Christmas Vienna Style

I fail to believe that anyone can live near or the Alps without constantly being in awe of them. They are massive and they are beautiful- I’d wager especially at present when covered in snow.  They just show you how tiny humans are in the scheme of things and as you descend them into the warmer climes near the sea and you watch the landscape change from heavy coats of snow to water and blue skies there is no way that people cannot be astounded by the diversity of the world we live in. It is so profound that I didn’t really mind that my train from Vienna went to Villach and then to Jesenice (in Slovenia) and then to Nova Gorica (still Slovenia) and then I had to make my own way across the Italian border to the neighbouring town of Gorizia (taxi with the nicest driver who spoke Slovenian and Italian but no English but managed to convey me from the train station in one town to the station in other via a bancomat (an ATM) and when he didn’t have change for my 20 euro note searched the train station for 15 minutes looking for someone who did- in the end I gave him the 20 even he looked like he was about to say that I could have the 9.80 euro ride for free) and finally to Venice!  At least I can now say I’ve been to Slovenia- what I saw didn’t excite me but supposedly the capital is historical and pretty and all.

Awesome ceiling art at the Kunsthistoriche Museum in Vienna

Christmas away from home is a little weird and it is the first time that I’ve done it. Arriving in Vienna on the 22 December, I was welcomed with an invite to Christmas lunch from people in the area which made one less problem for me as Christmas lunch on your own in a random cafe or restaurant is more than a bit pathetic (in the correct definition of the word). For the first time, my hostel was not in the city centre and was instead in the village of Hütteldorf which lies on the western edge of Vienna. Vienna thankfully has a brilliant underground system and Hütteldorf is the last stop on one of the U-Bahn lines which suddenly makes it a quick 10 min ride to the city. Hütteldorf being a little higher and less urbanised than central Vienna, the snow that was melting rapidly in the centre was still hanging round on the edges of the forest in Hütteldorf. The more I travel the more I understand that just as I cannot isolate accents when people speak in languages other than English (I’m getting better hearing them, though not picking, in German after the last couple of weeks- I think I could pick an Italian or French person speaking it but don’t test me), people from non-English speaking backgrounds cannot pick mine when I speak English. When I spoke to my American dorm mate, she clearly understood that I was from Australia and she from the States (California if I hazarded a guess). But just as the Chinese girl in Berlin, a German waiter on a train and the Korean guy in Prague had, the Taiwanese girls in my dorm asked if I was English or American and I had to confirm that I was Australian.  Our accent is so strong and so hideous I thought anyone could pick it but it seems not so much. The hostel got its own version of Christmas on with a tree and some decorations going up. On Christmas morning, we were given free eggs with our breakfast (eggs usually being 80 cents each) and on Boxing Day there were Christmas cookies available with breakfast (sadly I didn’t get any as the girls at the table next to mine stole about 20 each). As an added lovely surprise the Taiwanese girls in my dorm made Christmas cards for everyone in the dorm. See the Christmas spirit even creeps in the edges of the very un-Christmas-y world of hostel living.

My first day in Vienna and I was resisting the temptation to become the cliché film buff tourist that is lurking under my surface. I find film buff tourism (or other themed tourism- especially of the Da Vinci Code variety) a little odd and not the done thing. That said Before Sunrise has been a film very close to my heart since I first saw it about 12 years ago. For those unfamiliar with the Richard Linklater oeuvre beyond School of Rock, Before Sunrise is the story of two very Gen X individuals who meet on the train travelling in Europe- she is heading back to France from Hungry and he is an American tourist- he is catching a plane out of the Vienna but when the train stops there, he convinces her to get off the train and send the night wandering the streets of Vienna with him as his plane doesn’t leave until the morning. They spend the night walking the streets of Vienna and talking about life. If you haven’t seen it, I heartily recommend it and the sequel, Before Sunset, which is set 9 years later in Paris. Not just because I have a soft spot for Ethan Hawke who plays the American, Jesse, or because Richard Linklater is one of my favourite directors- the script is brilliant, the city is beautiful, the acting is great and you can see the brilliant Julie Deply (she is a profound actor and very underused- her directorial debut 2 Days in Paris will probably get more than a bit of mention when I get there). Plug for Before Sunrise done for the minute, I told myself I wouldn’t spend my time in Vienna tracking the film as many have done in the past.  My first morning, I noticed on the train that it seemed that the Film Museum was having a Howard Hawkes exhibit and was thinking awesome I can see Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, To Have or Have Not or His Girl Friday in German tonight hopefully. Sadly it was closed for Christmas as was the musical I was thinking of seeing- Tanz der Vampires(yes based on the Polanski film). Instead I had myself some super tasty apple strudel with vanilla sauce and found museums devoted to the arts to check out. The Theatre Museum you can skip as, except the beauty of the building, it isn’t worth the 8 euro admission, but after it, hyperbole aside, I found the best interactive museum in the world. Haus der Musik in Vienna is an interactive music museum where not only can you learn about composers and how we hear sound, you can re-experience the sounds of the womb, conduct the Vienna philharmonic and mix natural sounds with music to name some of the exhibits. Especially if you are in Vienna with children, don’t go past this place, it rocks. Come the afternoon and I was thinking, for being in Europe, I’ve seen very few royal jewellery collections so off to the Imperial Palace and the Austrian royal treasury. I can now say I understood the concepts of reliquary even less. There were plenty on display and the idea of having a human (more likely another animal knowing the medieval relic trade) bone embedded in a crucifix around the house is bizarre and morbid. Those wacky Medieval Catholics!

Sucking the last marrow out of my Christmas market experience (yep I’m continuing the bone link), I was off to the Maria Therese Platz markets that evening and that the Schloss Schönbrunn ones the next morning. I think Schloss Schönbrunn in summer or spring would definitely be worth the visit as the grounds look beautiful or like they would be beautiful if they were green and less dead in the snow- that said there is something about imperial gardens in the dead of winter which is quite pretty and haunting. After this, back into town to go on the Kunsthistoriche (Art History) Museum. It was one of the few open on Christmas Eve and the building is spectacular- the rooms are all painted in the style of the exhibit in that area i.e. Greek themed in the Greek section and Egyptian in the Egyptian and the ceilings of the main hall are also very amazingly painted. Sadly I couldn’t see it all as it closed at 1. So what was left open on Christmas Eve? Churches! I went to look at Stephansdom, the cathedral, which is pretty when lit (as it was for mass the next morning), but not in darkness and gloom as it was the afternoon I went there. Also the bell tower is a rip at 4.50 euro as it isn’t tall enough so the roof of the cathedral blocks half the view. Then I caved and became the film tourist and visited Maria am Gestade which is a tiny church in central Vienna. In Before Sunrise, Celine and Jesse find it and sit inside to talk for a little while including about religion. Sadly I was in a rush so didn't go in. Even worse the thing I was in rush to see- The Votivkirche- was closed for renovations and yes it also appears in Before Sunrise. After this I met with people for a gluhwein in the Rathaus (Town Hall) Christmas Markets which had some truly awesome tree decorations I’ve seen thus far. Warmed by wine, I was off in the rain as the sunset to find the one sight from Before Sunrise that I was DEFINITELY going to see. It seems cemeteries and me aren’t mixing on this trip. The sight in question was the Cemetery of the Nameless. This cemetery has graves to those who washed up in the river but were not identified and it is on the southern most edge of Vienna- the film makes it look like it is right in the centre but no you need to take a U-bahn train, a tram and a bus to get there. I got the train OK but when I could off the rain was heavier and the dark was setting in, then thinking ‘well it’s the last station of the tram so it will stop there and stay there for a while’ I jumped on the back carriage of the tram. The back carriage sound system was shot and so announcements were just muffled noise and it turns out that the tram loops at the end in instead of stopping for a while so next thing you know (i.e. 30 minutes later) I look up and I’m back where I started. Being as it was after 6pm and pretty dark, I gave up- a sight for next time I guess. That night, I found someone whose German was worse than mine! After the novelty of a restaurant with a smoking section the night before, I went to one of the only open restaurants on Christmas Eve....a Japanese one. The waiter was Japanese and while I ordered in German (as much as that is possible when ordering Tempura Udon), he answered in German only to a point after which he would lapse into English...hilarious!

Lights and decorations at Rathaus Markets

Christmas Day and I kept up my Christmas traditions. I may not be a practising Catholic, but at Christmas I go to the Catholic Church with my family and then most years go to a late night service at the local Anglican Church. I did the former but not the later this year. I headed to Stephansdom for mass which was accompanied by a string orchestra and a choir (beautiful music). I made the mistake of running late and sitting up the back in the tourist section. Despite massive signs, the guard type guys were really bad at keeping tourists out during mass and so there was a constant flow of people in and out to take photos and some people in the service near me kept standing up to take photos which I found more than a less offensive and disrespectful- they need to steal the bossy guy from Dublin to keep people out. The people in my section were largely either tourism or C&E Catholics so had no idea when to sit, stand and kneel, and though I did know even with everything being in German, I just had to follow what they did to avoid looking weird. At the end of the service, I felt mighty proud of myself as I knew the carol that ended the mass in German! Thanks to high school German for teaching me Silent Night in the original language, I could sing along with everyone else. After this to lunch and it was great to be able to join in the whole Christmas vibe so far from home by eating lunch with people (one of my hosts called it dinner on the phone to an Austrian, as we would back in Australia, and was met with great confusion about eating dinner in the middle of the day- so I’ll stick with calling it lunch to avoid confusion). Lunch was tasty and filling as it should be and I was also gifted with some cheesy touristy Mozart head chocolates (chocolate balls wrapped in foil with a picture of Mozart on them)- these were my lunch on the train via Slovenia and they were tasty. As I headed back to the hostel, I witnessed the sad site of the Christmas market on Karlsplatz being all shut down. I will miss the markets as I travel onwards.

A Mozart Man!

 Last words from Vienna, beware the Mozart Men! No not some scary Doctor Who-isque creation (though the statues at the Opera House do look like Weeping Angels) and I can’t claim credit for the name either as I got it from my hosts for Christmas lunch. The Mozart Men are guys (I think I only saw one woman doing it but I saw at least 50 men) trying to sell tickets for “genuine” Mozart concerts in various locations in Vienna for cheap and they are ALL over the city and difficult to avoid (like charity collectors at Sydney train stations). After getting catch once but getting away sans ticket, I managed to avoid them. My hosts at lunch (who are musicians) said that shows are by ring-in orchestras who are often sight-reading the music so they can be a mixed bag but that the architecture of the buildings the shows are in is pretty. Their advice if you want a cheap concert in a pretty building, sure go to one but it might not be great. My advice, run away!