Vienna, Mozart and the Memories of Music.

I never usually eat the breakfast that hostels provide, usually I just go out somewhere and find a coffee, so it was pretty exciting to experience the buffet of food that this hostel gave us for an extra 3.70 euro.  Ok, so it wasnt amazing, pretty standard actually, but the prospect of cereal for breakfast was exciting, as it had been a while.  

Unfortunately, I think some of my dad’s ‘travel tricks’ (or general thriftiness/tight-arseness) has rubbed off and I did make a sandwich and took an apple for later.  I used to be so embarrassed when my dad did that. But then again he is much worse. He would make a complete packed lunch and spend 20 minutes creating, wrapping and re-wrapping his picnic that we would eat later that day when the cheese was warm and old and the tomato has soaked through the dry croissant, then offering us a range of marmalades and jams to choose from for desert.  And all the other people would be sitting there watching and shaking their heads at us as he handed me a wad of napkins and some ham and cheese rolls to wrap in clear view.  (Although it did come in handy one time when we got thrown off the train to Rome.)

graceful

It was a Sunday and so everything was closed except for a few museums so we strolled down to the old part of town and looked around the old square.  There was a crowd protesting next to a clown making balloons for children next to couples lunching, all behind the backdrop of the old square and cathedral and the architecture of the new banks and shops. 

We wanted to see the opera and had considered standing in line for 3 hours to try and get a cheap standing room ticket for the opera house.  In the end, we got roped into buying a ticket to a different opera from the men and women dressed like Mozart.  Every one of them was offering us deals and telling us how every other opera was a rip off and theirs was the best.  All the people we talked to offered pretty much the same thing, so we took a risk with one of them who had thrown in a free ticket for us.  As we walked away, a previous Mozart we had been speaking to stopped us and said that he was sorry for us as we had bought tickets to the place where “school children go for their excursions.”  By that stage we didn’t really care anymore, according to all the different Mozart’s, all the operas were shit, so we accepted that we were probably getting ripped off but at least we had a seat and didn’t have to waste three hours in a line. 

By that stage it was lunchtime for the girls. I had been forced to eat mine already as the cucumber in my homemade breakfast sandwich was acting like a tomato and spreading sogginess everywhere. So I ate my apple as the girls got some of the best looking pumpkin soup and pizza.  I have thought about that pumpkin soup since, I really really should have got some.  

Inside the restaurant was an exquisite looking lady of around 40.  She was dressed in a 1920’s style matching skirt and jacket, gloves, a fantastic hat and was perched on her seat an espresso with a graceful pinkie perpendicular to her cup.  Just watching her in this old Italian restaurant complete with lace curtains, heavy tapestries and wooden furniture next to burgundy walls, we felt like we were in a movie or had wound back time.  We waited as long as possible because we wanted to hear her speak or watch her swish down the stairs, instead she pulled out her powder compact and dabbed her face and reapplied her lipstick.  The complete act. 

We went looking for Mozart’s house but when we arrived we decided that we didn’t want to pay  9 euro to see a house that he had only lived in for 3 years and which had been completely refurbished less than 20 years ago.  It’s generally not too difficult to convince the girls to express spaghetti past a museum. 

We went back to the hostel in order to make plans for the next stage of our respective trips.  I had no idea where I was going next.  The girls were going to Salzburg, but as my bus pass doesn’t cover interregional travel I would have to decide whether I wanted to pay the 47 euro to get there and where I would go next.  I had planned to go back to the Eurolines office at the bus stop to ask them if any buses went to Salzburg that I could pay for as it would be cheaper than the train and to ask where the buses went from Salzburg.  Instead, the three of us managed to fall asleep for almost 2 hours. 

Somehow we all woke up and looking at the time realised that we had a very small amount of time to get ready and to get ourselves to the Opera. So with pillow creased faces and ruffled hair we tried our best to make ourselves pretty and dressed up for the Opera. 

We stopped in at another Italian place for a quick cocktail and a salad (Italian restaurants are EVERYWHERE and it is genuinely difficult to find a restaurant that isn’t Italian) and then almost ran to find the ‘theatre’.

Well, we found the address.  It was definitely not a traditional theatre and ominously did sort of look like an old school hall.  Determined not to be disappointed we continued inside and up the stairs into a makeshift ‘theatre’ and were led to the back seats in which we all had to sit on our legs to see.  Still, we were not bothered, and decided that the night still rested on the skill of the performers and the ambience they created.  I asked the girls if they knew where the bathroom was and Carli responded with “I think it’s across the school yard past the playground.”

It would have been nice to be sitting in an opera house or a nice theatre but still the performance was fantastic.  The orchestra played beautifully and pieces from Strauss and Mozart transformed the room and took us all away to a place where your mind can finally be quiet.  The two Opera singers were also very good and lovely to listen to.  As Tuck used to be a dancer for over 10 years, the ballet was a slight disappointment as she pointed out to us that within an hour we could have learnt how to do the same thing. But we gave them the benefit of the doubt as they had a very small space to work with.  

So the night was a success and it was really relaxing to just stop and listen to some classical music. It made me miss playing it as well.  In Edinburgh Tuck and I had spent an afternoon on the hostel piano playing and teaching each other and I had decided that day that when I go home (if I live near my piano)  I’m going to start playing again.  The guitar I’ll always fiddle around on, but I should take the 10 years that I learnt piano and saxophone properly and continue with them as well. 

Walking home, we stumbled upon a concert in the park.  It was one of those typical ‘youth’ concerts where there were about 10 people singing on stage with a conductor throwing his entire body into it as he was obviously so ‘overcome’ with the atmosphere.  It was good actually and full of locals but we only caught the end of it. 

Coming back to the hostel we went to the bar for a little while and played pool while drinking cocktails.   

We crashed into bed and prepared ourselves for the train to Salzburg in the morning.

Counting Time

I have ended up doing a lot more travelling with Carli and Tuck than what I had originally intended.  When I left England, it was an impulse decision but it seems that some kind of fate timed it in order for me to travel some stages with friends.  It is nice to have such great and easy going people to join in with.  It is perhaps a different kind of trip that I had envisioned but it’s not a bad thing.  It’s been good to have friends around at this time and they’ve also given me much more material to write about and have graciously given me permission to take the piss out of them and the wonderful things they blurt out at the most ironic times. Thanks girls. 

I decided to travel to Vienna with them that afternoon, although I would be getting the bus and they would be on the train.  So we had one last day to explore Prague. 

We had read about a flea market and found it on the banks of the river.  It wasn’t exactly a market; there were about 5 ‘stalls’ with people’s old clothes and broken belongings scattered on the ground.  It was kind of like hard rubbish day at home, without the couches.  But I did find some leather to add to what is already on my wrists.

Prague used to have one of the largest statues of Stalin in Europe; it sat upon a hill and looked down upon the people.  After WW2 when the people started to realise his crimes and they decided to blow it up and in its place they put a large metronome that would always show time passing and act as a memorial to time past and present and what is to come.  Tuck really wanted to see this and we were hoping that it resembled a large version of the metronomes that we used to have when we spent hours practicing scales and chromatics and all that fun stuff on the piano.  It did and we climbed to the top and sat next to the large whirring hand ticking past the time as we all had some thoughts to ourselves.  

Further down along the river we found Kampa Island.   It’s a small park on the river filled with space, museums and art.  We sat at a small stall and had a beer. Well, I had a wheat beer and Tuck tried coffee with vodka, mainly because they didn’t understand anything else we asked for.  It tasted a little bit like sake crossed with kaluha, not as bad as Tucky was expecting (she had sat in front of it for at least 10 minutes contemplating her options before I got bored and poured the entire shot into the tiny cup of coffee leaving her only one option).

It was relaxing to be able to just sit around and not do anything.  I think when travelling it is so easy to get caught up with the notion of ‘doing’ things all the time and you start to feel guilty if you’re not looking at a painting, a church or a museum or something else that is written in a guide book.  Personally, I think it is important to be able to just sit and watch and think and feel and to be able to let that be fulfilling enough.  

We wandered over the bridge again and got caught up with ‘The Bridge Band’.  Five of the most caricatured old gentleman playing the most charming music.  Our favourite was a man who looked to be in his late 70’s with a steel washboard hung over his neck playing percussion.  He had more talent with his whisks and thumb thimbles than many percussionists I had seen.   The man playing the tuba had a face like leather and the most defined upper cheek muscles, he reminded me of Pinocchio for some reason and as he was expending more breath than he was taking in and staring into the direct sunlight, we all watched him tensely waiting for the moment he would take a break and a glass of water.  The singer/conductor/front man looked like the captain from the Titanic (complete with hat) and had the roughest voice that he would occasionally add into the mix through an old brass megaphone.  We must have stood watching them for close to an hour.

It was time for me to go to the bus and the girls to go to the train; we went our separate ways and planned to meet in the hostel in Vienna that evening.  It was about a half hour walk to the bus station and I was cursing myself all the way for having too many things.  But I made it and lay on the ground for an hour reading while I waited for the bus.  It was only a 4 hour drive to Vienna and it passed quickly.  

It was 10pm when I arrived at the bus station in Vienna.  It looked to be closed and it was dark and set in an ugly part of town with a few strange men hanging around.  Finding my bearings once again and yet another train station I found my way to the U-bahn closest to the hostel.  Unfortunately from there I was a little bit stuck without a map. I was considering wandering about the streets hoping to find the right place when I heard some English speakers climbing up the stairs; I waited hoping they had a map or knew the right direction.

Tucky and Carli just kept on walking to the exit until I called out; Tuck just gave me this dumb stare as we both had a moment of realisation that we knew each other.  Although we had planned to meet in this city around this time near this place, Tuck’s facial expression was gold and it sent me into fits of laughter.

They had a map and we found the hostel.

Communism and Capitalism

Today was dedicated to learning about Prague during the communist regime and then we helped feed capitalism by shopping.  Carli is great with a map and can always direct Tuck to the largest shopping strip in a city. Prague was no exception.  We spent a few hours trying all sorts of things on and all ended up walking away with something, a successful days in their eyes as a friend had given them the travelling advice before they had left ‘you see, you like, you buy’.

I managed to find a head band that has leather and material hanging from it which sits in exactly the same spot as my hair wrap used to (there were also feathers but the conditions of sale was that I was forced to cut them off to avoid looking like Pocahontas).  It’s not quite the same as my rat tail that I had for 2 years which became a kind of comfort blanket, but it feels right to have something there again. 

In the afternoon we took a tour of the city and a nuclear bunker from the 1950’s. Our guide spoke very quickly and it was a little difficult to catch all the dates and important facts, but my minor in history did help me to fill in the blanks.  

Around the time of the collapse of communism, mostly students and youths held a huge demonstration in the town, it was the final straw and communism in Czechoslovakia fell.  It was called the Velvet Revolution, because unlike demonstrations in many other countries, not one person was killed by the police or violence. 

It is hard to understand exactly what it would be like to live and grow up in many of the places I have visited.

Even the subways have been built with the intention of using them as bomb shelters or bunkers if need be.  Growing up in Australia, all my Grandparents served in WW2 and Australia has been part of many wars and stepped in to help many nations such as East Timor, but to me, the concept of war has never felt like it was directly in our backyards, and hopefully never will.  The more you travel the world the more you can appreciate your own life and history as well as other peoples. Travelling creates understanding, tolerance and respect for a world that we are all part of and therefore influenced by. 

The nuclear bunker we visited was built in the 1950’s but has never been used except for training.  Part of it has now been fitted out with a bar and we could see the remains of cigarette butts and beer bottles, so I think it is now in operation because of a different kind of party.

It all seemed a little bit James Bond to me, but they obviously would not have made the effort to build these things if they didn’t once feel that a threat was real.  I guess it felt a little bit like a movie set instead of a backdrop for history because of the gas masks that were for sale, the free beer they handed out and the dress ups complete with replica Kalashnikov machine guns. 

What I find most interesting is the stories of the people, the ones who were taken away in the middle of the night and never seen again, the buildings full of paperwork documenting pretty much what everyone ate for breakfast in order to tell whether they were a traitor or not.  And mostly, how did everyone live after it was over.  I think the reconstruction of societies is just as interesting and important as their destruction.

Returning to the centre of town the girls decided they may be able to fit in a little more shopping, luckily I had to go to the bus station to see if I could get a ticket to Vienna and so got to opt out gracefully. 

I got a ticket and the girls showed me one of the items they got.  4 words... ‘Super Push-Up Bra’.  Girls, I just want to say that at first I laughed, but I think I’m converted. As someone for whom even wearing a bra at all has never been imperative, this bra makes you want to wear it. Amazing. There is a lot more to the story of the infamous Super Bra that has continued for days now, but we’ve all decided that it’s probably not necessary to share.

I bought another book called ‘Eat Pray Love’ and if you’ve ever felt a little lost in the world or in love, this book maybe puts down on paper some of the things that you’re feeling, it’s not soppy or self-help like, it’s just someone else’s story that I think many people might find similarities and a connection to.  It’s also just easy to read which is what I felt like, Salman Rushdie was making me a little dizzy. 

That night we ate dinner on the river and took in our last night of Prague, an inviting and beautiful city.  

Getting ready for bed, we had to help a fellow Aussie who’d obviously had a very big night and was now spending the rest of it in the only toilet on the floor.  

To Tucky’s distress, she has become a snorer, something she is very upset about.  Personally I think it’s pretty funny especially as she has given both of us express permission to throw at her whatever object is closest to us.  I had the opportunity that night, but seeing as the closest thing to me was two bottles of full beer from the bunker tour, I decided to be a good friend and give her a gentle shake instead.

Reunited again

At 9am the girls bustled into my room with all their bags, wonderful wakeup call, and I even got hugs galore before I had even opened my eyes.

The next half an hour went how it usually does, the girls splaying themselves all over the bed and talking about how starving they were, yet never starving enough to get off the bed.

But we wandered down to a cafe and once again had to dodge something that someone had thrown off their balcony from the top floor.  This time I don’t think it was water.  An old man got the full brunt of it and from then on Tuck got very good at sliding closely along the walls while walking.

Once again the girls ordered too much for breakfast. They have heard of the saying that ‘your eyes are bigger than your stomach’ but they just seem to forget it...every time.

We had written down things that we would like to do in Prague because without a little list, distractions like shopping tend to become the fall back activity (unfortunate for me as it is one of my least favourite activities).  The girls are trying to teach me to like shopping and I’m now able to stick it out for a couple of hours with them, they even manage to encourage me to spend money I don’t have, but they are the experts. 

Tuck’s general rule is that if she buys anything on sale or she buys something cheaper than what she intended to buy, no matter the price, she is saving money.  I’m still trying to get my head around that one, but it’s been working a treat for her. Dresses, like ice cream, also make her happy.

We spent the day searching for the Palace which led us to see many other things.  There is a large hill in the west of the city near the hunger wall; we ended up getting a fun little tram up to the top.  It was a beautiful park area with many trees (unfortunately hiding the view of the city) and after buying ourselves Calippos which we later regretted due to the cardboard and cold hand factor, we ventured for a couple of kilometres winding through the streets down to the Palace.

The Palace was quite confusing as it was more like a small city within the city. It was filled with lots of museums and small palaces as well as the cathedral.

We decided to climb the 287 stairs to the top of the tower.  To buy the tickets took quite some time as the woman tried to find change and work out how to print them, we then took one step to the entrance where another woman took our tickets from us.  Good system.

The tiny but steep staircase made us a little dizzy and I had bought a skirt that was too long for me, Tuck did her best not to step on it again, avoiding more public exposure.

The view from the top was worth the climb and we spent a while just watching over the city. I’ve decided that Prague could be the backdrop for all fairytales; you can just imagine Repunzel, Cinderella and Snow White wandering around.

We headed back down over the old Charles Bridge past the buskers and the stalls and back to the Old Town to have dinner. 

We stopped in at a small bar for some wine and to listen to some live jazz. After about an hour we had to move on for dinner, it had been about 2 hours since the girls had eaten and after 2 hours things get a little shaky if there is not food directly in front of them, or at worst, if they are not at least searching for something to eat. They are doing their best to teach me how to master this habitual eating thing. 

Nearly every restaurant is Italian and although we all ordered different things, it ended up being exactly same dish just in a different form.  But there were blankets, wine, heaters, and good conversation about all the things we had done since we had last seen each other.

Arriving in Prague

I had gone to Norway knowing that I would have to repeat the long journey back to mainland Europe, but after booking my ticket to Prague, they rang me back to tell me that I could only go to Berlin. As I had decided to try and meet the girls in Prague and didn’t really fancy extending the bus journey by another 15 hours, I decided the best thing to do was to take a flight to Prague. 

Although it is very much not in my budget, the comparatively short trip to Prague was truly appreciated, and I also got to stock up on snap lock plastic bags at the airport that are meant to be for your liquids...they are so handy and I haven’t been able to find them anywhere.

Outside Prague airport, the weather gave me a shock, it was colder than Norway.  This was not part of the plan, but it must have been a one off as the rest of our days were full of sunshine and more sunburn.

The beauty (one of only a few) of catching the bus is that you do arrive quite close to the centre of each city, unlike airports. So after nearly 2 hours I found the hostel we were staying at in the middle of the Old Town of Prague. 

After wandering around town for a while I settled on a restaurant to eat at.  Prague is fairly cheap and as I had blown the budget with the flight there I thought I may as well go all out.  So I sat and had salad and wine and read my book.  

There are some places that just grab you, and although I had just arrived and hadn’t really seen too much but I had the feeling I was really going to like Prague.