Day 5 - Salzburg-Vienna (4/4)
supplemented with a few of Jiekai's pictures in lieu of mine, which have been lost for eternity due to his cockitude, for which I would've pelted him with the Biggest Snowball In The World, Part Deux, if there'd been snow in Munich.
tim: a few people got scammed at the sacre coeur the last time we were there
some big strong african man approaches you and asks you to stick out your hand. he wants to show you something
so he ties a colourful thin rope in an intricate pattern, on one of your hands. then when it's securly fastened, he asks you for money
they all speak english.
i didn't go to the sacre-coeur that time, but many other people went and they got scammed
one korean guy paid 25 EUR
one singaporean 2EUR
Me: pay for what
tim: pay him lah, then he'll let you go
suddenly a lot of other africans will surround you and ask you for money for the string
another singaporean 1EUR because he so happened to have a 1EUR coin in his pocket.
For some reason, Paris made me take a lot of photos (128MB worth of pictures and videos in 4 days). The subsequent days combined have less than that. However, since most of the pictures are better than the previous ones, this isn't a big loss.
1 person in my couchette cabin did not actually sleep in there. It was very weird. He put his bag in there and once or twice came to get something, but otherwise we didn't see him. Maybe he preferred sleeping in the aisle.
The Euraide office at Munich had a Korean sign on the door for some reason. Do so many Koreans visit Munich (2 of the people in my couchette cabin were Korean girls)?!
On the way to Vienna, we made an impulse stop at Salzburg, because Jiekai wanted to see Mozart's birthplace.
Statue of Mozart
*Picture of the menu of a very pretentious restaurant on the way to Mozart's house*
This really annoyed (and amused me), IIRC because it claimed that famous people (especially Mozart and other composers) had eaten there for many hundreds of years.
This picture has been lost for eternity due to Jiekai's cockitude, for which I would've pelted him with the Biggest Snowball In The World, Part Deux, if there'd been snow in Munich.
Costumed man outside Mozart's house
I tried to persuade Jiekai to have his picture taken but he seemed to want a tip even though we'd paid to go in, so.
Facade of the house
The house was a really horrible experience. First up, although it was run by a non-profit organisation which charged a €5 concession rate, they didn't allow any photos (wth).
Kitchen in the house
The first room after the kitchen had a cradle in which a doll (presumably the baby Mozart) was lying. Ave Verum Corpus was playing in the air (it definitely wasn't as kitschy 8 years ago when I first visited the place).
A humidifier lay in the next room, which had alcoves in the walls where artefacts were placed. In 1 there was a toy rabbit peeking out, and in the other plastic butterflies were mounted. Meanwhile plastic blue bird were mounted fro mthe ceiling.
Another room had a clavichord (?) on top of which a cutout dog was standing. There was a cutout of a man with a rifle, as well as a woman. This was bad enough, but pressing a button on the wall made the dog move and bark and the man then shot him.
Basically Mozart's house-proper was horribly pathetic. There were few artefacts, no information on Mozart, his life, his music and his world and lots of kitsch. Downstairs there was a redeeming "special exhibition" where video clips were playing (the Queen of the Night from Amadeus was playing when I walked in, and other theatrical/cinematic clips were played), and some information on theatres and operas in Mozart's time, life on tour and paintings of him and his associates. Still, most of the information was peripheral to Mozart himself, like a book on violin playing by Leopold Mozart. I still walked out knowing almost nothing about Mozart's life and works than before I stepped in, even assuming I had no prior knowledge at all. About the only new thing I got was that he was made a Knight of the Golden Spear by the pope (the only previous musician to get this was Lassus).
"Is Mozart still alive" - Small American kid
Horse fountain in Residenzplatz
Appropriately, there's hay around the fountain
Festung Hohensalzburg
Carriages in Residenzplatz
Big chess pieces
Dom Zu Salzburg facade
After Westminster Abbey, Notre Dame, the Pantheon, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart and even the Domkerk in Utrecht the exterior especially was underwhelming. Still, it was a nice church, especially with the paintings inside.
Interior
From my Plaak pics I'm quite sure this is where Bach was an organist (according to my Plaak pic captions it's 2:1 that it's Bach, not Mozart).
Interior
Roof
Dome
Salzburg River
Garden in Friedhof St Sebastian Wolf Dietrich Mausoleum, where the families of Mozart, Weber, Doppler and Nissen lie
Pathway in Friedhof St Sebastian Wolf Dietrich Mausoleum
*Jiekai was tasked with writing the following account, but since he is properly floating face-down in the Vltava River with a knife in his back, I will have to do it*
On the train from Salzburg to Vienna, Jiekai and I met a really interesting character - Benjamin Christ. He gave us his name card, which advertised a Heaven on Earth site (http://www.letscreateheavenonearth.com/), and introduced himself as being in the business of "Prenatal Education and Spiritual Electroplating". I forgot how he described the former (something about influencing children before they were born) but he described the latter as strengthening the spirit (or something like that). He talked about dietary evolution - first you give up red meat, then chicken, then fish, then you move to raw food and finally you live on pure light (he claimed there were people who'd lived on light for many years). I didn't really mind the New Age stuff he spouted, but I switched off once he talked about how Hitler was a foreign agent. Jiekai went on to tell him about Roman Law (for which he got a Distinction) and talk about Tibet while I fell asleep - he was really happy since for once he'd found someone who didn't mind hearing him drone on.
In Vienese we saw many kebab shops, which seem to be permanent fixtures in all European major cities. In 1683, the Ottoman Turks under Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha were repulsed by a combined Polish-Lithuanian/Habsburg army from the gates of Vienna, turning back the Turkish tide which had hitherto threatened to engulf Europe. More than 300 years later, the battle has been lost, as the Turks have invaded the major cities of Europe with their kebab vans, kiosks and cafes, all serving the same depressing variations on the same theme - beef kebab meat (I'm informed that they've even crossed the Atlantic, and the Pacific to Oz). Most of these kebab shops also have the same poster featuring the same moustached Turkish man, which probably comes from a factory in Turkey. [Someone: do you drink? that could explain why you don't get the appeal of the kebab :) there is nothing like a good meaty kebab after drinks. soaks up all the alcohol]
For some reason we had quite a few Singaporean sightings. Jiekai met in the Louvre the same person from his junior class which we'd met in Amsterdam. And in the Musikverein in Wien we met a group of J8s. Uhh.
The Vienese are even more kinky than the Parisians. A whole wall of porn mags were on sale at a kiosk, including: "40+", "50+", "40 plus" and "Ladies 40 plus". All these are separate publications, btw, and one had confessions of some 70 (?) year old woman. There was also Color Climax, presumably imported from way north. Gotta love these Europeans.
The last time I'd been in Vienna I'd passed up on the chance to see Die Fledermaus. I'm not sure if that was a mistake, since at that time I was even more of a dilettante than I am now, and besides, I've fallen asleep at the only opera I've been to.
Quartett-Zyklus A 4
Küchl-Quartett, Stella Grigorian, Mezzosopran
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Streichquartett A-Dur, KV 169
Ottorino Respighi: Il Tramonto. Poemetto lirico für Sopran und Streichquartett
Ludwig van Beethoven: Streichquartett Es-Dur, op. 74
We watched this concert on 2 €4 tickets. The hall was quite small, but had excellent acoustics - it sounded like we were in the front rows. Even though in our original seats on the first (second) floor we couldn't see the performers, we could hear them perfectly well. It was even better when we moved to better seats when the concert started.
The playing was very intense, but then it was only a string quartet. The first piece was pleasant enough, being a Mozart. I didn't like the second, which sounded awful and basically was an example of the school of thought that says that instead of composing pleasant sounding music, you should show off how many "emotions" you can evoke with your music, and how many clever musical tricks you can squeeze in. To me, music is like art - first and foremost it has to be aesthetically pleasing, not about gratifying the egos of composers and/or performers who need to show off as to just how clever and skilful they are. Emotion and clever musical tricks are respectively the whipped cream and the cherry on top of it all - nice, but useless without the base dessert. The piece certainly succeeded in evoking emotions in me - chiefly those of disgust and revulsion.
During the interval one usher came up to tell me "It is not possible", pointing to the bottle of water I'd placed on the ledge. No doubt in Paris she'd have muttered something unintelligible to me in French.
Someone once told me that he'd rather listen to a CD than go to a concert, and that the only reason to do the latter would be to meet the performers. This is quite ridiculous, since it's like saying you'd rather look at photos of a place than be there.
There wasn't much coughing in Paris, but then there the masses were continuous - there was no significant pause in between movements. In Vienna there was almost no coughing - maybe people respect the sanctity of the Musikverein.
I saw at least one row of clueless and restless American teenagers below us, who kept whispering to each other. They'd probably have been better off going to one of the tourist concerts. There were probably also some other tourists, since I heard scattered applause in between movements.
Carlskerk
It was a joy to use a proper train toilet on the German trains.
I should set up a stall selling Dutch Fries beside the Austrian wurst man in Chinatown.
April is a great time to travel. It's neither too hot nor too cold, there're no huge crowds and most things open till later.
Cock files, or things for which I would've pelted Jiekai with the Biggest Snowball In The World, Part Deux, if there'd been snow:
- Despite having a camera 1 year newer than mine, most of his shots were lousier than mine
- "Whiner schnitzel". Perfect dish for him.
- In Salzburg, he started singing excerpts from the Sound of Music despite my warning him, so I had to do the Vulcan Death Grip on him
- He claimed that he hadn't seen any Chinese restaurants in Paris despite my sighting at least 3 when I was with him alone
- He reacted violently when I suggested that he ask for directions to the Vienese hostel, and justified this with his being male. Women may not be able to read maps, but at least they are capable of asking for directions.
- Me: One of the mysteries of the universe: Why is the Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna?
Jiekai: Because it's an annoying little Ducky (Duchy)
- He bought the Vienna Card (€16.90) which came with coupons and discounts while I got the 3-day public transport pass (€12,00) because the discounts weren't combinable with student concessions and I knew we'd never get down to using the coupons (in the end we trekked very far out of the way to use one, and the other was near-useless)
- He asked to use my hairbrush
- He left the hostel room door even though there were people sleeping (multiple occasions)
- He talked loudly in the hostel room even though there were people sleeping (multiple occasions)
Another place to visit in Singapore besides Clement Chow Avenue and Beau Liao Road: Fuck Road (Foch)