Christmas trees (11.01.09)

The Austrians are getting rid of their Christmas trees. Very often you can see them carrying a green still not withered tree and leaving them in a refuse damp. And the trees have a special place here. They're sorted as the other types of rubbish. So, a tree doesn't go straight to a bin, but is left near to the colourful containers for glass, plastic etc. But I still don't know what happens with them later. Are they taken with a special car to some special place or they're just laying all together till someone take them as fuel, for example... No idea. Anyway - there's less and less Christmas trees in Austrian houses.

Christmas trees (11.01.09)

The Austrians are getting rid of their Christmas trees. Very often you can see them carrying a green still not withered tree and leaving them in a refuse damp. And the trees have a special place here. They're sorted as the other types of rubbish. So, a tree doesn't go straight to a bin, but is left near to the colourful containers for glass, plastic etc. But I still don't know what happens with them later. Are they taken with a special car to some special place or they're just laying all together till someone take them as fuel, for example... No idea. Anyway - there's less and less Christmas trees in Austrian houses.

Museum of Art History (11.01.09)

We visited the other large museum today, the twin of Museum of Natural History. It's almost identical to its twin. The only difference is that it boasts another exhibits and another decoration.
And so again we spent inside about 3 hours, because it was impossible to stay there longer Although it would be useful to spare much more time on careful examination of each exhibit. Because there's a lot to examine. First, the rooms with mummies, statues, sarcophagus - Egypt in a nutshell. Then sculptures from ancient Greece and Roma. (Well, after visiting three different museums with exhibits from Egypt - in London, Berlin and Vienna - I feel that you can visit Egypt without leaving Europe I wonder if that what the founders of museums wanted to achieve or it's all because there's so many precious things in Egypt and they get rid of them so easily and sell to excited collectors...)



The ancient time is over on the ground floor and then on the next floor, the world of paintings begin. From the ancient times to 18th century. There's so many rooms that you just can't see the end of this huge labyrinth. But somehow I've managed to get through the meanders of art and viewed each painting. The most works were the ones of Rubens and Brueghel. Actually, there are most popular Brueghel's paintings, such as: "Tower of Babel", „Children's games”, „The hunters in the snow”, and many many others. I even met two painters that were copying the works of the master. They were standing with their easels in front of the works and painting... just like that. . And many people gathered around to watch them, comment, take a photo...
The last floor is a home of various coins, ranging from ancient times to 21st century The largest coin was devoted to Queen Elisabeth and was made of pure gold, worth about 1 million Euro. As long as I remember - there are only 4 such coins in the world.
And now few words about the decoration...Wow!



More? No problem: in each room there was a different ceiling with floral motives, sometiomes amazing sculptures were looking from behind a corner... And the main hall is just a master piece. Anyway, it's similar to the one in the Museum of Natural History - round ceiling, richly decorated steps, above - a painting, then richly decorated balconies, full of them various sculptures, marble, gold... Or something else that shines so nicely. Well, there's no point to talk about it, you just have to see it. At least on the photographs:)

Museum of Natural History (10.01.09)

It’s situated opposite the Museum of Art History. Both buildings were grounded in the Habsburg’s days, of course and both of them look amazing. You just don’t know what to admire – the abundance of exhibits or the splandourously decorated rooms.
We were visiting Naturhistorisches Museum (the original name) for about 3 hours, but it still wasn’t enough because the museum counts 39 large rooms, full of showcases. It’s just impossible to stay there longer, so not all the tiny stones, plants and animals were given the same amount of time. There are also rooms of minerals, meteorites, reconstruction of famous caves, prehistoric art, fossils, micro world under the microscopes, stuffed animals (which made me shiver) e.g. birds, fish, dinosaurs’ skeletons, tomb of prehistoric people… It’s about 20 million items…




But even without them the building is extremely attractive – the main hall boasts a huge painting on the ceiling, another paintings are on the walls, there’s also a lot of sculptures of famous people (e.g. Newton, Humboldt). The rooms are also magnificent – with abundance of sculptures, paintings, various decorations.
The most interesting seemed to me the model of earth seen from a satellite. It was revolving around presenting various views – the globe by night, in the day time, with ozone layer, snow cover, sea currents. Another fascinating item was a ‘time machine’ – with a turn of a wheel you could see the shape of the continents in the past and in the future. Oh, and the underwater rooms were quite attractive, as well. I also spent a lot of time in a room with microscopes, watching various tiny creatures, but don’t ask me about their names – neither German nor Latin captions were helpful here.



The museum possesses a separate room devoted to Venus of prehistoric people. There was e.g. Venus from Willendorf, which is already 25 000 years old and the reconstructions of excavations of various Venuses, presenting e.g. a position in which they were found.

City hall (10.01.09)

Yesterday we finally visited the Vienna city hall.
There’s a free guided tour at 1 a.m. so we used this opportunity. Actually, I have already been to the city hall, because a reception for foreign students was organized there. But then I only managed to see the ball room and the corridor. What we saw now was even more outstanding…
First the conference room. Quite a small one but richly decorated. There’s a huge chandelier hanging on the ceiling, which weighs several hundred kilos, the walls are decorated with large paintings and windows covered with colourful stained glass.
The next stop was the large banquet room with emblems of all the Austrian Lands on the walls. When we came in, it was being decorated with flowers. And then we went to this part of the building that I already know from the previous visit. Columned hall, stairs with red carpet and finally the ball room. Again we could see people at work, preparing the room for the ball of sport journalists that was to take place in the evening. So the room was really impressive again.
The last room we visited was quite small, with old green fireplace and the paintings of all the previous mayors.



In fact the tour finished quite quickly and maybe the guide did talk about some interesting facts but I was so engrossed in taking photos that I didn’t really listen to her. Well, sometimes it was impossible, because she was speaking too quietly. Doesn’t really matter. Maybe I’ll go there once more and write something more exciting. Oh, and one more thing – the tower is closed for tourists, because it’s too narrow inside. The costs of building it were extremely high, but I don’t remember now how much it was. In fact, the whole building was very expensive - in 14th century the government spent 14 millions Guldens.

One play after another (15.12.08)

Vienna is a very musical, cultural and opera-full city, so one needs to take advanatge of it as often as possible.
We visit theatres and opera houses quite often and we dont't spend much money on that. Our secret? Well, the cheapest standing places cost even 1,5 euro.
We've been to the National Opera-House (Staatsoper) several times, in Volksoper – once only. Yesterday we went to Raimund Theater to watch a musical “Rebecca”, today we went to Burgtheater to see “Romeo and Juliet”, and on Friday we could finally see “The Magic Flute”. Wa also wanted to go to Volksoper on Saturday, but there were no tickets left.
So now I'll shortly describe the last three plays:
WOW!
One word, so many emotions and meanings.
But now a little bit more precisely.
“The Magic Flute” was unfortunately played in German, which made it difficult to understand the plot fully. Thankfully, there are subtitles on a screen next to your seat, so I could read a little bit. But stil – it's better not to be destracted and watch the scene simply, because it was full of magic colours. Not only the music played a major role, but also the text, which contained many humorous remarks. The costumes can be only described as splendid and the plot as unexpected and riveting.
One of the protagonists – the Queen of the Night – was singing with a very high voice and I have never thought that one can sing so high...

„Rebecca” was also in German, but this time I understood almost everything. Because it's easier to follow a musical than a opera. Here the msot interesting thing were the special effects – burning scene that moved around or went down, so new platforms with props could appear (e.g. a bad with table). The scene was quite dynamic, the plot gripping, the decoration was a masterpiece – there was even a huge screen that presented a background to various scenes, e.g. underwater scene, fire, railway station. Well, it's impossible to describe it all, you simply have to see it. But it may be problematic, as the musical is played till the end of December only...

Oh, and I forgot to mention that also the actors were totally great. The featuring song is still in my head and I can't get out of it. The audience reacted enthusiasticly, there were even standing ovations:)

It seems that even so widely known play as “Romeo and Juliet” can surprise, amuse and amaze... All that happened in Burgtheater today was really beyond my expectations. I'll start with the decorations: fantastic. There was a real rain, waterfall with stones, moving scene, castles, a lot of blood, funny costumes of the main protagonists. It was humorous as well. Yes, h-u-m-o-r-o-u-s. And even - nudity. Romeo and Juliet suddenly appeared without clothes, although in darkness, but it was quite brave anyway. People covered with blood also came nakes on the scene at the end of the play. There was a strange woman floating around the scene all the time – as if she was a chore, death and narrator at the same time. Scream, tears and perfectly played madness was there as well, And at the end of the play the strange woman got the white huge wings, on which another scene was screened: Romeo and Juliet in 21th century. As always – it's difficult to describe it, you have to see it. It's a pity, that tha audience didn't react enthusiastically enough. The actors deserve much more, more applause, more ovation. But anyway. We're already planning to visit another theaters and we're going to a cinema tomorrow:)

Crowds everywhere (14.12.08)

Christmas is coming... Which means: there are many people everywhere. Everywhere = shops, streets, the city centre.
In Mariahilferstrasse (the main shopping street in Vienna) people took over the place of cars, as it seems the pavements are not enough for them. Thankfully, the street is closed to the traffic on all the Saturdays in December. Shopping turned into a nightmare: it's almost impossible to enter the small ones, the queues are extremely long, suddenly everyone's realised that it's time to buy some presents. Or stock some food etc. for Christmas.
Thankfully, only some days are that awful and the worse are the Saturdays.
Coming back to the crowds: less christmasy, but equally crowded was our Studenthouse last Friday. There was the biggest party of the year. The whole building turned into a disco, with different music on each floor (rock, house, the 70, 80, reggae, latino, techno...), dining rooms changed into dancing floors, kitchens into a bar and most people stayed in the corridors and staircases. On the most crowded floors (e.g. the 8th with rock music) you had to use your elbows and be a little aggressive to get through the corridor. Great number of students was constantly changing direction, moving between the floors, kitchens and dining rooms became soon very smoky and hot glasshouses, beer cans were lying about the floors. About one o'clock the music went suddenly silent. The police came, which didn't surprise me at all, because that happens quite often recently. But the most resistant ones had a (silent) party till 6 a.m. anyway. Well, why not...
And after the party... It's no use talking about it. I have never seen such a big mess before. Black sticky floors, beer cans everywhere, black kitchen... Rubbish near the entrance, in the lifts, in the porter's lodge... Yeah, students are able to do everything. Thankfully, no one waited till Monday, when the cleaners come and the big cleaning action begun in the morning. After few hours our floor was quite shiny again.

Globenmuseum (12.12.08)

The Museum of Globes is yet another strange and interesting collection. It is the part of the National Library (Nationalbiliothek) and presents various globes and many multimedia exhibitions.
How the globe looks like – everyone knows... Well, not really. It turns out that the production of globes is quite a complicated process, there are various kinds of globes and their models have been changed throughout the years.
The oldest items are dated back to 15th century and the most interesting ones present the globes of a starlit sky, globes of the Moon, Venus, Mars and Jupiter, pocket globes, umbrella-like globes, extremely old globes...
There are also some huge artistic globes, the ones presenting various illustration rather than the exact model of the Earth, there are also small metal models with a ball, mirror and a candle that present how the Earth revolves around the Sun, and there's also a similar model illustrating the movement of planets in our Solar System.
All these attractions are jammed in three rooms only, accompanied by plenty depictions, descriptions, posters. The screen in the first room presents how the globe turns into a map and a map into a globe. And opposite there are 3 screens informing about the production, history and the types of globes.

The Clock Museum 12.12.08

There's plenty of small, strange museums in Vienna. One of them is the Clock Museum, which is situated near the centre in one of the oldest buildings in the city.



It boasts a collection of 21 thousand various clocks and watches presented chronologically. So, in the first floor there are items from 15th to 17th century. The oldest clocks are dated back to the end of the 15th century and were originally tower clocks. The second floor presents items form 18th and 19th century, and the third floor shows the most recent ones.
The clocks appear in various forms – standing, hanging, hidden in a painting (e.g. as a real clock on a painted church tower), pocket watches, wrist watches, sundials, artistic clocks, astronomic clocks (they show weekdays, times of year, months, the length of a day, moon phase, zodiac signs...). Some items were decorated with gold, precious wood, surprising paintings and strange elements and most of them didn't work at all. But when 12 struck, all the old standing masters started to boast and shout out at the top of their voice...
And the best thing was that the museum was almost completely empty. There might have been about six people only. And it seems it's always like that – silent and calm. You can hear the time passing by, making its soft steps, treading softly on a colourful and surprising ground...

Donauturm (11.12.08)

On Sunday I went to Donauturm again. It’s a 200-meter-high tower with a viewing point.
There’s a restaurant and several viewing terraces on the top. This time I wanted to watch the sunset, actually, the last phase. The proper sunset begun on the way to Donauturm: the sky became purple, orange and pink rays reflected in the high buildings made of glass... A colourful show in the deserted area.



From the top we saw the city falling into a sleep. More and more dots on the dark map of Vienna became illuminated. The pink aura was hidding behind the horizon. And just a few people saw this magnificent silent performance.

Ernst Happel’s Stadium (11.12.08)

That’s were the Polish team played football games with Austria during the Euro 2008.


I thought visitors were allowed inside. Unfortunately, I was wrong. It seems no one has come up with the idea of letting tourists look around the place. Well, never mind. I looked at it through the tiny gates and walked around it. One day I’ll go there as a football fun.



And one more thing – there’s a board devoted to Ernst Happel by the main entrance and all the posts are decorated with the names of countries that played at Euro. Poland is quite close to the entrance, so it’s easy to notice it.
I must admit that the stadium is very easily accessible. Metro leads almost to the main gate. “Almost” means about 200 meters...

Interesting things (10.12.08)

Days pass very quickly and merge with one another. I even don’t remember when, but I did it: discovered new attractive places.

Stubentor
It’s a metro station, built by the old gate of the city, which was called Stubentor. The gate was a part of the city walls, constructed in 12th century. Now it’s one of the walls by the entry to metro station.

The museum of trams
Unfortunately, it’s only opened from May to October, so our Sunday trip was in vain. But the museum seems quite interesting from the outside.


Markets
And we discovered some new Christmas Markets. One on Spittelberg (very cosy, stretches along a narrow cobbled street), the other one next to the Belvedere (nicely illuminated) and a small one on the square am Hoff. It’s not as impressing as the market by the Rathaus, but at least it’s less crowded.

Fleischmarkt (10.12.08)

One day I discovered a very charming little street. Fleischmarkt.
And there was a richly decorated Orthodox Church. It’s quite dark inside, with burning thin candles, the Saints looking down from the ceiling. From the paintings, I mean. A lot of colours... and a peaceful, serene atmosphere... I think it was the first time I’ve been to the Orthodox Church...



There’s a historic house with an old tower nearby, and a strange figure dangles above a narrow street...



And a few hundred meters further a Unist’s Church emerges. But I could visit it only through a glass door.

Albertina (04.12.08)

It’s third time lucky, they say. That’s what we thought on the way to Albertina. Unfortunately, this time the queue was too long, again. So we went there this morning.
The queue was still quite long, but we waited about half an hour only..
Albertina has been under a great siege recently. And it’s all because of the Van Gogh’s exhibition, which is open only until the 8th of December. So people from around the city (and the country and world ) come here. Everyone wants to see the works of the Master – schools, tourists, the young ones, elderly, everyone..
It’s easy to guess – viewing paintings, even the most wonderful, becomes a difficult task when you have to get through the crowds of people, looking for a tiny space, just to read the caption on a little piece of paper. But somehow I’ve survived. Van Gogh’s paintings and sketches are placed in several rooms, in a chronological order. So, first there were “the dark times” – workers performing some exhausting tasks, dark colours. Then more and more colours appear, a lot of landscapes, fields covered with grain, trees, gardens and golden paths. There are more and more people on the canvasses, including the artist itself. Unfortunately, there were no sunflowers. Pity.
Oh, and one more thing. I forgot to mention what Albertina really is. It’s a museum, situated in the palace of Prince Albert Casimir August of Saxony, Duke of Teschen. It contains 65 thousands works from various times, including Kokoska, Michelangelo, Monet, Picasso, Rubens, Da Vinci, Bruegel... Plus, one entire floor is devoted to the modern artists.

There are also large ceremonial rooms in Albertina, designed for the Habsburgs. Because they finally got the building in their power in 1919. So, it was the next time that we could see how modestly the Habsburgs lived... with all the painting, chandeliers with jewels, golden decoration, velvet clothes on the walls...
We spent about 3 hours in the museum and I’ve noticed that only the Van Gogh’s exhibition was so extremely crowded. As if the visitors didn’t want or didn’t know how to discover the secrets of another floors...
I was surprised to see a lot of groups of small kids. They weren’t bored at all. The guides talked about paintings in a very interesting way, organising some competitions, asking riddles and generally it was very... interactive...

The first metro party in Vienna (3.12.08)

It took place yesterday, on the line 6.
It was advertised on facebook, the news spread quickly and at 11.04 p.m. a few hundred amused students met on the metro station and got into the last two coaches.
The driver didn’t object us having a party, nobody called police and for 36 minutes the coaches were incredibly jammed. There was an excess of everything – cry, noise, singing, alcohol, laugh...
It was as crowded as in an Indian bus or Mumbai suburban train or in a fast tram in Poznań early in the morning. And as noisy and joyful as in a tram full of Lech’s fans (in Poznań). Everyone was singing, knocking at the ceiling, jumping. But we behaved quite well, all in all:) A lot of photos were taken, passengers on the stations were rubbing their eyes in disbelief, smiling at us, taking photos of a dancing train. When the train arrived at the last station, we started clapping our hands, saying thank you to the driver. But the party wasn’t over yet. Most of us had to take the same train back to get back home or to the center. So this time the last coach transformed into a smaller, more peaceful party room.
Luckily – or unluckily – I didn’t have my camera with me. Luckily – because it might have been squeezed or spilled with a drink. Unluckily- because I don’t have my own pics now...

Titra (03.12.08)

Instead of subtitling classes we had a short trip yesterday. We visited Titra, a subtitling firm. It’s said to be the most popular and the best one in Austria. So I expected huge rooms and crowds of employees, but it turned out that Titra is all about huge machines, several people, small rooms and cooperating translators.
Titra creates mainly German, English and French subtitles, but there are few exceptions. First, a translator gets a film and a dialogue list with suited frames. When the subtitles are ready, the spotting begins, done by someone else. Other firms choose a different strategy: translators do both spotting and subtitling.
There is a separate room for translation quality check, and a separate for spotting quality check. When everything is done, huge machines burn subtitles on reels. And each film is usually split into several reels, e.g. 6.
The machines produce strange smell and a lot of heat. And it’s said that one such machine costs about 2 000 euro.

The Treasury (30.11.08)

Again we failed to visit Albertina. The queue was even longer than last week, so we didn’t want to waste our time. We decided to come back here during the week and we went to The Treasury in Hofburg.
That’s where the imperial jewelers, clothes, relics and various religious items are presented. To the most attractive items belongs the crone of the Caesar, accompanied by the scepter and orb. Very interesting is also a cradle of Napoleon, treasures of princes of Burgundy, relics with thorns from the Christ’s crone and a piece of His cross.
All the rooms were poorly lit but the items placed behind glass were quite good visible. The walls were decorated with paintings of the imperial family or illustrating Caesar’s coronation. There were also knights’ clothes, Caesar’s coat, a lot of candlesticks, crosses, chasubles...
All in all, I must admit that the Treasury is overpriced (7,5 e), but if you want to take a short trip into the abundant past that’s the proper place. Shiny jewels and gold sparkle on the crones, velvet glitters on the clothes and richly decorated swards are deep in hibernation...
And when we left the Treasury we came up with a new Sunday-tradition: Austrian dessert instead of Austrian dinner:) We went to Starbucks to make use of or last discount voucher. Latte with toffee and nuts and the croissant bought in Anker perfectly suited the atmosphere of lazy, serene Sunday....
It was the next time that I’ve discovered that Vienna really is beautiful. That it is ideal for short and long walks, even when it’s full of tourists...

UNO (28.11.08)

Vienna is one of four cities that houses the office of UN. You can visit it only with a group (minimum 10 people). So, we went there with our friends .

Our guide, from RPA, started the tour in a big hall decorated with 193 flags. There he told us about the main responsibilities of UN (human rights protection, environmental protection, striving for peace) and about the countries that belong to the UN (192 + Vatican that expresses its opinion only about the issue of nuclear power). Then we went through a X-ray check in, as in the airport, and finally we entered the extraterritorial zone. Unfortunately, we were shown only few rooms. The first one was the conference hall ,where we were told how the UN strives for equity in every respect, even when it comes to the seats order. So, normally it’s an alphabetic order, but the representatives of the particular country take one seat further to the right at the beginning of new session. Otherwise, Afghanistan would be always seated as the first one and Zimbabwe would be always at the end...



The hall is equipped in 8 cabins for simultaneous interpreters. The languages appear in alphabetic order: Arabian, Chinese, English, German, Russian, Spanish. Last two cabins are reserved for representatives who wish to have their own interpreter of their language. But they use this possibility very rarely.
When the big story finished we began quite a long photo session. Everyone wanted to have a picture on a chairman’s seat.
At the end we headed downstairs, to the ground floor, where a model of UNO stands. And there we heard another interesting details, e.g. that the building belongs to Austria but UN pays for the rental symbolic 7 cents each year. And Austria earn around 4 millions euro per year thanks to the UNO.



Recently, a new UN conference center was opened here. It’s very modern and, for example, when you leave the room and enter the toilet, the air-condition starts working and thus the costs of energy usage are reduced. The first meetings are planned for January, and the visitor will be able to enter the building few months later.

Ice-skating (28.11.08)

Two days ago we went to the ice rink, a few metro stations from our place. It’s cheaper in the evening, so more people come there. The ticket is 3 euro, and skates rental– 4 euro. And if you want to leave your staff in a cloakroom, you need to spend one euro more...
The ice rink is situated outside and resembles the one in Poznań, with one exception: there’s a stall with hot drinks on the rink. And everyone’s skating around in one direction only. There’s good music, though, and you can also admire the professional hockey players on the rink nearby. Now and then a red cleaning machine appears and cleans the ice. And everything would be just fine if there was no cold wind, blowing in my face...
In January a new temporary rink will be build near the City Hall. That must be cool! I can’t wait to skate there:)

Registered (28.11.08)

In October we had to register in the district office, and then, during next three months we had to do the same in the main Registration Office. And this time all the formalities cost 30 euro.
The process of registration didn’t take much, but I had to wait very long in a queue. So, first you get a number (mine was 74), then take a lift to the proper floor (mine was 6th) and then all you need to do is to wait, wait, wait... In the meantime you can, or actually – should, copy all the attachments to the application. That means: confirmation that I’m a student, proof of sufficient financial means, registration from the previous office, ID and European Health Insurance. And then you keep on waiting. Finally, the proper number appears on the table and you can enter the room. Oh, yes, and then a short walk to the cash point and back again with the confirmation of the payment. One stamp, signature and... I can stay here for ever:)