Vienna: Day 3

We started out our final day in Vienna a little later than the past two, because we had to check out of the hotel before departing for the day's adventures.  Since our train left at night but checkout is midday, the hotel was pleased to hold our stuff until closer to when we departed.

We decided to head back down towards the Spanish riding school.  Laurel had wanted to do some souvenir shopping on Thursday, but she hadn't gotten a chance to do it because the riding school's shop closed early in preparation for their grand ball on Friday evening.  We were soon stopped, however, by some sort of marching band.  We never completely figured out what they were, but they played a song familiar to the school's performances, which was very fun for the crowd.

The main goal of Saturday, however, was a tour of the Vienna state opera house. The tours are fairly quick and briskly-paced, but they still gave us plenty of time to take photos, some of which are below.  One note: the stage and backstage is actually bigger than the auditorium itself.  The opera house was damaged extensively in WWII, and so pretty much everything in the theater/stage area is a renovated version of the original.  For some reasons I fail to completely understand, though, they didn't put in quite all of the detail of the original design.  It's still beautiful.

The website for the opera claimed that there were no performances on the days of our visit.  It turns out there were a few last ones (they close June 30), but we had not enough warning to get tickets.  Even the wait-in-line-standing-room-only tickets wouldn't have been good for us; we'd be under-dressed and tired (and probably stinky) from running around all day, plus we'd likely have needed to leave early to catch our train.  Instead, we satisfied ourselves with the tour and went on our way.

We then did a more proper tour of St. Stephan's cathedral than our rushed, pre-opening visit on Thursday morning.  We got to see the catacombs (no photos), which were pretty neat.  They had some famous bishops and whatnot, but the graves of the commoners were also in that crypt.  When the bodies decayed to bones and the graves started filling up, they moved the bones into more compact arrangements in order to fit more bodies.  The result?  Walls literally made of skulls and bones.  We weren't allowed to take photos of this, but this link will give you an idea.  There are literally thousands and thousands of people buried under the church, some of which have turned to dust via decay.  It really puts an image to Genesis 3:19, "...for dust you are and to dust you will return."

We also climbed the north tower of St. Stephan's.  Although only halfway up the tour, it still afforded fabulous views of the city.

There was another monument of Vienna that we kept seeing pictures of but hadn't found in person.  It's a statue of Johann Strauss in gold, playing a violin.  We decided to hop on a subway and see Mr. Strauss.

Puffer was very excited to discover a small, neglected fountain of penguins in the same park.  Even though he's a puffin, he tried to blend in.

Laurel also found herself in Vienna.  Turns out she's a clothing store.

After that, we got some food and started heading out towards our departing train.  As we were waiting for the train, however, there was a bachelorette party getting underway nearby.  Apparently some of the ladies were trying to raise funds for the bride-to-be's bar hopping, and thus were hawking all manners of candy, individual liquor shots, small toiletries, etc. to people sitting around the train station.  Laurel and I were sitting next to some of their fist victims, and fortunately they had to have the conversation in English so we had a clue what was going on.  After 10 minutes or so of discussion produced about 1 Euro from these fellows, they turned towards us.  However, by this time, Laurel and I had planned very carefully and were down to our last five Euro-cents.  They still gave us some things, and I requested a picture in return.  I swear my wife was very close to me during this whole experience.  (They were also amused by my referring to them as "bunnies.")

Thus concludes our wonderful three days in Vienna.  We saw a lot, were exhausted several times, and I had a lot of fun (Laurel says, "you mean beer, right?").  I recommend it to anyone who wants to see a lot of imperial majesty and history.

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Vienna: Day 2

After a much-needed solid night's sleep, we got the day started at a more comfortable time (i.e. about three hours later than yesterday).  Today's main attraction was the vast palace and grounds that make up Schönbrunn!  Andy was excited to revisit one of the sites he had been to when he came to Austria in high school, and I was just excited to see this royal spectacle of design and construction myself.  It did not disappoint.  Let's just add some photos to show some of the highlights of the Habsburgs' fancy:

Here is the "front yard," the large courtyard in front of the palace where carriages would enter.

 Puffer, of course, came along with us and found his own miniature of the front courtyard.

And here's Andy standing right where he played the violin 12 (he thinks...) years ago.  In the photo on the right, I'm standing on the terrace you see behind Andy, with a view out the front gate.

We opted for a ticket package that cost a little more, but we got to see a good amount of the palace and grounds, including the personal imperial apartments, the labyrinth, the Gloriette (explained in a bit), and the Crown Prince Rudolph's fruit tree garden.  Also, we saw some other parts of the expansive gardens that were just open to browsing.  This place was huge!  Pictures do not do it justice.  Here's their backyard fountain which we encountered on the way to the Gloriette:

The Gloriette is now a cafe, but is basically a smaller royal building at the top of a hill overlooking Vienna with a spectacular view of the palace.

We hiked up to it, and it really was a hike!  We eventually discovered we could get onto the roof, providing some great views, which made it worth the effort:

We then headed over to the labyrinth.  We really didn't know what to expect of it.  There were three main parts, plus a playground for children: one was a maze for adults (can't see over the hedges), one was a maze for children (adults can see over the hedges), and one was a trail through some hedges with some challenges along the way.  One of the challenges was a set of three climbing-poles with bells on top.  Andy climbed up easily, which was surprisingly impressive to some nearby tourists.  I wanted to give climbing the pole a try as well, but unfortunately, sweaty palms and slippery leggings prevented me from getting very far.  I just wasn't dressed for climbing.  Andy then climbed up again, and after that I decided that I wanted a picture of him doing it, so he went up a third time.  Here's the picture, since I made him work hard for it.  (It's taller than it looks.)

We continued to wander around the gardens a bit, where it seemed like everywhere we turned, there was something more to see.  Finally, we found our way to the Crown Prince gardens, where there was a surprising orchard of citrus fruit trees.  We learned that the restaurant at the front of the palace uses the fruit. All in all, we spent about five and a half hours exploring Schönbrunn, and we were ready to relax a little at our hotel after that.

The day was not done, however.  In the evening, we headed out to Vienna's own amusement park, the Wiener Prater.  The park has no entrance fee; however, you must pay for each ride you want to do.  Andy and I tried the Prater Turm, the highest swing ride in the world, the Volare, a small coaster where you are positioned on your stomach, and a fun house.  We left the camera behind for this one, so these are cell phone photos below:

We finished the evening taking a ride on one of the iconic landmarks of Vienna, the giant ferris wheel at the Weiner Prater.  It has cars that seat about 15 people, and they even give candlelight dinners in some of them.  We got to take a spin on it, and tried to get some photos of the night skyline.

A quick note about tomorrow's post, before we close: we have another night train ride tomorrow evening, so during the time when we would normally be writing, we will instead (hopefully) be sleeping.  Vienna: Day 3 will have to wait until Sunday to be written.

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Vienna: Day 1

The post title is a bit misleading.  It's actually going to start a little before we arrived in Vienna.  Laurel and I took an overnight train from Krakow to Vienna, and it was our first non-plane-overnight-travel experience.  I can say that it was better than anticipated.  We paid for a cabin for just the two of us.  There was more space than I had feared.  The sleep was about as I had expected because the train had to stop at various points, which has a way of waking you up even when it's a relatively smooth transition from movement to parked.  Laurel's edit: the sleep was actually fairly poor, at least for me, but I suppose that wasn't entirely unexpected.  I was just annoyed that I woke up every time the train stopped.  That being said, it was still better than the sleep I got on the plane going over the Atlantic.

There's something odd about traveling overnight.  It's completely disorienting, even though you know it's going to happen, to go to sleep in place A and wake up in place B.  Such was the case for us when we stumbled bleary-eyed onto the train platform in Vienna at 6:30 AM this morning.  Eventually we got our bearings, dropped off our luggage in the hotel (of course, we can't check in at 7 AM), and got some breakfast.

The nice thing about arriving in tourist central in Vienna at something like 7:30 AM is that there are no tourists there.  But Laurel and I had little choice; we had no hotel, we can't stay on the train, and it's not that much fun to sit in a coffee shop for 3 hours until things actually open up.  So, we wandered around for a bit undisturbed by tourist groups.

The first stop was St. Stephen's plaza ("Stefanplatz"), where we were able to sneak into the cathedral of St. Stephen for a preview because they weren't collecting entrance fees yet.  Of course, some of the cool stuff wasn't open, either, so we'll wind up going back and paying those fees anyway, but I felt briefly victorious.  Fun fact: if you go to Google maps and search "Vienna, Austria," it drops the marker almost exactly on Stefanplatz.

The roof is the most distinct part of this church.  That, and its ultra-huge, 448 ft tower.  To compare, that church I keep taking pictures of in the main square of Krakow (St. Mary's) is a measly 262 ft tall.

Note the lack of tourists...

Puffer had to get in on at least one shot in an area more his size.

Laurel and I then wandered down to an area of royal Hapsburg building frenzy.  I'm not sure if it's just one Hapsburg palace that got chopped up into different museums, or if only one part of it is the official "palace."  There are about 10 huge, marble buildings within a couple blocks of each other, all filled with libraries, museums, and the Spanish riding school.  We got to take some fun pictures, but nothing opened until 10AM.

We took a break in a park hidden behind one of these buildings.  It's a nice backyard, and we found a statue of Mozart with a treble clef in flowers in front of him.

About this time the school groups started coming around. Laurel and I were content to sit and watch them go by.  Laurel was wearing her "Polska" fleece (a good thing, too, since it was about 60F at this point), and one of the Austrian schoolgirls called over to her "Dzien dobry," which is Polish for "good day" (a slightly more formal greeting).  Laurel picked up on it and responded.  It was funny to us that the girl thought we were Polish.

We decided to journey into a three-for-one museum in one of these buildings: a museum of musical instrument history, a museum of armor and weaponry, and a museum of Ephesus, like the city referred to in Ephesians.  These seemed to be pretty well aligned with our interests and a fun way to spend some hours.  There were several cool items, including a piano Schubert played on, some instruments owned by Beethoven, and lots of Mozart items.  Here's a collection of pictures of it.

That's a cello with six strings and frets, by the way.  The early musical instrument makers weren't afraid to create sometimes bizarre combinations of instruments.  This one is clearly the result of a cello mating with a guitar.  Fortunately, the blood line died out pretty quickly on that one.

That's a piano Schubert used to compose and play at his friend's place, by the way.

At this point, we had lunch and then journeyed to the Spanish riding school.  We had booked tickets in advance, luckily, because the tours were completely sold out.  The performances of the horses are in the morning, which then leaves an awkward break until the tours in the afternoon; we opted to just go for the tour, and I believe it was the better choice.  Laurel was very excited about this.  Here she is on her way to the stable:

No, she's not planning to steal one, she's just really happy.  Laurel's edit: I do look evil! 

The tour goes twice through the stables and pauses to let you check out the horses (but no pictures of them), and the horses are almost as interested in you as you are in them.  They were pretty active, as I've seen stabled horses go, and Laurel got to see them a whole lot closer than if she had just gone to the show.
(Laurel taking over here) The tour also went to the Winter Arena, which was being fully decked out for the HUGE summer ball event tomorrow night.  I think this gave us just enough of a glimpse into what this gala affair might be like without having to pay the 80 Euros or whatever it is to get in.

Sadly, the gift shop was closed after the tour due to the preparations for the ball, so I was unable to browse their  souvenirs afterward.  We'll be back.

Also, big news!  Europe is apparently becoming aware of its constant state of dehydration.  We found, for quite possibly the first time ever seen on the internet, an actual drinking fountain in Europe.  We took a picture, because we were so excited.

It is not a trap!  It's actually free, public water!  To give you an idea of how big of a deal this is, at the place we ate for lunch today, they wanted about 7 euros (~$9) for 0.75 liter (~3 cups) of water.  This is crazy talk to an American who is used to water being free at restaurants.  I can get used to the tiny soda bottles costing too much, but the water still boggles my mind.

At this point, we were pretty well ready to crash.  The rest of the day was pretty uneventful and non-picture-worthy, but there will be more tomorrow!

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Saturday: Variety!

Laurel is feeling better, but not 100%.  As such, she decided not to accompany me on my morning run today.  I was actually looking for a bit more than a run this time around.  Due to my having to, you know, work during the day and Laurel being ill, we haven't made much progress on searching for a gym.  This is entirely our own fault, as we've gotten several good references and searches; we simply need to make a little more effort to visit some places and make a decision.

So, I went out hoping to find something like an outdoor fitness park.  I had an idea of where to look.  There's a park across the street from Blonia, by the Wisla soccer stadium.  Here's a link to it on Google Maps.  Apparently it's named "Jordan Park."  Sure enough, along the outside of about one-quarter of the park, I stuff like this, which was exactly what I was looking for:

That may not look like much, but between a pull-up bar, some parallel bars, and some inclined planks of wood, I can get a decent workout.  Plus, it was about 3 miles of running round trip.

The next part of the post does not concern Krakow much.  I'm typing this on a laptop that I bought secondhand for the trip; I'll try to sell it when I get back, viewing my usage of it more as a rental fee to Craigslist.  (I did the same thing last year, not knowing I'd be back.)  However, a problem I noticed before I left for Krakow became much, much worse once we got here: overheating.  The machine would run for about an hour and then just shut down without warning.  BIOS is locked (and therefore it's not overclocked), but I also couldn't underclock it to help.  I tried a few utility programs to underclock or undervolt, but with the BIOS locked these programs are useless.  The only answer was to crack it open and hope I could figure out what was wrong.  If that failed, it was either off to deal with Polish computer service or admit it was basically a hot brick with a keyboard.

I bought a can of air from the mall electronics store, Saturn, and one of my coworkers graciously lent me a screwdriver set to use.  I've never worked on a laptop before, but I was able to find a service manual online.  Getting to the fan was quite a challenge and took me about an hour.  At this point, here's what my laptop looked like:

That's the monitor to the left, the base on the far couch, and everything from the keyboard to the hard drive on the table in between.

I didn't see anything once I got to the fan.  It was a little dirty, but not crazy.  The fan still worked fine; both my ears and a diagnostic test had already told me that.  I decided to look at the cooling system, which involved removing the motherboard, something I was not inclined to do.  However, after doing so, the problem manifested itself clearly: a thick layer of dust had gathered between the heatsink and the fan.  For those of you with electric dryers, it was honestly like dryer lint.  In an instant, this explained everything: the fan was working fine, but the hot air wasn't passing to the fan to be ejected.  Using Laurel as a second set of hands, we got that cleaned, sprayed canned air everywhere, and now it appears to be running fine.  I'm typing this entry on it, whereas before it would have already shut down by this time in the post.  Oh, and I'm simultaneously running a torture test on it, and the CPU temperatures are lower than it was idling before!

Encouraged by that victory, we headed over to Mały Rynek for lunch, and then to Rynek Główny to see what was going on.  Turns out there was a car show of Fiats today in the main square.  Take a look:

In the second picture, Laurel is there both to look cute and to show how tiny the car she's next to is.

Later today, we went to the St. John's fair and Wianki festival down near Wawel castle.  St. John's fair is basically a Renaissance fair, but it's all in Polish so we have to guess at about half the stuff that's going on.  One of the major parts of the fair was garland-making for the ladies, which Laurel tried out.  You can see the results here:

The fair also had the typical demonstrations of medieval torture instruments, which Laurel and Puffer played along with:

That would probably look more intimidating if Puffer was human-sized rather than 5" tall.

The Wianki festival is a bunch of free concerts that are very popular.  We chose to see one dealing with Bach music and a couple of pianists putting a modern twist on it.  They had a string orchestra for accompaniment, so it sounded mostly classical.  One of the pianists decided to wear rather short, turquoise running shorts, though, so that definitely looked a little more modern (and out of place).  Other than that, the concert was packed and the music was great for it.  Here's a photo from our far-away vantage point:

So all in all, it was a successful Saturday!

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