For example, the open air Market is the biggest during saturdays. There was so much variety there at the market. It is different from all the other open air markets that I had visited, be it in France or Switzerland. The range of goods available for sale is pretty mind boggling. They had a side for food and another side for a flea market and the items sold in both areas run from the high-quality wine down to the cheapest fake trinkets one could find. The range of things that one could find there is just mind boggling. Its like having a hyper department store out in the sun!
There at the market, we encountered a stall selling wine, Honey Wine. The stall owner let us have a taste of the wine and I must say, it is one of the best alcohol I had ever tasted.
Well, granted, I don't particularly drink much. Beer, red and white wine and the occasional mixed liquor that my sis happened to concoct at home are all about sum up my drinking experiences so I wouldn't really know how good alcohol tastes like. But that honey wine is really something. One thing nice about it is that it is sweet. Really sweet. Not really honey mixed with wine, but tasted more like honey flavoured wine. Afterall, it IS wine that was brewed from honey. I loved it so much that I started wondering if I could bring it back to Switzerland. Ah, but no such luck, I didn't get check in luggage for my flight back to Switzerland (cheapo flights lah...).
Even so, that didn't stop us from buying a bottle of that stuff to share back at the hostel. We even got so well along with the stall owner that he gave us a bottle, FREE OF CHARGE!! What a nice man he is!
Anyway, the best way to show you the coolness of the market is through the pictures that I have taken!
Look how crowded the market is!
The strange species of vegetables are pretty curious. So these are the types of vegetables that they eat...
Turkish snacks. Oh, one thing. In Europe, one can find turkish food like kebabs and that big column of meat on a vertical rotisserrie thing almost everywhere. Its like the cheap fast food here.
Random stall selling second hand stuff.
As you can tell, they sell mainly german books but occasionally, you can see some english books. Evidently, this stall owner is anxious to make this fact known...Besides food, we also went to do some cultural stuff! Mainly, WE WENT TO AN OPERA!! :-D
Thats right folks, we went for an opera in Vienna! Isn't that really expensive, one may ask, and the answer is Yes, but....
So yes, the tickets into the opera are typically expensive. It could cost anywhere from 40 euros to 100 plus euros. However, the Vienna State Opera also allows people to enter and watch the opera at a much reduced rate - 3.50 euros. YEP! ITS less than 5 euros!! Since it can't be that perfect, there are drawbacks. You have to wait in queue for about 2 hours and after that, you have to stand through the entire opera. The ushers there are very anal about patrons not leaving the queue once they are in and the number of tickets each person are allowed to buy. One ticket per person. No more, no less, all for the same price. Strict, but made sense since there are loads of people trying to get in and there are very limited standing space at the back of the auditorium.
The best picture I have of the interior. The rest are too blur... Sorry about that...
The opera that I went for turned out NOT to be My Fair Lady, as I thought it was, but another REAL opera titled "The Gold Ring" based on a mythology that I had forgottened. It was sung entirely in German, but there were english subtitles available at the stands. However, because there was limited space, and I wasn't lucky enough to "chope" a space that was infront of the subtitle machine, I had to spend the opera alternating between staring down the chest of the japanese lady in front of me to get a look of what the hell they were singing, or trying to peek at the machine nearest to me. For the former method, I think the japanese lady had a notion that I might have been a pervert and so she completely blocked my view of the machine by putting her back to me. As for the latter method, my eyes couldn't squint out the words and I could only vaguely make out lines and squiggles, hard as I've tried though. In the end, I just chose to listen and watch. It is sufficient to say that I was so glad when the second act ended and we made a dash for the exit.
Oh, but though I didn't appreciate the opera, the interior of the State Opera and just the experience of attending one of these events is well worth the money, especially if you have an evening free. The interior is smaller than I thought, with less decorations, more boxes. The people dress up to go to the opera. Even the people who came for the standing area, several of them were wearing gowns, shirt and ties. Some even had those binoculars thing that looked like an artifact from the 16th century. (No idea why they needed it though. Maybe to catch sight of a piece of dinner from the singers' teeth. Who knows? ;-P )
The other cultural thing (or maybe religious...) that we did was to attend Mass at the Burgkapelle, the imperial chapel that is located within the Hofburg Palace, which meant waking up really early to get there. It was more cultural than religious for me because I was really only there for the chapel and their main attraction: The Vienna Boys Choir.
For the uninitiated, the Vienna Boys Choir is one of the oldest choir in the world. Formed in 1498 by Maximilian I of Habsburg, it is now one of the most famous boy choirs in the world (from wiki). Their concerts are pretty always really expensive to go but if you wake up really early to start queueing at the chapel, you can listen to them for free, but, as usual, at the standing area which is along the main aisle. On our way to the Palace, we met this young man in a suit and tie on the metro who got off at the same stop as us. Using our impressive abilities of induction, we deduced that this guy had somethong to do with our destination and so we asked him for directions. Indeed, he was heading to the palace for work as one of the helpers and he kindly offered to lead us to the chapel. During the short walk, he told us a little about the choir, him being one of them several years back. He said that the boys stay in the choir for only four years and that the whole choir was actually mde up of 4 (I think) smaller choirs. One of them is the Schubert choir, from which he belonged. So today's (or that day's) choir was sung by one of those four choirs, not the entire troop of them. Still, it was pretty cool, I think.
It was an hour and a hlf worth of waiting again for the entry to the chapel. Oh, one could get seats in the chapel instead of standing, for 9 euros, if I'm correct. I find the whole "you must pay to enter the church" thing ridiculous but I'm not saying anything more on it...
The interior of the chapel is every bit as grand as the exterior of it. Sadly, I don't have any pictures on it, I used my friend's camera because Olympus gives blurry results in low battery and dim conditions. Bottom line: Come back in about a week's time...
In the chapel, the cameras flashed. When the mass started, the cameras flashed a little more for a while. At the end of the mass, when the Boys came out, it was mayhem... There was this slight sally of people forward to take the pictures of them that I got even more squeezed than I already am. They didn't even care about the commotion they were causing. Its a mass and it haven't ended yet, for god's sake. To top the whole absurdity of it all, when the Boys finished the ending piece, everyone clapped. Gee, talk about sacred rituals... It was like attending the opera yesterday all over again. I don't know what to feel or how to react. I felt a little ashamed for those who clapped actually... Ah well, I rather not talk about this furthur here else it might run on several pages (and I REALLY need toget back studying again). Anyway, it appeared that it is a common occurance since neither the Boys nor the priests batted an eye. That's that.
Moving on, after the mass, since we were at the Palace already, we decided to tour around the Palace, visiting the museums they have there. The stuff on display at the museum was not so much on the Austrian history but more on the decadent lifestyle of the royals of that time. Yes, we went to visit their Imperial appartments and an exhibition of the imperial silver collection. Silver as in the cutlery collection. Don't ask me why, but yea, we spent an hour looking at plates, forks, spoons and knives used by the imperial family. Interesting stuff though. Some were so expensive that one could probably buy a car from a set of these stuff...
The more interesting exhibitions were the tour of the Imperial Apartments and the SiSi Museum.
While not as over-the-top decadent and did not scream as loudly "Look at me! I'm Bloody Rich" as the Chateau de Versailles, the palace gave a good idea of how the royal family, especially that of the second last, but one of their most respected ruler, Franz Josef I of Austria, lived.
Yes, picture time. Unfortunately, again, the pictures are with my friends. Sorry about that.
I would love to describe it all to you, but this is one of the times where words would not do much good except for your optometrist's business. I will, however, put in pictures from the net. Hopefully, thats better than nothing.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2374/2293280257_094948dd06.jpg?v=0Dining room. Oh, note the napkins on the plates. Evidently, the way the napkins are folded is a state kept secret that only 2 person know. There are holes in the napkins to allow bread rolls to be placed in them.
http://www.rumormillnews.com/images/Kaiser%20Franz%20Josef.jpgThe Emperor Franz Josef I... He seemed like a decent emperor. Really hardworking, loved his subjects who in turn loved him.
http://www.jci.cc/images/33/30/Empress%20Sisi.jpgEmpress Elisabeth (known also as Sisi) of Austria, the neurotic wife of Emperor Franz Josef I.
She's a real beauty, this lady. From the Sisi Museum (yes, named after her, with displays about her life) it seemed that she really liked the Emperor. Too bad that he IS the emperor, because that meant that she had to be queen. She hated the attention it came with being a queen and it made her a little weird. It could be inferred from the exhibits that the Emperor loved her that he overlooked her oddity.
How odd is she? Well, she was obsessive about maintaining her figure, exercises a whole lot that she even has gymnastic hoops in her room, traveled a lot to escape from the courts and was really adament on not showing her face in public in her later years (so much so that she always carried an umbrella or wore a veil in public). Can't blame her though. No one said that it was easy being a queen.
Ah shit, look at the time. I've been writing this for 2 plus hours... Need to study...
Next up (when I have the time) - Tour of capitals: Prague.
À plus!
yaho~ are u coming back already? or are u already back? gimme a call if you are ne:)
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