Vienna, Dec 13, 2007

Dec. 13, 2007 

Greetings from Vienna, Austria:

We are doing fine and expect to send soon a long report about our first impressions of Vienna.

Today we woke up to an inch of snow on the ground. BRRR, it is cold in Austria!!! But we are cosy warm with all our woolen clothes, shawls, caps and gloves ... and Gluehwein (spiced hot wine)  to warm us from within. We drank it last night at the Christmas Market (Christkindlmarkt) at the famous Vienna Rathaus (city Hall).

A couple of nights ago we went to a "Mozart & Johann Strauss Konzert" (by the Wiener Residenzorchester) at the "Palais Auersperg". It was a wonderful experience to sit in that "intimate" beautiful concert hall, probably 300+ years old, were Mozart the child is supposed to have performed for the aristocrats.

We go out every day, lounge --but only for an hour or so-- in one of the many famous Kaffeehaeuser and drink Cafe Latte with Apfelstrudel, where Viennese seem to spend half the day, sip their drink, talk, read the paper .... C'est la vie!!! We love it!

It's time RIGHT NOW, Richey admonishes, for Kaffee und Strudel mit Schlag (with whipped cream), so we are signing off for today.

And later tonight we'll go to the Stephansdom (the famous Vienna Cathedral), for an advent Konzert. (We already visited the Christmas Market there yesterday but will probably go again for another glass of Gluehwein  and some Marzipan).

We have to go, it's time to face the snow ....

More later from this magic place. Hugs from Mom and Dad, Ziggy and Richey, Sigrid und Richardo

Impressions of Vienna, Dec. 16, 2007

So far Vienna has been a fairy tale experience:

beautiful buildings, snow-covered streets, throngs of holiday visitors and shoppers, a fabulous Christkindl Market (Christmas Market) with innumerable booths selling Gluehwein (spicy hot punch of every ilk), food and small handcrafted gifts etc. What has impressed us most, however, is to experience that this city is a real melting pot of languages, races, nationalities and cultures, primarily from the Balkans and Eastern Europe. Yesterday at the restaurant, e.g. a customer started ordering in Hungarian and was surprised that the waiter did not understand his language. The waiter told him that he speaks German, English, French, Spanish, Russian, Polish but not Hungarian; so the customer switched to one of those languages and continued his order. The subways are typically humming with the babble of many tongues.

The huge neo-gothic City Hall or Rathaus is perhaps the most beautiful and impressive that we have ever seen (open to the public). Right now it and the local surroundings are decorated in magical colorful-like figurines of Nutcrackers, Santa Clauses, Elves etc. The entire grounds around the Rathaus are covered with a huge Christmas Market consisting of a great number of wooden booths which are all alike, selling local handcrafted-art products, Christmas tree ornaments, gifts, etc.There was a delightful snow falling gently as we had coffee and Sacher Torte with other revelers inside the Rathaus, part of which has been converted into a Coffee House for the occasion.

The Rathaus is located on the Ring Street which encircles the Old Town of Vienna. We often take the street car number 1 around the three or four miles circumference (the RING), and admire the many old buildings along the way: the state Opera, the University, the Stock Market, the Parlament or State legislature, several libraries, numerous museums, parks, and of course the impressive, stunningly beautiful City Hall. It takes the tram about 25-30 minutes to go around the Ring once, and sometimes we do two trips before getting off.

Our inexpensive transportation ticket (for a week) allows us to use the intricate, excellent subway system plus the many trams and buses as much as we like. In this way we are slowly becoming acquainted with much of the inner city. Like Paris, this inner city area is an open-air museum with famous historical buildings and monuments on every other corner. Again like Paris a great deal of history has occurred here over the past millennia: Wien was originally a Roman Colony called Vinda Bona (good wine). Again like Paris, recent excavations show an even older layer of human presence under those Roman ruins.

Vienna is one of the culturally most diversified cities we have seen, as already mentioned. So far we have personally met

only a few Viennese, and they have all turned out to be very outgoing, sociable people, often with complex personal histories of displacement and relocation.

So far we have been to a number of musical performances, most recently a trumpet & organ concert in St. Anna's Church, a small intimate downtown church. It was lovely. We were surprised, however, that it was attended almost exclusively by gray-haired "seniors" like us. Only a  short block away, the wide pedestrian zone in the Kaerntner Strasse was packed with younger holiday revelers. In case we did not mention it before, we also attended a delightful Strauss & Mozart chamber music concert in the Auersperg Palais a couple of days earlier. Tomorrow we plan to see "The Tales of Hoffman" in the Volkstheater.

Best wishes to all, and more later.

Vienna, December 19, 2007 (NO.4)

Dear Family and Friends:

From the romantic, snow-covered City of Vienna we send you our warm Christmas Greetings and all good wishes for the coming year. Most of all we hope you will enjoy this

 special Season and the coming year in good health, especially you, dear Sarah.

As you know, we are having a wonderful, exciting time in Old Europe, not only meeting many interesting people, but experiencing, perhaps for the first time, the pleasure of simply enjoying life: mornings sleeping in until daylight wakes us (sunrise about 8:30/sunset by 4 pm),  afternoons strolling in the old town, window shopping, studying people, sipping coffee in Viennese Cafes, enjoying our Apfel-Strudel mit Schlag while reading newspapers -- just like the locals.

Fortunately we live near the subway which takes us rapidly into the old town and the heart of the city, the Stephansplatz with its impressive, old St. Stephan's Cathedral. (The name reminded us of you, Stefan (Heidi's); fortunately you are not that old yet!). From here we usually set out for the day's adventure. 

Yesterday we took the U-Bahn to the Prater and enjoyed a ride on the famous Ferris Wheel. To our great delight, the sun was shining and we could see far and wide over the snow-decked city. So far our evenings have been filled with an opera (Tales of Hoffmann); concerts (Mozart, Strauss), and tonight Mendelson's 'Elias" in the Wiener Konzerthaus. Most  of the shows have been sold out long in advance, and our choices are limited. On "free" evenings we enjoy Austrian television (most of which comes from Germany), and sip Gluehwein in our very unusual, comfortable apartment.

Derk would certainly enjoy our building. It is a small six-story structure with the elevator and stairway in the center. We step out of the elevator directly INTO our dining room; the apartment raps around the elevator in a big circle like a donut. We step out of the elevator directly INTO our dining room, then walk through the living room, study, bathroom, bedroom, kitchen and return to the dining area. There are two balconies: a narrow one on the street-side (front) the length of the building; and a nice large one the length of the back of the building and overlooking a large inner courtyard. The two sides of the building are attached to the adjacent buildings. We are in the top apartment, directly under the roof. Therefore it has slightly slanted ceilings towards one side. These provide ample room for long skylights.

The stairway and elevator doors must be kept locked at all times. When stepping from the elevator into the dining room we must unlock and then re-lock the door. Can you imagine such a building and apartment? Fascinating! 

We'll be here for Christmas and New Year's and probably will write the next installment of our report before long.

Again, our love and warm greetings from Vienna. Ziggy and Richey