Today we found the rarest of treats on our trips; the time for a nap. Oh, we did things - quite a few things, in fact - but our early start meant we had some time in the afternoon to return to our hostel and take a much-needed family nap.
The day started at 6:00 AM with delivery trucks outside our window - windows that were wide open because it was at least 85 degrees in our room. I finally got up at 7:30 to go find our car, return it to Hertz, and walk the two miles back to our place in time to catch breakfast. By 9:30 we were out the door ready to sight see. We walked all the way to the center of the old town to the St. Stephens cathedral. Like most we have ever seen, it was undergoing renovation on the exterior - delicately sandblasting off a century or more of city grime. The difference between what had been finished and what was not, was dramatic. It is frustrating to see so many sights draped in scaffolding, but that is to be expected, I suppose. We value the preservation of these places so we shouldn't be surprised to find them being preserved. Still, it sometimes seems as if everything is being worked on at the same time.
Next we walked a few blocks to the Haus Der Musik (House of Music) - a comprehensive museum of the science of sound and Vienna's contribution to classical music. Both aspects of the museum were done well, but there was little connection between the two. For example, in one room you are treated to what it must sound like to be a fetus in a womb, and in another you get Mozart's career in Vienna. Both interesting, but only vaguely related topics. It was a very hands-on museum, though, and the children loved that. One particularly fun exhibit had a video of the Vienna Philharmonic synced to the movements of a conducting baton (top photo) so that the orchestra on video seemed to respond to your conducting tempo. Some of the results were amusing.
Nearby was the garden with the city's Mozart statue (middle photo)
Then we visited the highly-regarded Kunsthistorisches Museum (city art museum) where we had our fill of great paintings, including some rather odd ones (bottom photo). By this time, it was 3:00 and we were all tired from our poor night's sleep, and the accumulated effects of our busy schedule the last 18 days. We walked back to our hostel for our nap and didn't get back outside until 6:00.
Today is Annie's 14th birthday. We found a decent restaurant to celebrate in and then walked to the Rathous Platz (city hall plaza) where they had a lot of food vendors in action and an elaborate set-up for after dark movies-in-the-park sort of thing. It would have been fun to stay and partake of the festivities. Unfortunately, the movie was an opera performance (which I would have still liked, but I'm not sure the children would have been enthralled) and Annie wanted to get back to the hostel. You see, ever since she saw people in Amsterdam watching the World Cup football (soccer) games, she has not only adopted soccer as her favorite sport, but also the Netherlands as her favorite team. They are playing in the semi-finals tonight, it's on the TV in the lounge, and it's her birthday, so she gets to decide...
You'll have to tell Annie that it was quite a site to be here in Amsterdam last night with the Dutch. The entire city was Orange. They had a huge screen erected behind the Van Gogh Museum on Museumplein and it was packed. It was great fun to see the Dutch win, but we had vuvuzelas and bells and horns outside our window until around 4 AM. That is why I'm taking it easy this afternoon! :)
ReplyDeleteI'm pulling for Germany today as I will be in Berlin for the finals. I think it will be a cool feat to say that I was in two different capital cities as their teams were either making it to the World Cup Final or playing in it. The only problem I'll have that night will be who to pull for. For my own safety, it'll probably be the Germans! :)