I Took the Long Way

I just had dinner with the amazing team behind the Vienna Academy of Visionary Art – Director Laurence Caruna and Chief Administrator and Head of Communication Florence Ménard – in the lovely courtyard attached to their flat where they just moved in with their 4.5-year old son.  They came here from France to open the school.  After 6 months of corresponding with them and getting to know them through email and Facebook, it was so natural spending an evening with them.  If you thought I worked hard to get myself here … wow!  Bravo and thank you Laurence & Florence for spearheading this project – I’m very excited about starting classes (I learned so much simply over dinner) and am so glad I got the chance to spend an evening getting to know you better.

Their flat was the second residence I visited today – well, sort of – I didn’t actually get an invitation to the first one and chose not to take the tour… but I played tourist a bit in the back yard of the Hofburg Palace with Mozart.  These photos are of the President’s home  in the Burggarten.  I was all impressed with the place before knowing what it was (another day walking around without a map) – it’s quite the back door!  The front is where most of the crowds were.  I didn’t go in as I wasn’t really in tourist mode. I do look forward to coming back to the greenhouses next door where they have live butterflies I can photograph – I’ve always loved that.

In total, I spent 6.5 hours walking around today.  At one point, I found myself not remembering what to answer when a shop assistant greeted me as I came in.  I’d forgotten “Hallo” or “Gutten Tag”… that’s when I knew it was time to go home for a break, which is when I saw Florence’s invitation for 6pm drinks (a delicious flower syrup added to water) that turned into dinner.  They’re only 20 minutes walk away, so that was perfect.

The main purpose of my walk was to eventually end up at the Magistrate’s office to ask some questions regarding the extension of my 4-month visa.  They’re not open on Wednesdays, however.  I’ve discovered that it’s quite common for various offices here to only be open on certain days and at certain times.  For example, the registration office I went to early this morning is only open 8-12, but everyone who comes to live here must register within 3 days.

Some other observations from my day:

• there’s enough floor space and wall space in my room for a great restorative yoga practice (and more active one too, just not yet) – finding a cheap yoga mat is on my list. My natural rubber one from NL was too big and definitely too heavy to bring along
• the water here is supposedly great to drink, which is wonderful – and with my new Britta Fill & Go bottle, I’m all set
• thank goodness I got glasses because I wouldn’t have been able to read the maps some people showed me along the way
• smoking is still a craze here – they even have vending machines attached to the outside walls of some buildings (I guess there’s no age control).  Smoking is still permitted in cafes and bars and you can’t get away from it in the streets.
• the sound cars make when driving on the concrete tiles used on streets with tram rails sounds a bit like the horse-drawn carriages I saw all over the  …. I wonder if that was done on purpose to honour their horse-loving tradition
• my school is right next to the stables for the famous Lipizzaner stallions, which I saw here when I lived in Germany (between the ages of 5-10 as an “army brat” to answer someone’s question from yesterday).  With my interest in manifestation, I found myself wondering this morning whether I had said “I want to live here” at the time … something that’s easy to imagine whenever animals were involved.
• there are so many things to see and do here that I felt a bit of sensory overload and didn’t do anything but walk around – I’ve got time…. I’m sure I’ll visit a few museums, see a few concerts, take a bus tour around the city, take my real camera out for some fun, sit in a park.  Wow! And the architecture – it’s amazing. Today, I just wasn’t in the mood.
• this is definitely a bicycle town. They not only have special lanes, they have special sidewalks and traffic signals – a bit confusing with the tram lines and crosswalks.  I must remember to stay off those until I’m actually on a bike.
• there are lots of vegan, vegetarian, organic, and health food stores around.  yay! but I’ll confess, I had a salami pizza for lunch (I used to have temper tantrums for them as a child in Europe … sorry Maman & Papa about that…) – it was delicious!!!
• I seemed to understand and speak less German today …. oh well.
• if I were a shopper, I’d be in trouble here.
• My paraliminal CD “Youthful Vitally” works – I had hesitated about going back out tonight, but couldn’t pass up the chance to connect with Laurence and Florence and my 20-minute hypnotherapy did the trick. I’m getting back into my tools and spiritual routines after a short hiatus and that feels good.
• still no roommates – but that gave me the chance to smudge the space with sacred palo santo smoke to clear any stuck energies from the years of previous tenants – that felt good.
• Should I throw out that broccoli that was left behind? It really stinks… I just won’t open that mini-fridge again until they come back – I’m using the other one.

OK – bedtime – Goodnight.