Goodbye Vienna

Local music group from a small town near Salzburg
performing in Vienna for Wind Music festival


Leah and Rich


Haus der Meers in old Flak tower


View from the car of the ferris wheel

In the ferris wheel car

I am sitting at an outdoor café on a lovely Vienna morning, lingering over my mélange and thinking about how fast 4 months can go! Tomorrow we leave for New Jersey and life returns to normal. This has been an incredible experience and we are truly grateful for the opportunity to be here and experience all that we have. While we will be sad to leave this extraordinary city, we do realize this has been a unique respite, and not reality. So I trade my Wiener mélange for drip coffee and the efficient Wiener Linien transit system for New Jersey Transit and get on with life. I don’t expect anyone to feel sorry for me!

So today I will just mention a few more things that we did recently, just to be sure to get in some mention of the experiences. One afternoon Rebecca, Rich and I visited the Haus der Meers, a small aquarium that is located in one of the former flak towers in the city. I am not sure if I have mentioned these before, but they are huge, concrete structures, put up by the Nazis during the war as places to shoot from as well as for defense. There are 8 of them around the city, in pairs, and they are so large and heavy that it has been determined that it would not be worth it to try to destroy them. (Actually the Russians tried, shortly after the war, but did not get too far. The amount of dynamite needed would have also destroyed all the surrounding area! The one they worked on now has loose concrete at the top, held together with wires.) The towers were also used to house troops and in each pair, one had lights while the other had the guns. They really provide a shocking reminder when you come upon them suddenly. Anyway, the city has been trying for years to figure out what to do with them- most are empty and sit in parks. But this one has been adapted for use as an aquarium and while it is small, it is quite effective.
Near another one of these pairs of towers, in the Augarten Park, a concrete bunker was discovered. It now houses a very trendy bar where we also went one night, raising the median age considerably!

Another place we have gone where we were among the oldest folks present, was the Donaufest, a huge music festival on the narrow island in the Danube River. It is a whole weekend of various types of music on a number of different stages, all provided for free and a big draw. We went on a Saturday night, when most of the music was of the loud rock variety. We didn’t stay long for the music, but it was fun seeing it and being there anyway!

The summer is absolutely full of festivals, both of locals and tourists. One of the early ones was the Festival of Wind Music that brought in local, traditional bands from all over Austria in a sort of combination of concerts and competition. The Saturday morning of that weekend, various bands played at different local markets around the city, so went to the Rochusmarkt near our apartment to hear one of them. Pictures included here.

Another of our major occupations recently has been watching World Cup matches. It has been really fun being here for it, where people are really into soccer. Every bar, restaurant or little corner café has tvs set up, especially for this, with live coverage every evening. So most night we have been going out to find groups to watch it with, including one evening at the beach bar on the Danube canal. In several spots along the canal, enterprising people have imported sand and set up beach chairs to create a “beach” atmosphere (it is along the water after all)! We went here the night Mexico played its final game and unbeknownst to us, this was the Mexican hangout in town, so the fans were quite enthusiastic, even though they lost! But it is much more fun that sitting in our living room alone watching the games!

One of my favorite activities here, and one I have been looking forward to for the whole time was a trip on the giant ferris wheel. We see it from the window of our apartment and it has been a constant landmark for our stay in Vienna. It was erected for a world’s exposition in the 19th century and has been in use ever since. It was pretty much destroyed during the war, but reconstructed afterward, only with fewer of the big cars. It is a major symbol of the city and appears in many films about or in Vienna, including The Third Man and Before Sunrise. Those of you who know me, know that amusement park rides are not really something I like, but this is different. You sit in a large, enclosed car and it turns very slowly so that you get incredible views over the city. It does go quite high and I had a few minutes of nervousness at the top, but I knew I could not leave without having done this and I am very glad we did!

We also had a couple more trips to heurigens, or local wine taverns. One night we went with Leah to the town of Grinzing, which is very picturesque, near the Vienna woods, and full of heurigens. The one we went to is quite old, and displays a collection of wine bottle corks dating from the 17th century! They also had wandering musicians who went to different tables and sang traditional old Austrian songs. Luckily they seemed to know this was not for us! Also the final Fulbright gathering was at another heuriger, this time in Nusdorf, which is another of these cute old villages that have been incorporated into the city. This was a large group- of current Fulbright students as well as professors and it was quite a nice evening.

And of course, one of my prime activities during this trip has been looking at architecture. I have been slow getting it organized, but I plan on posting a number of albums of the various buildings we have viewed, including Red Vienna housing projects, Jungenstil buildings in Vienna and those from our various trips. So even though I may not write any more, those of you interested in the architectural component will still have some new material.

If anyone is still reading this blog, thanks for keeping up your interest. I did it for others to know what we were up to, but also so that we would have a record of all our wonderful experiences to look back on in the future. If you haven’t been here, maybe it will inspire you. This is definitely a city worth the trip.

See you soon back in the US of A!