The Long Night of Museums

Listening: You're so fucking romantic. I can't stand
it. When i look in your eyes, unconditionalness sweetness uncompromised. You set the standard for many things.

A brief note, because it's alerady getting a bit later in the day than I had hoped to be getting on my way.

Yesterday, I spent most of the day roaming around the Naschmarkt. I was astounded by the amount of food that they had there. If anyone thinks that Haymarket is big, they're a fool. The Naschmarkt is two aisles wide by at least six or seven Boston city blocks. It was amazing. They had all sorts of fruits that I hadn't seen, little restaurant booths, spice vendors, dried fruit vendors, butchers, people selling fresh coconut milk (giving you the coconut with a straw in it pretty much), cheese sellers, vinegar and oil sellers. It was just amazing. I couldn't believe what kind of a resource the people of Vienna have for local fresh meat and produce.

I tink what stuck out at me the most were the butchers though. If I could find cuts of meat like they had as easily as the people of Vienna can, I would be in heaven. I saw everything from beef to boar, from lamb to venison, from chicken to fois gras. There were awesome fishmongers as well. All of the fish eyes were as clear as glass leading me to believe that they were all freshly caught. I have a great picture of some monkfish heads that I'll post later.

Seeing the market makes me really want to move to Vienna to open a restaurant. I feel like I could just have a dinner service, like Chez Henri and I could go out during the day to the Naschmarkt to figure out what was good that day. It's such a good resource that Boston doesn't have. It really is a shame.

After the trip to the Naschmarkt, I went to the Ringstrasse and picked up the 1 Tram and rode it around the city. That's where I met a Mexican girl who was talking to a woman from Vienna in English. The woman from Vienna was trying to tell her about "Lange Nacht Der Museen," but couldn't remember the details. That's where I handed them a little pamphlet and was like "I couldn't help but overhear, but I think that this is what you are talking about." We all start talking for a little bit and then the woman had to get off of the train, so the Mexican girl and I talked a little more. She ended up getting off the tram at Swedenplatz, to go see the Hundertwasserhaus, and I just kept riding the tram around to where I started. When she got off, she was like, "Maybe I'll see you at the museums." I told her that I hope so, but we didn't really make any firm plans, so you know how those things go.

When I finally got off the tram, I ended up walking to the Stephensdom, or St. Stephen's Cathedral. It is a big landmark, so I felt slightly obligated to go. I didn't get the audio tour, but just chose to walk around. There were some pretty cool pieces of art and the archetecture was amazing.

After I had a good look around, I opted to drop the four euro on the catacomb tour, which was pretty exciting. I think that the most amusing thing about the catacombs was that the oldest part under the cathedral looked much newer and more modern than the younger part which was under the platz. There were several cardinals and a bunch of royalty buried under the cathedral. There were some rather nice caskets down there. Under the platz, there were these stacks of bones from the casualties of the Black Plague. Like the Ossuary in Kutna Hora, there were tons of bones stacked up into walls, but unfortunately, no one had the creative juices to stack them into art forms.

Following my trip down, I decided to spend four more euro to go up into the bell tower. I didn't realize how afraid of heights I can be. I was so worried that I would drop my camera or that I something would fall loose beneath me. It was completely irrational, but I was like "whoah.". The view from the top was fantastic though. I could see all of the metro Vienna area. I could even see out to the Prater from the center of the old town. You got a good look at the gothic spires and everything.

By the time that was all over, it was around five. The Lang Nacht Der Museen started at six, so I decided to go over to see what was shaking a little early. It turned out that I could buy my ticket early, so I did. With an hour to kill, I wandered around a little bit, got on the net to see if I could find out more information, and had a little snack. When six o'clock came around, I was ready to go. Seven hours of night time culture.

My first stop was the MOMOK or the Museum of Modern Art (Kunst is art in German in case you were wondering about the K). It was eight floors of modern art that really stretched my open mindedness when it came to calling something art. There was one exhibit which was a film of a bald, skinny guy kind of in a trance who cuts the back of his head with a razorblade and lets the blood drip down his back. Umm... not so cool. There was another vidoe of a fill where a guy is putting some form or innards all over himself or someone else. It was just disgusting. Some of these art pieces left me slackjawed and confused.

The next museum that I went to was the Museum of Young Art. I was expecting there to be a lot of really cool pieces done by people of my age group and such, and there were pieces from people who are my contemporaries. I think I was just disappointed by how small the museum was and how much of a clusterfuck it was inside there. Actually in most of the museums, it was difficult to move around and to get from place to place. No one really paid attention to where they were going or where everyone else was in relationship to where they would be going. It was bad. I got mildly distrurbed for a bit about it. There were a few nice pieces in there though.

Finally, I went to the Museum of Natural History. I can't say too much about this museum. It didn't impress me, and it didn't turn me off. The crowds there were as horrendous as anywhere else. It was in a huge building on the Maria-Theresien Platz.

By the time midnight came along, I was a bit fed up with the crowds, so I went out to meet the guy, Matthew, from Chicago to see if we could catch the Yankees game. Just our luck, it got rained out and we ended up just drinking with his buddies from school.

Anyways, it's time for me to go. I finished mapping out places from "Before Sunrise" on my map of Vienna. I have about twelve places that I'm going to try to hit. It's noon time right now, so I figure I'll start at Cafe Sperl for lunch and to remember the scene where Jessie and Celine pretend to call their best friends at home. It's too bad I'll be flying solo. Maybe the waitress will seat me in a booth and will take my picture. We'll find out if my camera battery holds out. There's only one outlet in the dorm room and I couldn't get at it last night. Anyways, cheers.