Welcome to grandiose Wien (Vienna).  I'll try to summarize my entire experience 
here as I took a side trip to Bratislava, Slovakia during my stay.

There's a lot to do here - too much, in fact.  The first item on my agenda is to 
visit the Austrian Gallery.  The Austrian Gallery is housed in two mansions - 
the Upper Belvedere and Lower Belvedere, on a sprawling estate separated by a 
massive, well-maintained garden.  

In the Upper Belvedere houses Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss", which is surprisingly 
large and ornate compared to other renowned pieces I've seen (e.g. Mona Lisa).  
In addition to a sizeable collection of Impressionist works, I am mostly drawn 
to the collection of large paintings by Egon Schiele - expect me to return to 
painting the human anatomy soon.

The Lower Belvedere contains older, (personally) less-inspiring pieces, and I 
don't stay there too long.  Feeling the need to engage in something fun, I hitch 
a tram over to Naschmarkt.  The trams (and the entire transportation system), by 
the way, are incredibly modern.  The wheels are hidden away behind the body,  
with the tram itself only having a few inches clearance off the ground.  It 
looks and feels like it is hovering on the air, especially compared to Toronto 
streetcars.  Not to mention the silence and networked ride, identifying each 
stop and letting riders know the amount of wait time for each tram on the line.


I arrive in the Naschmarkt hoping for something better than the touristy Prague 
market.  The market is situated in the middle of a wide street, consisting of 
numerous vendors in separate stalls and stores in the open-air.  It doesn't have 
the dominant presence of the Grand Market Hall in Budapest, but makes up for 
this with its variety of vendors.  Whereas the Grand Market Hall mostly 
consisted of fruit, meat, vegetable, and souvenir vendors, the Naschmarkt is a 
colourful collage of vendors selling all sorts of food in addition to the basics 
- cheese, wine, spices, fish; prepared food from all ethnicities - 
salads,schwarmas, würstel stands, etc. ;in addition to Chinese, Indian, Nordic, 
and Middle Eastern mini-grocery stores, which also sell their variations and 
preferences of fish, meat, and produce.

Unfortunately, I'm not too hungry, but I have a merry time inquiring vendors on 
their food stuffs, and taking pictures of schwarma chefs lending their smiles.

I walk over to the huge Staatsoper, home to world famous opera performances.  
Circling the building,  I walk into an entrance, and find myself waiting in line 
for standing room tickets.  Little did I realize that I entered at the perfect 
time for tickets.  My entire opera experience is rather lengthy to describe, so 
I'll put it in a separate e-mail.



(Skip past Bratislava to another day)


Today's first site to see is the Stephansdom, located in the centre of the city.  
Vienna, by the way, is a city built in a ring fashion.  Leaving the subway exit, 
I find myself in a massive pedestrian area.  The Stephansdom is another big 
church.  Rather than ascend the church for a view of the city, I decide to 
descend into the catacombs to see something morbid.  

The catacombs must be visited in a tour, which is rather pricey, in addition to 
the guide giving a 2-minute English summary for every 10 minutes of detailed, 
German explanations.  Regardless, the spectacle one encounters down there makes 
up for it.  Thousands of victims of the Black Plague were placed (not buried) 
down here, and what is left are piles of skulls and bones.  Of course, one can 
only imagine the foul smell in the church at the time as well as the further 
spread of the disease by leaving bodies in the catacombs.

The area surrounding the church is a wide, pedestrian shopping district, 
catering to locals and tourists.  I follow my guide book into an unmarked diner 
- an 80 year-old establishment serving little, open-faced sandwiches like tapas.  
Combined with a quarter pint of beer served in a mini beer mug, the meal is 
interesting but not completely worth it.  Then again, I'm still adjusting to the 
higher prices.

Continuing on, I stumble on a Julius Meinl grocery store.  It's usually a common 
grocery store, but in this area, it's a remarkably posh establishment that looks 
Pottery Barn version of a supermarket.  In fact, it rivals Harrods and the fancy 
grocery spectacles I've seen in New York City.

I take a trip back to the outer ring of the city.  The transportation may be 
high in quality, but it's a bit confusing to start as it combines five 
different, formerly separate transportation systems into one.

Taking a walking route back into the ring, I visit a number of large, notable 
buildings for a while:  Karlskirche, Rathaus, Parliament, Hofburg Palace, the 
National Library.  These buildings are incredibly large, with gardens to match.  
Out of curiosity, I wander into the tiny entrance of the Rathaus, only to see a 
small, unimpressive exhibit of old movie posters on cubicle dividers.  There is 
so little traffic that I wonder if this massive building is even used at all.  

I skip over to the Museum Quarter, aptly named because it consists of a 
conglomeration of several museums.  There must be over 10 sizeable museums, 
including the Kunsthistorisches Museum, housing the world's 4th largest art 
collection.  Needless to say, I'm overwhelmed and stuck in a moment of 
indecision.  I decide to stick with my favourites and visit the Museum of 
Contemporary Art, although the neighbouring Kunst Haus Museum contains some 
popular contemporary exhibits too.  

The Museum of Contemporary Art looks like a massive box with no windows from one 
side, but the seven-floor interior is quite spacious and well-lit.  It's a 
worthwhile visit, though I didn't particularly like the feature exhibition 
"Books", which displayed myriads of fake books, reports, and charts 
painstakingly filled with scribbles and "artist's math" - my term for the mess 
of fake or incorrect calculations/equations artists use to make a piece look 
"intelligent".  It's plain, looks like the useless documents located in a bank's 
storage room, and worst of all, a ridiculous waste of paper - but that's my 
opinion.  You might like it.


It's been a long day, so I make my way over to the nearby Café Sperl.  I did 
visit the world-famous Café Central earlier, but it was too posh for my comfort.  
Café Sperl also has the look of elegance, but it's something more akin to casual 
elegance.  It's also charming because of it's incredible age.  I hang my coat 
up, pick a seat on a comfy rounded bench, and order a coffee.  This is where 
coffee culture originates from, where intellectuals would stew on their works 
for hours on end.  I receive my order and the waitress leaves me unbothered and 
to my own devices until I decide to leave.  The catch: the coffee's not cheap.

Following another opera, I head back to the hostel to join other travellers for 
a drink at the hostel bar.  The hostel's pretty hip - as I mentioned, there's 
inline skate rentals - and a free beer is included with the stay.  My roommates 
are a group of travellers from Guatemala.  They've got a pretty scheduled 
itinerary, but they consider modifying their trip as I recant some of the 
dreamiest places I've been to.


Next: Viennese Operamania