The final post: Munich and Salzburg (cue "Sound of Music" songs)

The last few days in Prague were a whirlwind of taking tests (6), writing papers (4, including a 7-pager that I wrote in 3.5 hours. New record!), Seeing Things I Hadn't Seen Yet, packing, and eating blintzes for Shavuot. Then I headed off to the subway at 6am to catch a 7am bus to Munich (in Princeton, someone always offers to help me clunk my suitcase down the stairs to the NJTransit; not so in Prague, apparently). 

MUNICH/MITTENWALD:

One of the highlights of the afternoon of wandering around town with Michele was the middle-aged Bavarian man we met at the flea market of the City Museum: he started chatting with us, gave me two postcards, and upon learning that I'm from Chicago, said he'd been here once (the airport) on his way to Madison to visit his brother; apparently, he had a chance meeting with the then-governor, though his brother didn't believe him until the governor's secretary recognized him the next day! When we left, he gave us some enormous Bavarian radishes to eat. The City Museum is right near the Ohel Jakob Synagogue of the new Jewish Center Munich (their webpage is all in German), where we went for services. It was much nicer than the shul in Berlin, and although it was huge with not many people, felt like more people were singing along. Final count: on this trip, I went to services at nine synagogues in six cities (this doesn't include cities where I went to synagogues but not during service time). 

The weather report said that Saturday was going to be the only all-nice day the whole time I was in the area, so we booked a train ticket to Mittenwald, from where there are lots of hiking trails in the Alps! Yes, this is really how perfect it is up in the mountains. 

Even after leaving the area, we could hear the clanging of the bells around the necks of the sheep. 

"Good [morning] [plane] jumping [through] the moon."

Van Gogh! I think I tried to draw this painting in 5th grade art with Debbie.  Many of the museums have a special 1-euro entry fee on Sundays, so Michele and I seized the rainy day to check out the new and old art museums. 

After the museums, I went out in the drizzle to see part of the enormous Englischer Garten. This is the Monopteros, in the southern part of the park. I did a lot of walking and couldn't sit down on any of the benches since they were all wet, so I kept walking through the park, trying to figure out where I was, and eventually made my way out and onto one of the main streets again. 

I found him!

On my wanderings, I came upon Konnexion Balkon playing near the old and new town halls. I'm not really sure what they do, except that their newest CD is modern interpretations of classical music (ie: Pachelbel's Cannon) with modern lyrics/rap overlayed. And the cellist is really, really enthusiastic. And by enthusiastic I mean really weird. According to YouTube, though, they also do some pretty fancy and formal stuff. 

On my way to the subway, I spotted this piano in the middle of a square outside one of the university buildings; since no one was playing and the square was pretty unpopulated, I sat down for a few minutes to play J.D.'s Boogie Woogie, the only piece I remember well enough to play (part of) without music. [Also, that kid is awesome. And he's the only one I could find on Youtube who does the phrasing like I do.]

On Monday morning I did one of those Sandeman's Free Tours, and it was actually pretty good! Although I'd seen most of the buildings before, just from walking around, it was great to get a chance to learn what everything was. This is the New Town Hall, and apparently I'm lucky to have missed the glockenspiel display, because it's annoying; I saw the Prague one, though!

The ceiling of the Frauenkirche (Cathedral of our Lady) has a menorah on it; during WWII, the church helped save lots of Jewish ritual objects. As thanks, when the Church needed restoration work done, the Jewish community contributed a lot of money, and the Church put in a menorah as its symbol of gratitude. 

The Hofbräuhaus started as the royal brewery of Bavaria, but then the royal family decided it wasn't fair to keep the best beer away from the citizens... Now the beer hall is open to the public; while Hitler and the Nazis held the first party meeting there in 1920, the tour guide was quick to point out that this was far from the HQ of the Nazi party--they held meetings at many breweries and beerhouses (it's where you have meetings in Munich, apparently). 

Hitler also made speeches from the Feldherrnhalle, apparently, which is ironic because the lion on the left of this picture, with its mouth open and facing the government buildings, is meant to indicate that a people should be free to criticize and speak out against its government; the lion on the right, facing the church and with its mouth closed, symbolizes that no one should speak out against the church...

The Theatinerkirche is very strange, in that all of the ornamentation inside is white plaster, a big contrast to the fancy gold/etc. ornamentation that I've seen in most other ornate churches around Europe. It was built at the demand of the court priest, who chose the cathedral as his gift for successfully praying for a male heir to the throne of Ferdinand Maria; according to the tour guide, the priest wanted the king to be able to see the cathedral from the palace, as a constant reminder of "who's really in control around here." 

After the drizzle cleared up (every day seemed to have about 30 minutes of rain, followed by beautiful blue skies with lots of sun) Michele and I rode out to the Olympic village, and asked around until we found the apartment block where the 11 Israeli athletes were murdered in the 1972 Olympics. 

There was a concert going on near the main stadium of the Olympics. 

 SALZBURG:

First stop: the Mirabell Gardens, including the dwarf garden where part of the "Do Re Mi" scene from The Sound of Music takes place. 

This is looking down on  Kapitelplatz, the Residenz, and the Cathedral from the hike up to the Salzburg Fortress.

Somehow, they get away with charging lots and lots of money to get into the fortress, and fail to discriminate between those who want to see the museum/state rooms/etc. (not me) and those who just want to see the fortress itself and the view from the top (me). So instead of paying, I continued walking along the trails of the Mönchsberg Mountain above Salzburg, and found my way to this beautiful overlook. Some UWMadison grads did a whole photoshoot for me! 

In the very back you can see the Salzburg fortress; other notable buildings include the Kollegienkirche (closed for renovation), the Old and New Residenz, and the Cathedral (which greeted me with a choral concert when I stopped in!). 

Just weird. 

The Bavarians (and the tourists who the shops are targeting, I suppose) really like their traditional outfits. 

Serendipity led me to the Department of Jewish Cultural Studies (housed in the Old Residenz building) , where I asked someone to point out where the synagogue was. Unfortunately, it was closed so I couldn't see inside, but the Brazilian couple we met at services on Friday came to Munich because they were saying Kaddish and Salzburg doesn't have Shabbat services, apparently.

I think they love bragging about Mozart even more than Hyde Park loved bragging about Obama on Wednesday, November 5, 2008 (this is where Mozart was born). 

yum.

Mandatory Abby And All Her Stuff picture! Not sure how I ended up with the baby-pack on front, even though on the way to Prague I didn't have it and on the way back I had less stuff (gave all my sweaters and books to someone who was visiting from Princeton). And somehow the lady at the airport was very nice that my hiking backpack was way over the weight limit and told me "good luck" but let me get by without paying. 

It seemed fitting to end a semester in Europe with a beer on the way back home. 

And that just about wraps up the semester...Facebook photos will follow (eventually). Thanks for reading!

Vienna: art, music, books, palaces, and delicious dessert!

At 6 on Thursday evening, Gaby and I pulled out of the bus station at Florenc, in Prague. The ride was four hours, and we hopped on the Ubahn (subway) and found out hostel--a really funky, "eco-friendly" hostel with musical instruments out and gardens with huge backgammon and chess boards--really easily. 

FRIDAY:

On Friday we started by attempting to do a self-built walking tour of the Innerestadt based off of one we'd found online, but didn't really end up sticking to it. Instead, after seeing (the outside of) the famous Wiener Staatsoper (State Opera House), we went to see the galleries at the Albertina, where we saw Monet, Matisse, Picasso, Chagall, Rembrandt, and some of the work of the surrealist Max Ernst...and more. Here's Monet's signature!

After lunch (I found myself staring face to face with an entire trout...), we headed  to Cafe Sacher, home of the original Sacher-torte. It was delicious, though definitely not the best chocolate cake I've had. DD, you've still got them beat with some of your creations, I think. 

Stephansdom at night. St. Stephen's Cathedral is the seat of the archbishop of  Vienna. We kind of stumbled upon it by accident; earlier in the day we'd seen the two towers poking through the sky and assumed it must be something significant. When we were walking around all of a sudden we found ourselves in Stephansplatz, the courtyard that surrounds the church. 

The roof of St. Stephen's Cathedral, during the day.

Inside St. Stephen's Cathedral; the stained glass was very bizarre here. It seemed like it wasn't actually stained glass, and instead the windows were clear glass covered in huge sheets of colored cellophane. The colored light coming through and bouncing off various surfaces was still beautiful, though!

On Friday night, Gaby and I went to services at the Stadttempel, the Central Synagogue in Vienna. We got there a bit late, unfortunately, but it was still enough time to enjoy the voice of Cantor Shmuel Barzilai. This photo is from the second-tier of the women's section. It makes a complete ellipse, and I walked around to behind the Ark, where you can neither see anyone else nor be seen by anyone, and just listened. I think it must be one of the focii of the ellipse, because from there it sounded as if the choir was right next to me.

We went to the home of one of the Chabad families for Shabbat dinner, which was wonderful. We got to see an entirely different neighborhood of Vienna, and to enjoy delicious food with a really nice family! On our way back to our hostel, we hopped on a tram and were pleased to find out that it dropped us off at the subway station we wanted to get on at.

SATURDAY:

This is the painted domed ceiling of the State Hall of the National Library. If the ceiling alone looks like this, just imagine the rest of the library! (I know, that's probably difficult, which is why I'm including the photo below).

The center "room" of the library. It's the largest one in Austria, and contains some 7.1 million volumes.  Princeton's Firestone Library has got it beat, though: 7.3 million volumes.

Yum, cheese spätzle with fried onions for lunch! I figured since I couldn't (wouldn't) eat the wienerschnitzel (who knew that "real" schnitzel is made with veal, not with chicken like it is in Israel!), I should ad least have something representative of typical Austrian cuisine. It was delicious, though a bit heavy.

The Imperial Silver Collection (Silberkammer) at the Hofburg Palace is impressive. I have never seen so many different sets of dishes or cutlery, even on the Crate & Barrel website! There are everyday silver place settings and dishes, pretty porcelain ones used by various monarchs on individual (or very infrequent) occasions, gilted sets...plus the large numbers of beautifully-embellished chamber pots. 

I'm assuming that this is where the guards of the Hofburg Palace used to stand, but now they're mostly for tourists who want to take pictures (ie: me and Gaby). Upon trying to get down from my perched position, I realized that my shoes were stuck in the teeth! 

As we left the complex of the Hofburg Palace, we saw these guys doing some incredible Rollerbade tricks.

When we left Peterskirche (St. Peter's Church) on Friday afternoon, we saw a sign advertising a free organ concert on Saturday night, so we made note and came back for it. The concert was for organ (obviously) played by Christopher Klöckl and french horn, played by R. Horvath.

If you look closely, at the center of the painting in the middle of the photo (which is above the altar at the front of the church), you can see the Tetragrammaton painted. Really not sure what it's doing there. (One of the other altars, in the smaller side chapels, also had Hebrew calligraphy painted, though neither Gaby nor I could figure out what it was [supposed to be] written.)

A video clip I took during Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

SUNDAY:

Our day on Sunday started with a leisurely walk around the border of the Ringstraße (that funny ß-thing is a double "s"), which I learned about in one of my classes in Prague. It turned out to be a good decision to save the Ringstraße, garden, and Schönbrunn palace tours for Sunday, because the weather was gorgeous! Our first stop was at the Burggarten imperial gardens. That's where the famous statue of Mozart is--he played for the court at age 6, and quickly became a celebrity--but also where this beautiful, blooming magnolia tree is. I was getting a bit jealous looking at everyone's pictures of campus in the springtime, so climbing this tree made me especially happy!

On Saturday we'd seen the top of the Rathaus (City Hall) from the Hofburg Palace, but didn't make it over there, so this was our first view of the immense building structure. I do have a picture of the entire building (ie: without it's noggin cut off), but this one is of me and Gaby together, and I figure you can imagine what the top part of the tower looks like. You never get a perfect shot when you ask strangers to take pictures, but that's okay. 

It was such a beautiful day out! For the first time the whole weekend, there was no threat of rain, and I was wishing I'd kept my Chacos on instead of chickening out and wearing sneakers in the morning. 

Looking down one of the hallways on the porch (for lack of a better word) of the Rathaus is kind of like looking down a hall of Holder Courtyard, no?

Hundertwasserhaus is a bit far from the rest of the things that one generally sees in Vienna, but it was definitely worth  going. It's a regular old apartment building where normal people live, except that it's designed by the funky painter-turned-architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser. There's apparently a "Modern Art Toilet," but neither of us wanted to pay .6 euros to use it.

Johann Strauss, immortalized in the form of this kitschy statue in Stadtpark. There's also a statue of Schubert, among others, but we wanted to make sure we spent enough time at Schönbrunn Palace, so we walked quickly.  

We were impressed by the expanse of the Schönbrunn Palace when we approached it from the front, until we went around back and saw this view. Huge, beautiful (though without their usual spring flowers yet, apparently) laws leading up to a hill scattered with picnickers and sunbathers, atop of which stands the Gloriette.  Though it was a bit of a hike to get to the top, the view we got while picnicking (last picture in this post) was well worth it. 

Our lunch, mostly scavenged and saved from our huge breakfasts that we got at our hostel. Delicious chive bread, blueberry and apricot jam, Nutella, cream cheese, butter, and apples! Yum. It was hard to make ourselves get up from the sunny lawn and go inside to do the tour of the palace (essentially a sequel to Saturday's tour of the Hofburg Palace, complete with very similar audio guides, it turns out) because it was so beautiful out!

Before we went back down to the palace, I went all the way up to the Gloriette.  On my way down, I saw this woman teaching a bunch of kids how to make bubbles! (There's a whole series of these photos, which will appear on Facebook when I finally post pictures from the semester.)

The funny faces are because we're staring directly into the sun. But this is what we got to look down on while we were eating our lunch: the palace with the whole city behind it! We had just enough time after finishing our tour to get apfelstrudel (yum!) before heading to pick up our bags at the hostel and (barely) making our bus back to Prague.