Austria, again

Hmm . . . let's see . . . what else happened in Vienna?

We stayed at a hostel called Wombat, and almost bought Wombat t-shirts from vending machines. In the dorm, we both got top bunks (yay!) Mine was inscribed with all sorts of inspirational graffiti. For instance, someone from two years ago had a long thing about how I was beautiful (no matter who I was, or even if I was actually "aesthetically challenged"). And mine was the only bed with graffiti, too! And there was a contingent of guys in kilts there. Not sure where they were from, but they spoke English. One of them came up to us, out of the hostel bar, and offered to give T-- a hug. Oh, right: the hostel had a bar, called the WomBar . . . (I think).

And we went to a palace (not a castle, but I keep wanting to write castle, anyways). It was the most random place. There were a bunch of palace buildings, each of which had an art collection in it. And you had to wander around to find each next buliding, too.

So far as I can tell, none of these collections had much to do with one another. One was a collection of Medieval and Rennaisance religious art. One was a bunch of very modern drawing-photography. As in, they were pictures of the artist and his buddy (both in their 50's), that had been scribbled over in amusing ways. I don't believe you're allowed to have that much fun after middle age . . .

The best exhibit, though, was a redo of one of the first exhibits to show Klimt (as in, The Kiss). It had The Kiss there, and a couple of other paintings, and it was very nice. The only thing was that about half of them were black and white prints. Which turned out to be because they couldn't acquire them, but still . . . it was a little odd, especially since his art is so very colorful.

And the grounds were really nice. Even in Winter, you could see how nicely they were designed. And they had sculptured evergreens, too!

So yeah. That was Vienna. Well, that a ton of pastries and coffee. Oh, and coffee in Austria, by the way, isn't the same as coffee in France. In France, asking for a "café" gets you an espresso. In Austria, you get a little metal oval tray with a cup of coffee (richer than American) with a small glass of water. It feels classy, even when you're not in a classy place. The best coffee was, in my opinion, a coffee with milk we drank standing at a tall table in a bakery near the Vienna train station. Really yummy pastry, too. Mine had powdered sugar on top of a round pastry with a hazelnutty cream inside.