Sommersault


whoa...is that my heart i hear beating?

It's too bad I have a conference to go to, because Vienna and I are hitting it off swimmingly. So well, in fact, that Prague and it's tourist throngs and cheap-shit stores seem like a distant, chintzy memory. Vienna! I could easily spend a million dollars in this city, but even without that, and despite the fact that I'm all awone, I'm having a great time.

First: breakfast. Hearty german rolls and cheese that actually tastes like cheese. And, for the first time since I left Canada, coffee that didn't taste like dishwater. Damn, that was good.

Then I went to the Stephansdom, right in time for mass.


It was a nice service with a good homily -- my little protestant heart could sing along and was glad for the experience and the prayer time, because my prayer life has been screwey of late.

Then I prowled around the Hofburg for a while and went to the Kunsthistorisches Musem:


What's that big concrete block? There are actually two of them -- it is two statues walled in as a commemoration of their removal by the Nazis, and as a memorial to the victims of National Socialism. I like it.

After a whole lot of Rubens, Titian, Rembrandt, and oh so many others, I mosied off the tourist path until I found a quiet cafe, for a coffee and apfelstrudel. I love that you can just sit by yourself in the cafes here, grab a magazine from the stack, and sit as long as you want. No shiny/bitchy Starbucks boys, no paper cups, and nobody screaming into their cell phone next to you. The cafe was next to (gads!) a yarn store. It was closed since it's Sunday, but ohhhh, I will be back.

Then I went to the Wiener Kunsthaus


to see the Hundertwasser exhibit.
This museum is amazing! The uneven floor (because "straight lines are godless") is the best part. I listened to Zero 7 while I walked through the exhibit, which made the whole thing kind of like an extremely colorful dream.

After that, I was dead tired, but feeling, for the first time in a long time, alive and inspired and in the mood to dance. I wonder if this city can massage my hatred of science/research out of me as well. I haven't knitted anything in a while, but now I really want to, and in color. Tomorrow: yarn store.

For dinner I had a cone of poppyseed-flavored ice cream (I know...weird. But good.), followed by a Bratwurst with Sauerkraut and a glass of wine, all from a booth on the street in front of the cathedral.

I guess I'm supposed to go to some conference or something tomorrow?

Posted: Sun - April 24, 2005 at 09:18 PM        

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