Yesterday, two friends and I went on the tour, hosted by a strange little Austrian man whose entire family was so embedded within the movie and Graham Green's and Carol Reed's lives, that he may actually be a fictional character. He walked with us to a lot of the main sites the movie was filmed at, and disillusioned us about some others (it is not actually possible to splash around in Viennese sewer waterfalls). I enjoyed descending into an old bomb shelter to the tunes of Anton Caras' theme, to find someone strumming a zither at the bottom. Can I please learn to play that? Right after I learn the banjo. Anyway, I took some cheesy skewed-angle black and white photos.
The most interesting part of the tour by far was a quirky old British woman who sounded a bit like Angela Lansbury crossed with someone who has sat inside with her cats for too long. She was very defensive of everything about the film, saying of the entrance to the canals, "In Britain we would have made this a national monument!" and of the statues that could have been destroyed in the war, "In Britain we dismantled our statues and hid them in caves...in Wales!" Another personal favorite was when she learned of some of the tricks of movie-making: "How deceitful, these film-makers." I'm not sure the tour guide knew quite what to do with her.
It was interesting to watch the film again and finally recognize most of the places - beginning with the tackiest statue in the world at the very start, ending with the Zentralfriedhof.
This weekend I also ventured to the Natural History Museum, which is also the Museum of Very Old Things. Some of the preserved animals in there are from the 1800s. I'm also almost positive they made some of them up. Some of those cannot be real animals. And I was apparently unaware of the number of bird species in the world. And again, someone needs to remind me not to go in the insect exhibits. But, a really cool museum. And it even smelled like every other natural history museum!
We also had a couple of nights at bars this weekend, and a nice American dinner at TGI Friday's just for a little taste of gigantic, fried American portions, something which I have surprisingly been missing.
I spent a couple of hours on a couple of days recently sitting in the Burg Park, which has magically sprung into a garten while I was apparently not looking. I also wandered through the Steiernmarkt, an open-air market outside the Rathaus complete with plenty of people in Lederhosen, accordions, and lots of beer. Actually, it was really fun, if not a bit intimidating.
On Thursday night my grammar class met with a group of Austrian students who will be abroad in America next year (I am not sure what this has to do with learning grammar, but the Professorin is crazy, should be hosting an NPR show, and obviously doesn't care about actually teaching us). Talking to them was interesting though. In one of the groups, discussing cultural differences and perceptions of each other etc, we inevitably got into their views on America. They, like most people, were able to separate the government from the people. But I have realized that being abroad has at times made me slightly defensive of America, not of the actions of a stupid, careless government, but just of a country and its' people. When I first left, I thought I would be embarrassed and quiet about where I was from. But it's not necessary, and maybe self-defamatory to be so. I'm not ashamed of being an American, and intelligent people can figure out why.
Now back to trying not to stress out about next year's classes, next year's housing, and life after college.
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