Country Hopping

I’ve been typing that previous post in Word and it was nearing two pages in length, so I decided to break up the post into two separate ones so…I have no good reason why.

Anyways…I slept in late this morning. When I woke up, my window was open, cool air was streaming into my room, and a truck was idling below my window. I felt a lot better though, so I’m glad I got a little extra shuteye. Also, it snowed last night in Vienna. Just a light blanket, but I thought I was done with that stuff.

I got up, packed my stuff, ate breakfast, and headed out for one last day in Vienna. I maintain my stance from before that Vienna is…alright. I’m not in love with the city, and after two trips, I’m in no rush to return.

I started off by going to the Hofburg Palace.  I think this is probably my favorite sight of the trip. It’s where the Hapburgs stayed during the winter months and focused mainly on Franz Joseph I and his eccentric wife, Sisi. Also, there was an audioguide, so I knew I was going to be hooked.

It started off with a tour of the Imperial Silver Collection, which is…a collection of plates. I think it was like 7 rooms of different sets of pans, plates, centerpieces, and more glasses, forks, bowls, and meat presses than you could shake a stick at.

Even though it was a bunch of table settings, I found it to be pretty interesting. Did you know for a long time, they only ate off of gold or silver plates? Never porcelain because it wasn’t fancy enough. Then porcelain started working its way into the dessert course before the 1800s when they decided that it was fancy enough for entire meals.(Also, they were sort of running out of money and started melting down their plates to make coins.)

Oh yeah, this napkin. See how it’s all folded? I mean, it’s no towel shaped like a dog, but apparently that design is like, super exclusive. It’s only folded like that on special occasions and only two people in the whole wide world have been taught how to make that napkin masterpiece. The directions on how to do it are passed down only by word of mouth. Imagine if you knew how to fold that napkin AND the KFC recipe? You’d be set for life.

After the Imperial Silver Collection was a little museum dedicated to Franz Joseph’s wife, Sisi. Her real name was Elizabeth and she was actually kind of intriguing. She married Franz Joseph at the age of 15 and was totally not down with being the Empress of the Austrian Empire. At first she fulfilled her duties, but as time went on, she sort of slipped out of sight (and Austria). She spent a lot of time traveling, writing poetry, and making sure she stayed beautiful. As she got older she got super reclusive and depressed until she was assassinated.

What’s weird is the Austrians have totally adopted her as this great figure in their history. Except she didn’t really do anything when she was alive. It wasn’t until after her death that the media sensationalized her life and introduced intrigue into who she was. It totally worked though, since thousands of tourists clamor to find out everything about her (including myself).

The last part of the museum was the Royal Apartments, which led you through the living quarters of the Hofburg Palace. It was a lot like the Schoenbrunn tour and I found it equally intriguing. It’s also strange to think, just 100 years ago, people lived there. Now people traipse through there marveling at the luxury and excess these people lived in. In 100 years are people going to traipse through my house oogling my stand mixer and 24” TV?

The best part of this tour was seeing Franz Joseph’s study, in which he surrounded himself with pictures of his wife and his children. He was completely devoted to his crazy wife and the romantic in me totally digs that.

His crazy wife was also sort of an exercise fanatic. She wanted to stay slim so I guess she had a very comprehensive exercise routine to keep her figure. She was like 5’8”, weighed 99 lbs, and had a 20” waist. Yeah, that’s tiny. She had a bunch of exercise stuff in her rooms, including a set of rings. I’m not sure what she did on those rings, but I just picture this tiny Empress lady doing some iron-crosses with a full-in dismount. But probably not. In any case, if pilates had been invented when Sisi was alive, I have no doubt she would have been totally into it.

After the museum I walked by the stables of the Lipizzaner stallions. You know them? They’re like the dancing horses? And boy are they pampered. I suppose if you are a highly regarded, well trained, dancing horse, you should get all the clean hay you want.

The last museum I checked out in Vienna was the Jewish Museum, cause you know, I have to check out these things. To put it bluntly, it was lame. You walk in and there’s a room with a case of a bunch of Jewish objects. That’s the main exhibit of the museum. It looked like a gift shop of really old stuff.

Upstairs was an exhibit of art of an Austrian Jew who converted to Catholicism. I felt like they were sort of stretching with that one. The top floor was this disjointed exhibit about Orthodox Jews going to the Alps for vacation. I found it rather random and hard to follow. Overall, not worth my 6 Euros.

Before I went to the train station I stopped back at the Naschmarkt for some snacks for the road.

I then ran into this giant protest running through town. I have no idea what they were protesting, but there were a lot of very impassioned college students holding signs and shouting things I could not understand.

I then successfully made my way to the train station where I boarded my train to Munich. It was an uneventful train ride and just four hours after boarding I was in another country.

I’m currently at my hotel with its tiny room and two beds. But both beds have chocolate candies on them, so I count it as a win.

Going to post this and head to bed. Have to decide what to do tomorrow!