Off the Map

... Vienna Continued

[Ed. The previous installment was cut short by a low laptop battery due to excessive picture posting and virus scanning. This is now Part 2 of 2]

… everything you could want to buy, barring houses and cars. I saw so many types of fruit and meat and veggies and nuts that I never knew existed, or had never seen in person before (ref. Dragonfruit picture on my other website). Vienna is a very cool place because it acts as a bridge between East and West. There are lots of Middle Easterners, lots of Slavic peoples, lost of Eastern Europeans, but also plenty of French, German, Spanish and Italian denizens. Its a great montage of culture. Unfortunately I was not able to learn any more than what I observed, as I would be interested to know if there are cultural factions, if there is friction between them, and so forth.

That afternoon my friends Richard and Ryan hit up the Kunsthistoriches Museum (Art History). The building alone was worth the entrance fee. We spent 3 hours there and barely scratched the surface! Portuguese, Spanish and Flemish artists kept us fascinated with their paintings, and Egyptian sculptors riveted us with their hieroglyphic attention to detail. Sehr interessant!

Later that night we made it over to the Musikverein to see a Mozart concert. The acoustics were astounding! Apparently NPR does an annual New Years broadcast from there because the acoustics are some of the best in the world. The show itself consisted of movements from various Mozart pieces, as well as some Aurias. The musicians were among the best classical players/singers I've heard.

The final day I was lucky enough to spend way to long on our Uni bus, while we drove a ways out of our way to see a huge monastery in the small town of Melk. It was very elaborate, very intricate, very beautiful, & chock-full of art and sculptures. Its one of the oldest monasteries still in operation in that part of Europe, but I began to wonder whether it was glorifying god or gold. I am inclined to think that it was more a tool of the church back in its glory years in order to impress and control the area - rather than a place to get in touch with god/spirituality. As a contemporary student I thought of it more as an art and history museum than an actual place of worship (which it is). In anycase, really interesting and I'm really glad we were able to check it out.

If you ever get a chance to hit up Vienna, don't pass it up!

posted by Jason @ 9:27 pm