Found the Kriminalmuseum, basically a large, graphic archive of Vienna's worst crimes and methods of punishments for them. It began with the usual displays of torture instruments from the Middle Ages complete with complex German descriptions we could not understand (The Sacher Stuhl - we swear they made witches sit on the chair and then force-fed them Sachertorte). But then it went on to the truly disgusting/morbidly fascinating collection of information and pictures about all the worst murders that have taken place here. Why did so many crazy men own hatchets in the first place? Also, why did so many people have completely creepy death masks made of family members? Anyway, the museum was in a medieval buildings, which was pretty cool itself.
Saw Indiana Jones 4. Assumed that Stephen Spielberg has not lost his talent, and therefore blamed George Lucas for all that was wrong with it. ("Hey Stephen, your dialogue is looking a little too decent here, let me make a few edits. Hey Stephen, we should create scenes that make it appear that Harrison Ford can't act anymore at all. Also, Indy should fight ALIENS!") Ugh.
Night at the Zwölf Apostelkeller, good as always. Dealt reasonably well with a possibly-insane waiter.
Night of Creative Writing Majors Talking About Things They Can't Talk About With Anyone Else Because No One Else will Understand was also great, and lasted for about 3 hours in a bar somewhere.
Yesterday Rob, Rachel and I went to a church from the Jugendstil, which was beautiful outside but costs to get into, so we just walked in circles around it. It also happened to be on the edge of the Wienerwald, which we proceeded to romp through. We found fields, tai chi, awkward old women, and ticks. There was a cafe back at the edge of town where we dined on soup and wurst.
I gathered with fellow American friends to be American and eat delicious sloppy joes (seriously Suzanne, how was that possible, I never even liked them before but they were so good), and watch kind of bad yet entertaining TV. Eurovision, Europe's answer to American Idol, except not and way more legitimate since it's been on since the 1950s. Every country enters one singing act to compete, and they only show the semifinals and the final. I only saw the final, and concluded that Europe, on the whole, has horrible taste in music. That Russian guy should not have won. Greece should definitely not have come in anywhere near the top. Bosnia and Spain were possibly actually good songs though, so of course no one liked that. And what was not to like about Croatia, which featured old men dressed like the mafia singing old jazzy tunes, or Latvia, which had everyone dress as pirates?! (Not to mention Finland, which was a screaming metal Finnish band). But I was very entertained by the guy from Sweden trying to announce his country's results who was either just very drunk, couldn't speak English, or both. And now I'm looking up that Bosnian song. We spent an hour afterwards looking up early 90s German rap.
Rachel and I went to the crypt where Maria Theresia and crew are buried. Basically all of the Hapsburgs are down there. All the Franz Josephs and such. Question: why did they use to make tombs so creepy? What was with all the skulls? We know they're dead! But it was interesting to see all of that, especially Maria Theresia's enormous tomb, 20 billion times the size of everyone else's.
I saw Der Besuch der Alten Dame at Volkstheater, and understood it way better than when I had to read it in German class sophomore year. It was so, so much more frightening onstage though. I didn't understand that it was actually that scary. But they did it with an amazing set, complete with a portrait that bled when chopped with an axe, and lots of lawnmowers to represent the collective mind. And real gun shots, apparently.
Also saw a ballet at the Staatsoper. Onegin from Tchaikovsky. I liked it a lot more than I thought I would, and wished I could dance. Also wished Onegin was not such a stupid man and felt sorry for all the characters. And dealt with Italian tourists being far more obnoxious than us.
Today we were back in the Wald again, starting at the Lainzier Tiergarten, an old hunting ground for some rich guy who built a house for Sisi there, who, as predicted, hated it and continued to be stupid and spoiled. There were rams and deer frequenting the place, but none of the promised wild boar (and we looked). There were also many small children, including the bilingual family consisting of a very annoyed father, and Martin, who just would not get his shoes. We ended up walking/hiking forever today, got up to the top of a foothill that overlooked all of Vienna, and went down the long way. We covered a lot of ground. Fortunately there was a cafe with some Spargelcremesuppe and Sachertorte to keep us all happy. It is beautiful. I want to live/camp in the Wienerwald.
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