Alpine Summer

Just wanted to share this Sebastian Breemer photo of the Austrian Alps :)

I want to do this next time.

A week in Texas

I've been home a week and am no longer shocked by giant glasses of ice water. Nor do I feel for light switches outside of the room. Vienna seems like ages ago, already.

Things I miss about Vienna

Buildings covered in people

Hearing about "Fahrt"s :)

Estherhazy Schnitte or any other kind of Torte

 

Silly friends at the Bezirk Museum after church

 

Wonderful Roses

Imperial Architecture [Hey look I almost blend in with Charles' Church!]

And my badge. I'm quite unclassified now.

Sigmund Freud did Cocaine

This surprised me to learn during our visit to the Freud Museum. In fact, he prescribed it to his friends as a way to combat an opium addiction.

Living in Vienna, surrounded by psychology majors, a trip to 19 Berggasse was essential. Although Doktor Freud lived in many locations around the city, this is the place he practiced and lived just before fleeing to London at the beginning of the Second World War.

We listened to an audio guide filled with his only radio interview, a debate about psycho therapy, and clips of his favorite female singer Yvette Gilbert.  The rooms were mostly empty though... just a few knick knacks and photo reproductions. Unfortunately even the infamous couch in the Behandlungszimmer was shipped to London.. and is still there. This is what the room used to look like:

Can you imagine lying there and spilling your soul?

Further Evidence that my Alarm Clock is Alive.

Heya folks! I've gotta little story for you. So miracle of miracles, I'm home with the armadillo. Why is it always so difficult to leave Vienna? Because my alarm clock sabotaged me. Again. This is proof that it truly is an atomic clock, with a mind of its own. It obviously wasn't ready to leave. The most likely reason is jealousy of my normal alarm clock. 

Let's start with this alarm not going off at 4:15 AM and me awaking at 5:36 AM with a gasp. The Embassy was kind enough to arrange for a driver to pick me up at 5:15 AM. I sprinted to the window to see if the driver was still outside. Thank God he was.

Then, I threw clothes on and ran out the door with one arm in a jacket and my giant 34 kg (70 lb) blue suitcase. Unfortunately the gate door slammed closed behind me-- locking a key-less Laura out. Moment of panic #2.

The driver grabs a crowbar from the back of the van and scales the wall in a single bound over the mail boxes to buzz us in. After the astonishment of seeing (1) this man fly over a fence and (2) how easy it was to break into my residence wore off, I ran back in to lumber down the stairs with the last suitcase filled with souvenirs and my laptop.

Embarrassing Moment #3: It's approximately 5:42 AM and I have to fix my hair and make-up in the passenger seat next to the driver (who probably works for an intelligence service based on the alacrity with which he made it over that fence). I want to take a shower.

Kill-me-now Moment #12: It's approximately 6:28 AM. The self-service kiosk doesn't print my 2nd boarding pass. I have to wait in the mounting line behind a large Austrian tour group led by an annoyingly perky woman. (Still haven't had coffee or been able to brush my teeth).

Moment of utter panic #3: The man tells me my suitcase is 2 kg over the weight limit. So, I have to quickly remove 2 kg (in full view of everyone) from my chaotic suitcase while people stare daggers into my back. (How much is 2 kg???) Luckily, I had stashed all the chocolate in a bag on top. So, I grabbed that bag and threw in my giant study bible. Even after these efforts, I still have to pay the 36 euro "heavy bag" charge. And carry around another bag. Blerghy derg.

7:00 AM. Coffee and food. But there was not much time! So I ended up tapping my foot, waiting in another line to order a latte with some sort of flat sandwich. The timing was highly inconvenient because I prefer lukewarm, not hot, coffee. There was no time to let my coffee cool. There was no cold milk to pour in the coffee. My poor taste buds still feel scalded.

Eventually, it's 7:35 AM. I made it on the plane and all was well. The layover in London was nice because I wound up meeting a study abroad group from the University of Houston. The rest of the trip was not remarkable. I had two mini bottles of wine at dinner, and those sent me right off to sleep. Nothing is better than drinking on overseas airplanes. Even if you do get dehydrated.

My family met me at the airport Arrivals gate. We went promptly to Chuy's for tortillas and margaritas and creamy jalapeno dip. This will be in my memory forever as one of the best meals of my life. 

It's nice to be home :) I still promise to post the rest of my Vienna stories though... a ton happened the last 4 days I was there (including a burglary!).

The Red Eye Flight

These cartoons are by Christoph Niemann out of the New York Times last week. They perfectly describe transatlantic flights. Check out the whole series here.

One last Wiener Veek-end

Saying auf wiederschon to the city over the course of 2 days... 

Good bye Wiener Fruhstuck at Cafe Mozart...
Graham Greene's favorite cafe

Goodbye curious city mixed with old and new

 

Goodbye  8 000 kinds of cheese at Naschmarkt

Goodbye Sacher Torte and goodbye friends

 More goodbye pictures to come after I upload them.

I have been walking around non-stop the last few days! We went to the Freud Museum, Rathaus festival and so many other places. Stay tuned for more pictures after I get home. 

I'm flying tomorrow and probably won't be able to post again until Texas.. but I have loads more stories and pictures from the last few days to regale you with.

100 H20

In case you were beginning to believe that Vienna is only filled with classical, imperial architecture...

Meet Hundertwasser

He was an artist/architect/environmentalist/philosopher. His buildings reflect his zany ideas about window dictatorships and having tree tenets. This one is called Hundertwasserhaus, it's an apartment complex.

He believed flat floors were only for machines.

Down the street is Kunst Haus Wien, where you can see his artwork housed inside another one of his designs.

Critics said it looked like "half melted licorice"

100H20 also designed the Austrian license plate, postage stamps and the world's most colorful garbage incinerator (which includes a golden dome).

Spotting Forgeries 101

Yesterday, Aaron and Katie and I happened upon die Falschermusum or Museum of Art Fakes!

Katie in front of the "Rembrandt" wall.

How exciting! There is not a better way to spend 4 euros in Vienna. It's a criminal art musuem filled with faked paintings by the world's finest forgers including Han van Meegeren ("The Fake Vermeer"), Eric Hebborn, David Stein (author of Three Picassos before Breakfast) and Konrad Kujau (so famous forgers made forged Kujaus).

The museum did a great job of providing narrative histories to go along with the pieces. It was the perfect counterpoint to the exhibit at the National Gallery in London I saw a few weeks ago.

For instance
During World War 2, Han van Meegeren cheated Hermann Goring into buying a fake Vermeer painting entitled "Christ and the Adultress" for $100,000. After the war, he was held and prosecuted for betrayal and helping the enemy. Van Meegeren admitted to having forged many fake Vermeers in the trial and had to paint another one from prison in order to be exculpated. Today, these forged paintings are worth nearly as much as true Vermeers.

Doesn't it look real?? This one would have fooled me.

So would this "Chagall"

These two were the best at capturing the feel of the artist. The other "Monets" and "Van Goghs" and "Rembrandts" were nicht so gut.

Closer to home-

Apparently Texas oil magnate Algur H. Meadows bought 56 forged paintings before de Hory was unveiled as a fraud in 1966. The Meadows Foundation has a museum near SMU. Just think of how many of those paintings might have been affected. The forger eventually sold his story, which was turned into a documentary "F for Fake" starring Orson Wells.

WW2 Photo Mash Ups

A friend sent me the link to Sergey Larenkov's work. He photographs the current state of locations found in war photos in Berlin, Prague, St. Petersburg, Moscow and Vienna. These are so awesome!

Here are two in Vienna

In front of the Hofburg (Imperial Palace you've heard so much about)

Final Countdown 7...6...5...

It's hard to believe that I'll fly home next Wednesday! Once again, I'm running low on shampoo and toothpaste. How does this always work out so perfectly?

I'm excited to talk to family and friends, drink Texas Pecan Coffee every morning, eat tortillas, Rosie Pho's and sweet potatoes. And drive my car. It will be so exciting to wear all my clothes, I may try to wear them all at the same time.

Some things I have liked about Austria:

(1) Chocolate muselix (with hazelnuts)
(2) Inside art museums
(3) Outside this city looks like an art museum
(4) Not having homework
(5) Mondays at Cafe Landtmann when the piano man plays
(6) Chuckling when people walk down the sidewalk using ski poles
(7) Chuckling when people wear red pants with a pink shirt

Some things I have an irrational aversion to while in Austria:

(1) Going to the Post Office
(2) Eating sausage
(3) Riding the train

This list may surprise you. So, obviously there are still things to work on for next time.

the straight line is godless

Or so spoke Hundertwasser. More on him soon. This week I've been in full-stop tourist mode running all over Vienna visiting art museums and purchasing jams, chocolate and pumpkin seed oil (apparently this is an Austrian specialty served over ice cream). 

Sunday, I visited the Albertina 

to see 20th century art and prints by Alex Katz, 

Heinrich Kuhn and Walton Ford.

My favorite painting there was this one by Feininger.

The other favorite view was the one from the roof

 Look twice. I spy a wascally wabbit

Tweet tweet tweet

So today I tweeted on behalf of US Embassy Vienna. Very exciting.

My roommate took me to work with her at the bilateral embassy where we worked in the Public Affairs section. About the only thing I had time to do in between meet and greets was write 140 character long sentences (including spaces) about things Austrians and Americans might find interesting.

Ironically, it takes a very long time to post a tweet. 4 people must OK it. This is contradictory to the nature of the tweet. 

Now what do I do?

After a wonderful week, full of laughs and adventures, the girls departed yesterday. Because Drew visited for nearly a week before they arrived, I forget what exactly I used to do before they were all here. It's sad. The girls have promised to guest blog on this site about their visit to Vienna and Prague when they get back. So stay tuned.

Here is a photo recap of the week

One day after work, we met on the Copa Cagrana for dinner... 

to make friends with swans

Floating down the Beautiful Blue Danube from Laura Joost on Vimeo.

 And to take a dolphin ride down the beautiful blue Danube

The next day we traveled on a WEASEL to Melk to visit the Benedictine Abbey. My grandparents had taken me there a decade ago on my first trip to Europe, so it was neat to revisit it. I remember being so impressed by the library and the view.

It was just as beautiful as I remembered.

One of my favorite things about living here are the caryatid figures who support walls. Some of them look so cranky.

The original plan was to return to Vienna via bicycle and boat... but the rain caused us to cancel the bicycling portion. We had a rainy ride back up the Danube river, passing miles and miles of vineyards and castle ruins.