Art in Vienna

I've noticed I seem to seek out a different experience in each city we visit. In Berlin we went to a lot of squats, Munich was mostly checking out the gay scene, Praha was partying and Vienna has been art and museums. There's art everywhere here and just as everyone in LA seems to want to be famous, everyone here seems to want to be an artist. Some of them are actually pretty good.

I was sick as a dog by the time we left Prague, possibly from all the parties there. Fortunately we hooked up a place to stay with Suzi and Roland and their daughter Elena. It's nice because they let me mostly sleep until I felt better.

Suzi was my nanny when I was 4. Apparently I talked to strawberries. She's seen me only once since then and she can't stop talking about how much I've grown. Also I am apparently still strange even though I no longer talk to strawberries.
Suzi also had a lot of great stories about my mother, who, if you've never met her, is quite a character. She says even 20 years ago mom was already terrifying and Suzi never understood how "someone that small could be that scary".
Roland, her husband is equally cool and has a great selection of music that I've copied to my MP3 player. They have been great hosts and make sure we eat lots of Austrian food.
They have two dogs, Flecky is really excitable and barks and runs around in excitement if you do anything interesting. Abby is maybe not a dog, I haven't decided. She likes to sit on your lap when you're watching movies. She has a really weird under bite so the bottom row of her teeth stick out at odd angles. She's very nice and snuggly and she likes movies.
The family lives 30 minutes outside Vienna by trains that I have so far avoided paying for. I have received lessons on Austrian culture, apparently Austrians just break the rules and when they get caught they groan about it good-naturedly and continue breaking the rules when the authority figure is gone. I observed this in Vienna the other day. A bunch of people were lounging on the lawn outside one of Vienna's many palaces when the guard came by. He kindly asked us all to get off the lawn. We did, no one complained. Then when he left everyone just sat back down. Suzi says this is completely normal here and the same thing happens with the trains. I told her I didn't want to get a ticket for not paying and she said if I saw the guard... just run. She might be the coolest person ever.


Vienna is also very epic (as are all cities in Europe) but after Prague I feel that I have seen enough big pretty building to last me a lifetime. I went to take pictures of the city but ended up spending hours in a park watching duck drama. The ducks here are like the people. There was a fountain that was clearly the property of a very large and good-looking Mallard drake. Whenever his back was turned other ducks would quietly land on the water. Then he would chase them off the water shrieking and spitting like an enraged cat. But he couldn't be everywhere at once so when he was at one side of the fountain they would land on the other side. It was endlessly entertaining. I have also noticed that the mother duck provides shade for her ducklings when it gets really hot. She stands in the sun and they all pile up in her shadow.

I find that people freak out if humans go in the fountains though. It's been really hot so I decided to try to take a quick dip. Within minutes however an angry Austrian guard came out of nowhere shrieking like a duck and gesturing to the water meaning (I could only assume) I would die of Ebola if I didn't get out. I did and possibly because I looked so submissive, or possibly because I was American or possibly just because I was soaking wet (and maybe had Ebola), he asked me out on a date. I politely declined and went to find another fountain to swim in, preferably one with fish.

We got to visit the Hunterwasser house. Hunterwasser was an architect/ painter/ photographer/ sculptor who designed some buildings in Vienna. He felt that straight lines lead to the destruction of society so none of his buildings have straight lines or surfaces including the floor. They must be hard to live in because the floor goes in waves or hills and you can't put any furniture in them because nothing is flat. He uses a lot of mosaics and puts plants in random places on the facades of his buildings. He also likes to design buildings that are usually ugly like low income housing and garbage processing plants. He is one of my favorite artists.

We also went to the Belvedere to see an exhibit on Klimt. He painted around the turn of the century. I've never really seen his paintings before (except for a few in photos) but I loved them. He uses so much light and color, lots of gold and silver. He paints mostly flowers and women and his work is so sensuous. I'm pretty sure he had lots of girlfriends. His paintings show so much feeling and closeness between his subjects. I don't know much about his life but he must have been so fascinated by love and intimacy. I wondered as I looked at his paintings if he was ever able to show the kind of affection he expressed in his paintings to the women in his life. My experience with artists is that those who make the most beautiful art are the most difficult ones. It's like they vent all their emotions into making this incredible art and have nothing left for the people in their lives.

The Belvedere is nice too, it used to be a palace for an Austrian prince. He was married but his wife wasn't allowed there because he was gay and he made sure all the servants and workers at the palace were beautiful young men. It has a lot of fountains but you're not allowed to swim in those either.

I took two days off to get the city air out of my lungs and hung around Suzi's place. They have a HUGE collection of music and I'm burning a bunch to my MP3 player. One of the days we went to the lake. It's been hot here but the lake was frigid. However Suzi promised me an ice cream so I dove right in only to be apprehended by the biggest meanest looking crayfish the world has ever seen. I tried to get my brother to catch it, a difficult feat because they swim backwards and forwards. He didn't catch it, probably wise because it has massive claws. I have learned from experience that you can't pick up every interesting animal that wanders into your path but I have also learned you can usually get your brother to do it for you.

We also went "Shit Shopping". The shit shop is a flea market set up in an old dance school that's partly falling down. Young people come there to sell their clothes, as well as brownies and cookies. It's apparently the place to be, everyone there was under 30 and people just hang out while they brows cheap clothing and try to avoid the holes in the floor. There were a lot of beautiful women there but Burble was too self righteous and insisted that women who do something as shallow as shopping for clothes are not worth his time.

Vienna has a lot of horses drawing carriages for tourists which I really wanted to go on but I have to save up my money. I got tickets for the Lipizzaner Stallions at the Spanish Riding School. I had the cheapest tier (standing room only) but I still can't eat for three days to pay for them. I have wanted to see them my whole life. It was actually a really big deal for me because when I was young I wanted to be one of the riders but they were all men. Then in 2008 they started accepting girls and in the performance I get to see the first woman to perform with the school. She was amazing.
After the performance I got to take a tour of the school and stables. The horses are treated like celebrities. They have climate controlled box stalls and there is a spa for them on the premises in case they're tired after exercise. The stable has the largest hot-walker in the world, (a hot walker is where the horses can walk to cool down after a workout). They have a pool so they can swim and personal masseuses and their boxes are mucked out every hour 24 hours a day. They also have 8 weeks off for vacation every year where they go to pristine pastures in the south of Austria.
Each rider gets assigned a stallion that that rider trains for the next 10 years before the stallion is ready to perform. The horse is only ridden by that one person so they can bond. After a few years the riders show their horses and the judges decide if the horse has what it takes to continue training. It's a really strenuous process and the dropout rate for riders is 80%. I really want to be one but I'm already too old, the riders usually start in their teens because it takes so long to be trained and then to train their horses.

I couldn't take pictures but I got to take one of the riding arena before the performance started.

After seeing the horses I took a tour of the church next to the riding school. Suzi said it was worth it and she was totally right. They showed us the crypt where the cold dry environment has naturally mummified the people buried there. They're hundreds of years old but they look like they died a couple of years ago. They still have hair and clothes. It's so interesting. There were piles of bones from floor to ceiling. A century or so ago the monks that lived there decided to clean up the crypt so they organized all the bones and even nailed some skulls to the wall, documenting that they did that "to give the crypt a more lively feeling". The guide said no one knows why they thought nailing skulls to the walls would make the place more lively. It was so fascinating though, I've never seen so many human bones. A lot of them were children and babies too because back then they thought everything could be cured by bloodletting and a lot of people died of hypovolemic shock, especially children who don't have a lot of blood to spare.

Saturday was Elena's 12th birthday and my brother decided to cook for the 16 guests. He made quiches which were amazing and everyone was really impressed. He likes to cook. He kicks everyone out of the kitchen and runs around like a mad man singing and sometimes hopping around. It's just as fun to watch him as to eat the food.

Tomorrow we head to Hungary. I was horrified to find hostels there cost thousands of Hungarian forints. However a dollar turns out to be 228 forints. When we take out money I'm going to be a millionaire. Budapest is apparently freezing cold so I'm planning on spending a lot of time in the heated public baths all over the city. You can buy a day pass for the bath and the sauna.