The Day the Sun Came Out

To the day, I've been in Vienna for two weeks, and yesterday (Saturday, or Samstag, if you wish) was the first day I could go out not needing a hat, or gloves, or winter coat. It was sunny and 47 degrees, perfect. But of course, the nicest day in weeks, and it is the day of the Open House at all of the state museums...meaning that you could pretty much go to any museum you wanted for free. Being inside museums all day didn't particularly appeal to me and my roommate Lauren (and she's even an Art History major!) so we decided to take a walking tour that we read about in one of our many travel books.

We started at Stadtpark (City Park), which is only about 3 blocks east of the IES center.We took the U-Bahn there, got off by crossing a bridge over the Danube Canal and entered at the south end of the park. On one side, the park is bordered by the canal and the other by the busy Ringstrasse. Wondering around the many winding paths, we ran across statues of famous composers that lived in Vienna--my favorite was the Strauss statue, covered in a layer of gold and playing his violin. There is also a big pond in the middle, with lots of ducks and little kids with the grandparents, throwing stale bread into the water. People were everywhere--every bench in the sun (and there were a lot) was full of people. Everyone seems to just be trying to thaw out, much like were my intentions. 

We left the park, and headed to the other side of the canal to see one of the Hundertwasser houses--a "green" architect who despised straight lines and level sidewalks. This is an apartment here in Vienna, where there is the rule that you can paint whatever you would like outside your window, as long as it is within arms reach.

We also went into a museum designed by him and full of his art. Pretty unique, to say the least. As the sun sank lower in the sky, the buildings blocked what little light was left, so Lauren and I walked a little faster. We wandered through an outdoor market (that was unfortunately closing up shop for the day), saw the Bulgarian embassy which looked completed deserted, and ran into numerous churches, one with a lime-green tiled roof, which looked extremely out of place. 

But I think one of the most interesting things we ran into were some remnants of WWII. We turned the corner, into this park with tons of kids playing soccer all around this enormous cement building. My first thought was that it was from the war, and after looking it up in our tour book, we learned that this building (as will as 5 others spread throughout the city) was an aerial defense tower that back during the war, would have missiles and guns on the top to shoot down any planes that came in to destroy the city.. There are 5m thick cement walls, each with there own water supply and power systems, capable of housing 50,000 troops overall. It was very eerie to sit there, and think about what it must have been like in the '30's and '40's, with your city being run by the Nazi's. I learned last week that the Jewish population still hasn't made any sort of comeback in the city...

We ended our three hour walk by sitting in one of Vienna's many cafes, drinking coffee and having a light dinner. The two of us met up with our other roommates and made our way to the art history museum where we spent a few hours looking at just a fraction of the hundreds of paintings in this particular museum. A bit like the park earlier in the day, there were people everywhere, every exhibit being full. I had been this same museum last week and made a return visit to the ancient Egyptian exhibit where I was basically drooling over all the jewelry. I picked out several rings that I wouldn't mind wearing :) We ran into some more friends, and then we all made our way back into the 9th district and hit up a small restaurant down the street from our apartment for some late night pizza and wine. A good day, to say the least!