24.7.10

back from vienna, leaving for sweden


hej there,
yes, I do try to travel most of the time, but it's so cheap, only buses and trains and staying over with friends, and so much fun. We have been back for a few days now and later today I will go to Sweden for another holiday, this one spent in the forest and with a bunch of books on a small little island in a small little lake.
Vienna was a lot of fun. Not so much fun was trying to study German on the ten hour train ride without air condition, melting away and simultaneously trying to answer stupid questions about facts and graphics and pretending to talk to someone in order to practice speech. Anyhow, when I came back here and finally did the test I was happy that I had practiced, although Im not sure how much it helped.
We did make it to the Narrenturm, it was a close call, the museum is well worth a visit but has very strange opening hours, something like three hours on certain days and we ran like idiots to make it there in time, getting lost and confused on the way and nearly missing the last guided to
ur. This kind man had mercy on us and took us around the museum in a high speed tempo, or he tried but it still did not go very quick, luckily. It is a very interesting place, a round tower build to house Vienna's mentally ill, now only standing as a museum containing more then 5000 specimens of strange stuff in jars and models showing a broad range of diseases and abnormalities, such as a janus head, a skellet with two heads and a lot of strange diseases that back in the days for the lack of medicines were allowed to bloom out fully. And everything in very small rooms and corridors full with bottles and jars in the old vitrines and no flashy designs or anything which just makes the place beautiful in it's bizarrness. so, go there! And I hope you get this guide we had, speaking in a quiet voice and gesticulating like a bird, very interesting and good.
Then we had a day of wandering around Wien, we also quickly looked in to the Sigmund Freud museum but they were just taking down a show and anyhow, the Narrenturm was enough for one day. Next day we got up early again and had to run, again, and sweating like idiots in our best clothes for the wedding. We managed to miss the train although we really tried. Still made it in time for the wedding, best wedding I have ever been to! Although I suppose that doesn't say so much because I've only been to one other so nevermind, but it was great, and Manuel and Sabine the most sweet ever.
Hanging out on a castle terrace in the afternoon, drinking champagne and eating wedding cake, looking at everyone looking so great in their summer dresses and suits. It was a lot of fun, meeting people from the golden shimmering Glasgow days and sitting around talking, laughing, drinking good wine, eating excellent food and listening to a band play in the garden, ah, what a great few days. I think Manuel and Sabine are on honey moon but I need to get my act together and think of someway to say thank you, I enjoyed it a lot. Especially the crazy dancing in the gin and tonic disco, it was very fine. Waking up in a pile of sweat was not so much fun but I suppose that had nothing to do with the wedding and rather something to do with 38 degrees and more in the room, madness. But what a wedding..brilliant.
On the Sunday we traveled back to Vienna, said bye to everyone after some strange stories from Roddy containing a bird without money, a
goat on a ladder and other confusing things he meet in Spain.
Monday was the last day in Wien and we went to the National History Museum, we thought it would only take us a few hours and that we would still manage to do more things but we got stuck in there for something like five hours and came outside with no energy left what so ever. But it is also a beautiful place, all the old vitrines and the whole museum display is so carefully made and preserved, really impressing. Im not really into stones but I must say even the stone section got me, the display is so well made and it just looks so great that I even felt intrigued by some old stone.. actually a meteorite so I suppose one can maybe understand that. Three rooms full of birds, a lot of frogs in strange poses, snakes and I don't know all, a dodo skeleton and a Tasmanian woolf in a black display case. So basically the journey to Austria can be summed up like this: a very beautiful wedding and two museums with strange things in jars. And then I came back to Leipzig and did a five hour long German test that I hope went well because otherwise my great master plan will not work out. Now I will pack my bag again and leave in one hour for Berlin and a 14 hour long bus ride to Sweden. Not very much will happen there, I expect to read, ride a bike and swim. happy days may they last.


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