After another very good / intensive week at school, during which I learned so much and steadily progressed on my concept for one of my trimester paintings, it was time for a change of scene.  So on Saturday, I had a night out on the town.  Actually, it was more than a night – I left home at 1pm and didn’t come back until 1am, walking most of that time. Oh, but was it ever worth it.  In the afternoon, I joined 25 local photographers to participate in Scott Kelby’s Worldwide Photo Walk, an annual event, and at night, I joined thousands upon thousands of both locals and tourists for the Lange Nacht Der Museen (Long Night of Museums) – 130 museums open from 6pm until 1am with 1 low-priced ticket (13 Euros = ~$18 Cdn). Of course, I didn’t get to 130, but I did manage to do 10 of the 11 on my carefully researched list.  This was a very well organized event, with a comprehensive booklet (also available in English), free public transportation, including 5 special shuttle routes, and a huge crew of staff and volunteers.  I was impressed! The one museum I didn’t manage to do only had 800 tickets available, all of which had been snatched up before I could get there at 7:30pm – oh well, I might just pay their usual 12.60Euro entrance fee and go another day.

Here’s a summary of my day in both words & photos.

Donau Kanal Worldwide Photo Walk:

When I got the email from my old camera club in Newfoundland about this year’s Photo Walk, I decided to Google Scott Kelby’s website to see if there were any groups participating here in Vienna. There were 2, one downtown where I spend most of my days, and one along the Danube Canal, which I hadn’t visited yet.  So I joined online and got to the meeting point an hour early (no surprise there) to sit on a bench, and people/dog watch while the weather turned from an early Fall afternoon to a cold and windy wintery type day.  Fascinating! When group members arrived, I tried my best to stick to German, but it’s so easy to switch to English when folks use it to talk to me. For the next 2 hours, we slowly walked along the canal, where I mostly focused on the graffiti – fun!  I had purposefully not brought my tripod so that I wouldn’t have to use the cloak rooms at the various museums (which would have slowed me down considerably), so I had to shoot at over 1200 iso it was so dark. That’s one reason I decided to have fun with zooms and pans. (Note: click on any photo to see it larger.)

boat designed by Hundertwasser

*I have to choose 1 photo from this walk to upload to the group – I’ve got it narrowed down to 3.  What’s your favourite photo?

Long Night of the Museums:

We ended our walk at the Design Tower by architect Jean Nouvel, where our group leader had arranged for us to go up 18 floors to The Loft for a complimentary drink and the start of a guided tour. At 7pm, as the group was getting ready to go have dinner, I was more than ready to take off as the Long Night of the Museums was already one hour underway.  The Design Tower was a participating venue, and I was glad to have seen it, especially the breathtaking views on the city, but I had so many other places on my wish list.

Stop 2:  Kunst Haus Wien – Museum Hundertwasser:
If you’ll remember, I really resonate with Hundertwasser’s buildings that I shared with you on my first week here – both this museum and the public housing complex a few blocks away.  I had never been inside, though, or seen any of his paintings.  I loved the colours and harmonious use of spirals and squares – although very different from Klimt, these elements are present in both their work (and mine)…. The energy here was very good for me and the place wasn’t too crowded as this museum, about 10 minutes walk from the Design Tower, wasn’t centrally located.  I took a couple of pictures before learning that photos weren’t allowed.   While there, I also walked quickly through a photo exhibit by Linda McCartney, but it didn’t capture my attention.
Stop 3 & 4: Upper and Lower Belvedere:
From Kunst Haus, I hopped on the free Line 1 shuttle that brought us back to the central Meeting Point in front of the Hofburg Palace, where I jumped onto the Line 2 bus which took me to the Belvedere (remember those lovely garden photos with a large square body of water in front?).  In the Upper Belvedere, I saw Klimt’s “The Kiss” and other of his works, some of which I totally didn’t resonate with and others that I loved.  I also found a large digital photo screen of a black panther and a marble sculpture with a different interpretation of Amor & Psyche than the one I fell in love with as a child in Paris at the Louvre … all three of these will help me refine elements of my trimester painting.  Great!  I was glad to also go through the Lower Belvedere as some of the soul paintings from 1900 touched on themes of mysticism and myth in a way that I enjoyed.  Of course there were lots of other rooms full of paintings / old portraits that never spoke to me – I remember being bored by them as a child and although I do have much more of an appreciation for them on an intellectual level thanks to all I’ve learned at school in the past 3 weeks, I still don’t enjoy them.

Hofburg Palace

An amazingly talented bottle player…

Lower Belvedere

Stop 5:  Secession:
I rarely spend much time in museums, but I was in and out of this one so quickly, it’s quite funny.  I had a purpose – to see Klimt’s Beethoven Frieze in the basement.  I glanced in 2 other rooms on the way, but it was modern stuff that totally didn’t speak to me, and so I decided not to waste my precious time that the bus rides had already cut into.  The frieze was worth it and I do like the outside look of this building – don’t you?!
Stop 6: The Vienna Butterfly House at the Burggarten Palmhouse:
I had been wanting to visit this since my first days in Vienna – I have such wonderful memories of photographing butterflies in various greenhouses in Canada.  I’m glad I didn’t pay the usual entrance fee for this one.  There were hardly any butterflies, none of which were flying around at this time of night.  Part of the reason I didn’t get much out of this experience, however, was probably that I waited about 20 minutes in line and the crowd inched its way through the space as one slow line – no way for me to get out any faster.  Still, it was nice to be among greenery, but nothing very spectacular in that realm either.

Stop 7: The Albertina:
This palace is one of the most famous art museums in Vienna.  The line wasn’t too long, and I quickly made my way up to the “Matisse and The Fauves” exhibit. I liked the purple walls and some of the art, but I didn’t spend too long in front of anything.  Still, I was thrilled to have an idea of the space and grateful for the splashes of colour.  This step away from what other painters of the time were doing was not well received by critics of the day, but now look at where they’re hanging.  It’s really truly important to create according to our own inner callings – not what the world wants or expects from us. Still, I’m sure they had to pay the rent and eat too…

Stop 8: Austrian Film MuseumI had been curious about this museum as it’s quite close to my school and I am a big movie fan.  The museum basically consists of the screening room and lobby. I only had to wait 10 minutes for the next screening – this one a 20-minute compilation of “tension” (the volunteer said there wasn’t really a word for it in English) in 4 films throughout history.  Sitting down in the dark, especially during the third and the longest/ most tedious art film clip I’d seen in a long time, my body recognized that we were already past my usual bedtime.  Still, I got to experience the space, and for that, I am grateful.

Stop 9:  Natural History Museum:
It was now 11pm and I only had 2 more museums on my list, so I slowed down a bit to walk the full circle of exhibits on both floors.  This building is a mirror copy of the Art History Museum across the courtyard/gardens, where my class goes on Thursdays to draw.  It was neat to notice the similarities and differences in the interior decorations – great ceilings and wall friezes in both!  This one, however, is filled with minerals and animals of all kinds – 30 million specimens … and lots and lots of people.  I can see how it would captivate museum lovers for hours on end… but unless I need to come back to practice drawing something, once was enough for me.  Lifeless specimens behind glass don’t really do it for me.  Or perhaps this is like libraries and videos stores – simply too much visual stimulus that leads me to feeling overwhelmed, choosing to leave for quieter surroundings instead.  Have you figured out yet that I’ve never been much of a museum person? That’s one reason this one-ticket deal was great for me so I could get a quick taste of it without the expense.  There is no right or wrong, good or bad – there just is, and that is me.

Stop 10 – Last Stop – The Leopold:
It was now a bit past midnight and I headed across the street to the Museum Quartier where I’d selected one of the many museums there to visit – The Leopold.  The second floor was a very loud smoky bar with live music and dancing that resonated throughout the whole museum – interesting.  I mainly focused on the Leopold collection with the largest Egon Schiele collection and Art Nouveau showcase with works by Klimt and other Secessionists.  The Leopold is a very modern space compared to some of the older museums, and the work fits in very nicely here.  I once again resonated with some of Klimt’s work and was reminded by both his and Shiele’s pieces that once I’ve figured out how to draw the human figure (a continuing challenge despite our anatomy of the muscles class this week and life drawing experiences – but there is progress….), I’ll be able to find my own style of drawing them to integrate the figure in my work the way I’d like to – a way that is yet to be determined.  I loved how Shiele left off the feet in this one painting – I’ve been doing that too – hands and feet are especially difficult to draw…  That might not have been why he left them out though…  I left this museum a little before 1am as folks were begging the security guards to let them in past the 12:30am last entry (without success).  Half an hour’s walk later, I was home with my feet stretched up along the wall above my bed to help reestablish a more normal blood circulation.  What a great day!  I’m glad I decided to do it alone instead of with the couchsurfing group or classmates as I could follow my own agenda at my own speed – a very different one, I’m sure, than most people out and about last night.

Well, it’s now 5:00pm on Sunday (it takes a loooonnnnng time to edit photos – I started with 498 – and write blogs) and I haven’t started my homework.  But first, time to cook some of this week’s meals.  Hope you had a great weekend.

A lot of people seemed to be looking at my walking sandals today – I’d considered my hiking boots to go exploring the Prater, but with a high of 21C (13 when I left), I was glad I wore my open-toed footwear.  Fall/winter will be here soon enough and my poor toes will then again have to be closed in.  I love these shoes!  Sure, they’re a bit inconvenient when a pebble gets caught in there, but a bit of yoga balance and a practiced finger does the trick.  This time, however, my brain registered it as strange that my hand was wet after handling my shoe and yet the pathways were dry … yuk! I’d stepped in doggy doo-doo! Try finding a place to wash your hands in these parks! I did find a toilet (free, surprisingly!), but there were no sinks.  Later on, though, I found a water pump that did the trick after using grass and a pond in between.  But I’m getting ahead of myself…

I had put it up in the school’s Facebook group that I’d be leaving the Prater fairgrounds entrance gate at 11am if anyone wanted to go on a hike, but as I had anticipated, I was on my own. That gave me a chance to do another 3 hours of learning German with my iPhone as I wandered around, sometimes in circles, in the Prater park, a huge space with the Hauptalle (Main Alley) in the centre (with lanes for bicycles/in-line skaters, pedestrians, horses, and dirt paths for dog walkers/joggers) and paths going off in all directions through all sorts of terrains and attractions.  I mostly stuck to the bigger pathways on the lower side of the map, simply because I didn’t know how safe it would be to wander into the woods on my own, but I still got a good taste of nature.  I brought my real camera this time, but alas, dear fans who complained that I didn’t have a photo of the squirrels at Shönbrunn, there were none here.

After 3 hours, when I spotted a sign for the underground, I decided that I’d had enough.  Once I found my way there, I learned that the Eurolines buses to Brno, Czech Republic are only 7.60 EUR instead of the 30 train ticket.  They leave every day at 17:30 from the Prater… a bit of a problem with my 18:00 end of classes.  I’ll keep exploring options.  I got off the U3 at a station that was new to me, but whose name I recognized as being a street that connects to mine. It turns out that it starts on Mariahilfestrasse (the big shopping street), which gave me the chance to get a pistachio gelato cone for my walk home.  When I arrived at 3pm, one of my roommates was still sleeping – they came in at 5am.  They start 2 weeks of German classes tomorrow, so we’ll be on a more similar schedule then.

My Spirit Calling Card message yesterday morning was a beauty, especially considering I was about to meet a few more of my teachers and classmates as we worked together for 5 hours to set up the studio for this Saturday’s opening celebrations/exhibition.  Appreciating the emerging colours of our group dynamics as well as putting up all the gorgeous/powerful artwork and seeing the space take shape were indeed a big part of my day.

On my way to school in the morning, I walked on the left side of Burgasse instead of the right, which led to the Volksgarten instead of to the imperial palace.  Although 1/4 of the park was undergoing restoration, there was still enough greenery here to be satisfying for a downtown park. It will be a little oasis on my way to school.  I ended up spending an hour sitting on the marble bench near the statue of Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary (Sissi) listening to the three water fountains as the peaceful background to my German lessons on my iPhone.  It was the perfect spot until a few guided tours of about 40 people joined me, but only for a few minutes each.

I’m practicing my German a little every day, but both with the Polish maintenance folks at the Palace and a Slovak woman giving me directions on the street, it was easier to try and communicate in Czech.  Unfortunately, my Czech is all being jumbled up with my German and vice versa right now… oh well.

After leaving the school, one of my classmates from the United States, Donnalynne and I headed to the Danube Island to put our feet in the water and chat before heading back to town to find a place to eat near Stephanplatz –  we decided on a Greek Restaurant with live music – it was great except for the smoke, of course (have I mentioned that before?).  On our way back to the Underground, my eye caught this unusual window display of shirts.  We also came across a very lively parade of what seemed like Cubans because of the music… but not sure.

Donnalynne also got a place through the same international student housing agency, but because she started her process late in the game, ended up at the outskirts of town amongst car and tombstone dealerships.  I’m so glad I started early.  I just got an email yesterday that they can extend this room for January and then offer me another place at about the same distance from school on Tigergasse until June. I need to decide by September 30th.  I took advantage of an incredible Air Canada sale on right now and got an $813 ticket from Ottawa – Vienna- Ottawa after Christmas returning to Canada at the end of June … all this without knowing if I’ll be let back in the country.  I’m trying not to let all that stress me, but it does.  The school is still waiting for its accreditation and without that, I won’t be able to get a residence permit.  I emailed the embassy in Ottawa to see if we’re allowed 2 Class D visas in a row… and whether that could happen when I’m only in town for a week at Christmas time.  They only have 1 day of appointments open on December 24th.  This time I won’t be there for 3 weeks…  Once again, I’ll have to keep on trusting and manifesting and taking the financial risks. But I’m being guided to start on all that…

OK – enough for today – the sun is out and it’s supposed to rain all afternoon, so off to somewhere I go.

Happy Thanksgiving! This is the Erntedankfest (Harvest Festival) weekend here in Vienna. I’ll be taking a stroll to the big festival downtown today, but yesterday, I came across a few festivities during my travels, including this concert on Mariahilfstrasse (the big shopping street) on my way to the Opera House for my last few hours with the Hop On Hop Off tour.

 A Vienna Sightseeing guide had told me that the DDSG boating company should honour the combo ticket pricing even if I didn’t buy a ticket in advance (as I didn’t know about that possibility). I tried asking for confirmation, but this day’s guide was put on hold for too long and told me I could take the chance. When I got to the DDSG offices near a gorgeous church on the Danube a half hour into the tour, however, I found out that they wouldn’t. Oh well.  I decided not to buy the full price ticket for a half tour (1.5 hours) because for a few extra dollars, I could get the whole loop (3 hours) on a day when I had more time, so I sat on a bench watching boats go by until I came up with another plan.  By this time, my ticket for the tour bus had expired.

It was already 1pm and I was meeting some teachers and a classmate at 5pm in a part of town I hadn’t been to before.  I had considered walking there about 2-3 hours away in order to see more of the city, but my body protested. I then saw that the underground train had a station on the Danube island (Donauinsel) in front of me with a stop on the same line near my final destination, which seemed much more my speed.  As I crossed the bridge to the island, I remarked to myself that the blue Danube was really more of a milky green, but I soon found out that the Danube itself on the other side of the island is blue, but that the New Danube I had just crossed is of a different colour.  There are actually 4 Danubes in the city – the canal, the overflow canal in case of floods, the New and the Old.

After getting an island map from the ice cream vendor (along with a strawberry & white chocolate Magnum), I sat down and figured out that the island is huge (21km).  I thought of walking around to see as much as I could in the 2 hours I had, but when I spotted the little floating plastic docks every so often alongside the Danube (about 10 square feet with a ladder to get in and out of the water), I decided instead to just sit there with my feet in the water, just like a true Viennese.  I wasn’t dressed for swimming, but when one of the two older men who had joined me on my dock stood up from where he was sunning himself and dove in (he wasn’t a small man by any means), I got a bit of a splash.  I didn’t mind.  I was finally relaxing and just being – enjoying nature, water, and watching the world go by.  Some swimmers would cross the Danube to the stairs/bathing platforms across the way, or simply swim in the middle for a while and come back. I also watched cyclists, in-line skaters, skateboarders, and strollers wander past.  I’ll definitely rent a bike here one day to explore the full 21km.  Today, I just got a taste of it.

I then figured out how to buy an underground ticket and make my way to the train.  These are clean, modern, efficient, and filled with all sorts of people.  Vienna is known as a very safe city – these are not at all like the subways in NYC that I’ve seen in movies or traveled on.  I may just get a monthly pass next month to visit different parks each weekend. We’ll see.  Tomorrow, I’ll get a weekly pass to start extensively exploring public transportation.  Once I arrived at my destination, it was tough trying to figure out which exit to take, so I just got above ground and was thrilled to see a sign to the Belvedere Palace I had been to the day before and which I knew was in the right direction.  I spent some time there in the lower gardens this time, and then cut across the University Botanical Gardens (which I’ll return to for sure) before finding my way to the apartment building where 4 of my teachers and 3 students will be living.  One thing that was different about the apartments here is that the toilet was in the hallway outside the apartment and is sometimes shared by several apartments.  These too didn’t have a sink.

I’m glad I’m getting this opportunity to meet the group a few people at a time – I’m better with small numbers than big crowds.  Laurence, Florence and their son were there and this time I met Kuba, Vera, and fellow classmate Martin.  The art I saw there was amazing.  I was especially taken by a painting Vera has been working on for a year, based on a vision from 3 years ago (if I remember well).  Wow!  Since I never know what I’m going to paint before I start and the whole process is intuitive and rather quick (usually a weekend of 12+ hour/day marathons to a couple of weeks if thick layers need to dry), I have a hard time imagining this for myself.  That’s definitely part of what I’ll be exploring here – the longer and more planned process based on drawing from visions – the visions I get, putting them on canvas has been another matter.  I’m very looking forward to seeing where it all leads. I noticed that my words and thoughts about what I’ll be producing here lacked in confidence.  I’d best redirect that – I’ve got some paraliminal CDs that can help. I’m glad I caught onto it early on.  Time for some openness, gentleness, and a sense of courageous adventure and acceptance of the results.

We had a lovely evening with homemade pizza and discussion on what needs to be done before the big public opening next weekend.  I’ll be volunteering a few days at the school this week and delivering posters around town (hard to imagine as I don’t know the city yet, but that’ll be a good way to do so).

OK – now off to see if I can figure out the laundry system.  I’m taking a break today – not so much running around.  I’ll go feed myself at the Erntedankefest later on (as shops are closed and I never did stock up on groceries for anything but breakfast) and that will be all the walking I’ll do today.