to churches. And a museum about Sisi and silverware and things like that. And then on the last night we went to the opera to see L'elisir d'amore, which was very nice and had sparked up an argument between us five as to whether or not we'd seen it before on DVD. Maria and I said yes and the parents said no. Ioan had no idea what we were talking about. Finally we managed to convince the adults that we'd started but never finished it. It took some talking and reminding, but we convinced them. I think.*

*My parents had a phase in which every Wednesday night we watched an act from an opera. In this manner we watched Figaro,  Figaro's Wedding, Notre Dame du Paris, and half of L'elisir d'amore.

Also at one point we went to a restaurant, all seven of us, and we ate schnitzel. Lots of schnitzel.

After Vienna we went to Prague, which I had heard was really beautiful, but was actually really dirty. I mean, like, Beijing and New Delhi dirty. Which is really really dirty. And normally I like graffiti, which I can't spell without autocorrect, just not everywhere. And it was everywhere.

Anyway, yeah, you get the gist of it by now—churches. We saw churches. And an exposition-thing on Mucha, which was fantastically awesome, and I really liked. Then yesterday Daddy and I took a day trip to Kutná Hora where we saw the Sedlec Ossuary, which is a church decorated in bones (see, I don't have an issue with bones or dead bodies or things like that. Just graves. I mean, those are seriously messed up. Why do you bury them? That is insane. They just stay there. And then, what happens to the coffin? Does it decompose or does that just stay there too? Seriously. Imagine future archeologists finding a skeleton in scraps of rotten clothing in a perfectly preserved box. That's not gonna be pretty.), and there was this skull on display which had a hole in it, which reminded me of the Tartars from The Golden Compass/Northern Lights who cut holes in their heads to put a coin in, and so I looked it up when I got home and found out it's called trepanning. See? You learn something new every day. Or lots of somethings. Today I learned that if I don't write a blogpost for a while, I forget my self-imposed rule of "no exclamation marks ever!" [thank censorship I have erased them] and "do not OD on italics. Nobody cares". I blame the opera titles and the graves.

And now I realize that my parents will use this excuse to get me to write more blogposts. I think I should correct myself to say if I don't write at all. So I should write more. And improve my typing. And spelling. Because my lack of skills in both is really quite frightening and don't get me started on the deterioration of my grammar. So really, if they'd just give me the computer more often, I'd be able to further deteriorate my grammar by writing in English. On the upside, typing would improve, though spelling probably wouldn't. I have Spell Check turned off so I can pretend I know English.

Anyway, we were on skulls. There were a lot (and I mean a lot [see what I was saying on italics?]) of them, and most of them had their jaws disconnected. But we did see jawbones arranged as flowers and also holding up that phantasmagorical chandelier with at least one of each bone in the body. That was pretty awesome. It's gonna be really awkward at Armageddon though, you know, the bit where the dead rise from the graves and come back to life? Yeah, I can see it now. "Hey! Who's got my tibia?" "Sorry, Joe, I can't find mine!" "Well gimme mine back!"

Bad jokes are bad.

I'm tired.

Anyway, nothing else is really worth saying except that I do not like orange-flavored ice cream as much as strawberry. And waffle cones are delicious.

Wien, Osterreich

Guten tag! (goot-an tuck) 

Hello! We are in Vienna, Austria (the title of the blogpost is read Veen, Oh-stir-rye-h). From the airport we take the train. There are no turnstiles here, no blocking of the flux of people coming or going, just  two boxes where you are supposed to validate your ticket as you enter the station. It is your responsibility. The train is wide and has doors that don’t open automatically (this makes for a quieter ride). Mihai is concerned if we are going to figure how to open them, but it’s quite simple, just pull the handle. 

In the station we are welcomed by Alina, our cousin. She lives here with her 9 years old son, Victor. Though we know stories about him, it is our first time that we meet him (only Mihai met him years ago). Both sides are curious. 10:30 pm. He says hello, and after getting a good picture of our faces, he goes directly to bed. At 6:30 am he wakes up to go to school. We stay late and eat and talk and eat some more, in a true Romanian style. 

This is the next night, we have duck, dumplings and red cabbage!

Our first day in Vienna we take it slowly. After a brunch, the adults and Ileana go for a stroll, leaving the boys to play in their Lego heaven, supervised by Maria. 

The modern and european rickshaws, still I don't want to be driven in it.

We just want a feel of the city, with its old buildings, white, clean, simple lines. At their first floors there are little restaurants or sweet shops, a few tables and chairs, shaded by colorful umbrellas. 

People can see how the cookies and cakes are made, while sampling them.

Everybody is dressed up, even the tourists (and there are many, from all over Europe and from the faraway Asia).

We visit their oldest church St. Stephen, its facade covered by scaffoldings, as specialists are trying to find a cure for the bacteria that darkens the surface of its rocks. It doesn’t feel like a prayer space, full of photo taking people, meandering between its columns.

We walk toward the palace,

In front of the Hofburg they found Roman ruins.

 and from there to the Opera.

We end our evening at the “Haus der Musik” the house of music, an interactive museum about sound, the auditory system, how the brain interprets the signals, the limits. 

This is how grains of sand rearrange when sound passes them.

Batons of Strauss and others.

We could even compose music, by throwing dice

 or superimposing different sounds [of landscape (beach, street) of humans (laughter, crying, sneezing) with other melodic pieces] 

or conduct the philharmonic orchestra with a magic wand. On a screen we could see the musicians waiting for our signal. We could choose from six well known pieces and then we had to wave the wand.  The musicians would follow our movements playing quicker or slower. The trick was to move the hand in the rhythm of the real piece. 

There was an informative exhibition about Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Schubert, Mahler with objects from their life time.

Those little books with a string are dance cards. The men would ask the girl for a dance and she would look in it to see if the polka, mazurka or waltz were free. If he had a preference, she would write down his name for that dance.

The second day, though we wanted to start early, we left the house around 11 to visit the palace. 

We didn't do it!

Hofburg was the winter residence of the imperial family, now a museum most of the time, and host for official meetings. 

The horse and cart bring forth a past time, also pestilent smells.

It starts with an unorthodox presentation: the kitchen and dishes. Even now, when we think of official dinners, we tend to think only of the people who participate and not give a thought to the tableware and arrangements. 

Every guest had to have his set of silverware (and it was made of real, heavy, beautifully carved silver), one for each of the 10 to 20 dishes, with its own set of crystal glasses (for each kind of wine that goes with the different dishes) and bottles of wine and carafes of water. 

The plates were also of silver, as the platters and other serving dishes. It was mind boggling! Just imagine how many people had to handle these things, polish them, cover them with ornamental napkins, carry them loaded with food and so on. 

Who worked under who's supervision.

The disappearing art of folding napkins

There was also a set of 12 gold dishes, only for the imperial family. And this was just a part, the usual one, because other ones were melted to finance the napoleonic wars. 

The exhibition continued with gilded bronze candelabras on mirrored trays (to reflect the light of the candles)

 and fine porcelain dishes (each a work of art in itself, with rims lace-like, different colors and gilded). 

At least they didn’t have two sets, one for here and another one for the Schönbrun palace, the summer residence. They were packing things in their coffers and moved them. 

They could afford all these and more by imposing taxes (heavy ones) on their subjects (now part of many other countries). But on the Good Thursday the imperial family would wash the feet of 12 poor men, the empress of 12 poor women, give them a good meal and send them home with a silver tankard of beer with the imperial crest on it. Maybe they thought that they were doing their Christian duty.

The second part of the museum combined the imperial apartments with the story of Sissi, the last empress of the Austro-Hungarian empire. A very beautiful woman, that spend two hours every day at the hairdresser (in the meantime she would learn a language French, English, Hungarian, Greek), she was fond of sports (she had in her room rings and bars for gymnastics, took up fencing, horseback riding), dieting, and personal hygiene (she introduced the modern bathroom as soon as technology made it possible). She was shy and didn’t like the requirements of the court, so she spent time away in different projects. She was assassinated by a deranged man who wanted to kill someone else (who changed his route). Their rooms were quite simple and unadorned, compared with Napoleon’s at Fontainebleau or Louis at the Versailles. 

Mihai continued to some other museum, we went home and met with him later at the restaurant (we had reservation!). The children had Viennese schnitzel and we shared with Alina a stelze, a pork-leg ham served with mustard and fresh horseradish. 

Add some beer, waiters in leather shorts, waitresses in traditional dresses and you get the idea.

The third day Mihai went by himself to visit the royal jewelry and some other museums (that were not in his initial plan, but because he was alone, he could do as he liked it) while we stayed home and talked and played. 

In the evening we had our big event, a night at the Opera, to see “L’Elixir d’Amore” by Donizetti. The girls dressed up (wearing the same size with Alina, she was so kind and lent them shawls, shoes and dress) and they were happy. There is no dress code for the opera, but many choose to wear their best (we saw a Japanese woman in her kimono, with the traditional hair-dress and makeup). Dressed in our shirts and pants, the same ones that crawled in the Madagascar’s caves, we mixed up with the other tourists in the balcony, who bought the last minute standing tickets.

To be sure there is no misunderstanding: people like different things. Our children used to whine at opera or symphonic music. Victor, asked a few questions, listened attentively the story before the show, and was glued to his mother’s knees for the entire spectacle. In the end he declared that he liked it, very much, and he wants to go again.

The whole thing, the atmosphere, the lights, the people drinking champagne, the arias followed by enthused applause, the “Bravo!” at the top of their lungs, the synchronized clapping to call the artists, they all made me realize that I miss this kind of life.

Last day arrived too early. In the morning we said good bye to Victor (who had to go to school), packed the bags and left for a quick visit to the Belvedere Museum, where they had a Gustav Klimt exhibition. It is interesting to see the small changes leading to that surprising and explosive break with the art canons.

These were the only Klimt that we were allowed to take pictures

Hurrying back we kept walking on the left side of the road, we even had a collision. „Tourists!” I thought, ”they don’t know on which side of the road to walk!” Then I realized, I am in the wrong... and only 9 months ago I had my first long term exposure at driving on the other side of the road. After Japan, India, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and UK, it is time to switch back to my normal, walking and driving on the right side of the road.

Vielen dank Alina und Victor!  (I’m trying to follow Victor’s example and have a better penmanship)

Many thanks Alina and Victor, for your hospitality, wonderful dishes, time and talks. We felt like we were home!

Auf wiedersehen, Wien! (ah-oof vee-dur-zen)

Good bye Vienna!

This is the monument of the Unknown "Robber" (Russian Soldier)

Teacups, Operas, and Kinder

I have a friend who frequently gives us all kinds of tips for our trip.

My favorite is this one, about New Zealand:

"Watch out for hobbits!"

Or mothers taking pictures of fire hydrants.

When I asked him about Vienna, this was his answer:

"Vienna... The only person I know who was famous from there was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Did you know his sister was as good as he was (if not better)?"

To be honest, I knew about the same amount of information (as long as you only read the first sentence). On top of that, Dad told me that when he was young his grandfather told him that the budget for the arts in Vienna was higher than the war department's budget.

I think that's very good governing.

And, on top of that, I knew that my second cousin, Victor, and his mother lived in Vienna, and that we'd be living in their house for four nights.

Thank goodness I have my dad who's willing to look up history and places to go and all that. If it was up to me I think I'd get a handle on some German, show up in Vienna without a clue, check into a hostel (maybe I'd actually have a hostel reservation?), and then ask the locals (in bad, broken German), where I can go for a half a day or something.

In the end, it turns out that seeing Vienna in 5 days is quite enough. So maybe it would take me ten, because I'd be doing everything very slowly, and then I'd probably walk around and see the rest of Austria, or bike, or whatever.

That would be quite interesting, actually. But that's not what this is all about.

The first thing we learned about travel in Vienna was that most people miss their stop because they don't know how to open the train doors. Dad told us to feel free to kick, punch, and pummel the doors into opening.

Very nice. But we weren't able to do that. Instead, the doors were opened by one of the other commuters, and we all filed out very quietly with no kicking or punching involved.

We ate Romanian food…

This is German food. But it's a flattering picture of everyone.

Talked in Romanian…

And I, at least, started thinking in Romanian again.

But, on to things of general traveler interest.

There are apparently two things that must be seen in Vienna (I know this because these were the only two places Dad was adamant about me leaving the house for).

The Hofburg Palace.

And the Viennese Opera.

More importantly, in the Hofburg Palace, the silver display and the Sisi museum.

Personally, I think I could have done quite well without the silver display, since all I saw displayed was a gross exhibition of how rich the royal family wanted to appear to be. There were about five forks for each meal, not to mention the various forms of knives, and most of them were made of gold or silver.

What is the point of all of this? Status?

I did like the teacups.

But that was about all that I liked.

Otherwise I was relieved to reach the Sisi museum. We weren't allowed to take pictures, which is a shame because there were some very beautiful hairstyles I would have like to have tried to copy (which is probably a fruitless wish seeing as Empress Elizabeth's hair was from her knees to her ankles, depending on whom you ask. Ileana's hair is just to her shoulders.). And she had some beautiful dresses!

But then, at about the middle of the exhibition, I started getting really annoyed with her. Yes, she had hardship in her life, but apparently all she thought about was herself. And how badly she felt because she'd lost her personal freedom by marrying the emperor.

I got quite sick of it, despite the fact that she had beautiful dresses and hair-dos. Rather, I started feeling quite bad for the poor emperor Franz-Josef, who woke up at 4:30 every morning and worked from before sun-up to after sun-down. And on top of that he loved his family. As opposed to Sisi, who had pictures of poets in her most-used rooms, he had portraits of his entire family near him at all times.

Dad, for some ridiculously crazy reason, is still eager to see more museums.

I don't understand the amount of energy he can bring up for these things. I just don't. I cannot work up the energy to eat if I'm tired, let alone see a billion museums and actually enjoy myself at them.

And yet, Dad has been doing that this entire trip. WHERE IS HIS OFF BUTTON??

Anyway. We went to see L'elisir d'amore. It's an opera about Nemorino who is in love with Adina. Adina doesn't love anyone… she's proposed to by an important military man… and accepts. Nemorino gets a love potion (actually red wine) from a quack doctor… in the end most of them live happily ever after. It's a very fun opera. 

Made funner by dressing up. Note the ubiquitous skirt.

Victor, who'd never been to the opera before, was bouncing around and enjoying himself famously. I think he liked it. At least, he looked as if he liked it.

But then, he enjoys everything. Maybe even homework.

But despite the fact that I'm not being coherent or doing Vienna justice, it was an enjoyable experience. Certainly different, looking at a sign and thinking, "Oh, I know what that says!" And then looking at the translation and finding out that it's something completely different than what you thought it was.

"Kinder," by the way, means "children" in German

The Best City in the World

According to September's National Geographic, again this year the best city to live in this world is Vienna. To understand what this means, the highest ranked American city is Honolulu, at number 29. The Economist uses a different scale and rates Vienna a close second, after Melbourne. This wasn't our reason to come here, we came to meet with Alina and Victor. For nine years now, my children knew they have a cousin and wanted to meet with him, but unfortunately they had to wait this long.

So we stayed with family for four nights, we were spoiled with luxurious accommodation and the best food, mostly Romanian recipes. When we went out one night at a typical Viennese garden we had a hard time choosing from all the options and left too full and sorry that we don't have a second stomach. We didn't try the famous Viennese desserts, it just didn't work out, but we had to leave something for next time. It was hard to divide time between family and touristic and historic destinations, but we worked it out. After a couple of days, without yet knowing the above statistics, I felt the difference, "this is an amazing city, I had no idea how awesome it is. We were here 21 years ago, changing trains for Paris, we had fond memories but nothing to prepare us for this." Alina didn't agree entirely with me, apparently there are some annoying powerful winds in the winter, she must know, she lives here all year long. But we had four gorgeous days and a load of great experiences.

At two million people Vienna is a pretty big European city and it's history is like no other. The capital of the Holy Roman Empire for a few hundred years and then the capital of the Habsburgs and the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the end of the first world war, this was one of the capitals where the fate of many european nations was decided. Then it became the capital of a small negligible nation, swallowed by fascist Germany and after being destroyed in the second world war it was divided, much like Berlin, among the four winning nations. It was only in 1955, after the soviets decided to withdraw, that Vienna and Austria finally got their independence. It remained a hot spot throughout the cold war and after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe it became the gate to the West for the liberated people and the gate to the East for many western businesses. Building on its historical and cultural legacy and heading for the future, Vienna became one of the headquarters of UN and many other organizations, it is the main destination for international congresses and conventions and it welcomes about 5 million visitors per year. In 2001 the city center was declared a World Heritage Site. As a significant part of Romania was under Austrian occupation for a few hundred years, it had a bad connotation for us, this is where the oppression started. Much older and with a much more open mind, I came ready to learn the other side of the story.

We went on a walk on Kärntner Strasse, a beautiful pedestrian avenue that took us to the St. Stephen's cathedral, a 700 year old gothic church that is the symbol of Vienna. For good measure we then went to the nearby St. Peter Cathedral, only 400 years old and built in a quite different baroque style.

Ileana and the parents enjoyed a few hours in the Haus der Musik, a fun interactive museum that could be built in any place in the world but it's only right here, in the City of Music.

There are two imperial palaces here, the winter one, Hofburg and the summer one, Schönbrunn. We decided to visit just one, Maria, Ileana and Ileana Ruxandra wrote about it. The palace complex is huge and it's mostly occupied by governmental institutions, but nearby it has several amazing museums.

There are 5000 government workers here every day

All over, it is the story of the Habsburgs intertwined with the history of Europe through the centuries. We learned quite a lot and got primed to follow it later in Prague and Berlin. Maria Theresa was the evil empress from my childhood, who, being told that her Romanian subjects have no bread, suggested that they eat cake instead. In Vienna we learned about a pretty smart lady who reigned for 40 years, avoided wars and promoted peace. Kind of. She had 16 children and married most of them away to other royal houses in Europe in an effort to foster good diplomatic relationships. She ended slavery in her Empire and banned torture 230 years before President Obama stopped it in America. Now that's impressive!

We also learned about the Emperor Franz Josef. He reigned for 68 years during a tumultuous era in Europe. He might have been an workaholic, but he took his job very serious. We visited his apartment, saw his office and his desk, learned about his daily schedule. And about his unhappy wife.

After Hofburg my family went home but I was allowed to go on.

Kunsthistorisches Museum, the museum of art history, was built especially for this purpose by the Emperor Franz Josef and inaugurated in 1891. It was designed to house part of the phenomenal art collections of the Habsburg emperors and make it available to the general public. The monumental building is absolutely stunning and the exhibits are invaluable.

This huge room is just a display of paintings that would normally be kept in storage; it is used to show how paintings were displayed in the old times

Who doesn't know this painting of the Babel tower?

The largest collection of Bruegel the Elder anywhere in the world, indecent loads of Rubens and Italian masters and four paintings by Giuseppe Arcimboldo!!!

credit wikipedia

In the main hallway there was scaffolding built to allow people to see up close some of the ceiling paintings, some of them by Gustav Klimt and some by his brother. No pictures allowed, but here is a poster in the street advertising the special exhibit:

I couldn't have enough. I got a combined ticket allowing me to visit the next morning the Hofburg Treasury and I spent hours marveling at the jewels exposed there. Here is the the crown made for Otto in 960, the first king to call himself Holy Roman emperor. Nearby, the 11th century Imperial Cross, with a special opening in the back where they put a piece of the "true" cross on which Jesus was crucified, considered of special value because it has the mark of one one the nails, and the Holy Lance, used by one of the soldiers to pierce his side. The Roman Emperors carried this lance in battles as it was believed to give them special powers and protection. Nearby, a 500 year old unicorn tusk and countless other holy relics and jewelry pieces.

The crown

detail

The holy Gospel of Charlemagne (AD 800)

Imperial Cross, flanked by the Holy Lance and a piece of the true cross

The mark of one of the nails

500-year old unicorn tusk

Since I had free entrance, I stopped at the Ephesus museum and the Museum of Ancient Musical instruments. They were both only in German, I didn't understand much of what I've seen, but it was nice to wander alone through the halls of the magnificent Hofburg palace. There were hardly any other tourists around and almost no guards.

That last evening it was a night at the Opera. All seven of us went, another magical experience. I like classical opera, but I never knew that it can sound so good.

On the side of the opera, on a giant screen they project the performance free and live

People take seats hours in advance to see the opera

The interior of the Viennese Opera

And next day, after a quick tour of the Klimt exhibition at the Belvedere Palace, we left for Prague...