Vienna in and around

Our trip to Vienna on the way to Moshi seems so long ago now. We had made many preparations, including 4 overweight bags for KIWAKKUKI and just a few clothes for our selves. But, we were ready. The trip began in Durham but quickly ground to a halt in Detroit as our plane had mechanical difficulties and we were grounded for two hours. Of course this meant that we would miss the Vienna flight. Because two major events were coinciding in Vienna, the World AIDS Conference (25,000 people) and the Life Ball, an annual event of the glitterati to raise money for AIDS in Austria and for the Global Fund, (@3,000 people) there were no seats on any flights directly to Vienna. This meant that we had to go to Vienna via Strasbourg and make a 45 minute connection to get to Vienna. Though we made it, sadly our bags did not. Strangely 3 bags (all for KIWAKKUKI) seemed to arrive from Kampala just as we were reporting our bags lost. There was general confusion and we spent our first night with KIWAKKUKI T-shirts on, wondering how long we would be in our dirty jeans.

Fortunately our last bag arrived the following morning. We stayed in the Regina Hotel, a very old and quaint hotel conveniently located to the subway, and also next to the Votive Church (built by Marie Theresia after Franz Joseph (which one?) was nearly murdered, and she built it when he survived.

Also coincidently, the hotel was right next to the Freud Park, the University where he taught, and his house, complete with funny ancient videos made by Anna Freud and THE COUCH! I love to poke around and this time my poking came in handy because the Freud Museum was close, but not where the guidebook described.
(Freud House)
Since John had a meeting when we first arrived, I was free to hop on and hop off the bus to acquaint myself with downtown Vienna. It was lots of fun, though extraordinarily hot. It would be hard to name highlights because so much is packed into a very small area. Clearly it felt amazing to be on the street where Mozart lived, where he wrote the Requiem shortly before his death, and where he and his wife were married (St. Stephen’s fabulous church).
(on square where St. Stephens Church is located--Mozarts were everywhere)
Vienna a beautiful City
I discovered that Otto Wagner (related to Richard) was very active in architecture and put his hand to tons of different things including the modern art museum. I loved the Russian soldier statue, Parliament, the Belvedere Palace, the Hofburg Palace and the gardens.
(Russian Soldier Statue)
(Butterfly Museum next to Hofburg House)

(Big Hofburg House)
On our own, John and I went to the Central Cemetery and found where the great masters of music are buried, and where a statue of Mozart resides as no one knows the location of his remains.
(Schubert)
(Beethoven)
(Brahms) (Mozart statue) (Strauss)

The Life Ball was an amazing thing to behold from the outside. John and I naively thought that we might be able to get tickets to this event since we were attending the conference. We had no idea that probably the cost to get inside was well over $1000/ticket or that it had been sold out months in advance and only the rich and famous are privy to these tickets. But we certainly watched the show until the lightening started. The outdoor festivities were over as soon as the rain poured down as the amount of electrical equipment was enough to probably blow up the city. But the costumes were fun enough.



On our last day, we went to see Cossi Fan Tutti at the SchÖnbrunn Palace and Gardens…There, too were stories of interest. All about Franz Joseph (the what?) dancing with Marie Antoinette (which one?) and falling in love, marrying her, bringing her to Vienna where she was unhappy and returned to Paris, and he took to walking with his “good friend” another woman with whom he had breakfast with each morning and then they walked around the gardens. Uh huh… The opera was great actually and in a lovely small setting. Unfortunately as it got darker and the spotlights came on so did horrible bugs (wadudu) and were totally eating us alive and landing everywhere. I managed to slide as close to John who was out of the light, but one elderly (not me) lady in front of me had about 200 of them making a nest on her shirt collar. It was totally gross and you couldn’t help but stare. At least it came at the end of the opera.

I have reported on the conference on the previous blog so I won't add more to it! But now we are near our last days in Moshi, and the entire Vienna trip seems like a dream. Wow. I wish we had had time for a little trip down the Danube. The old Danube looked lovely, the new Danube looked like a sewer.