smashed to pieces (in the still of the night)

That quotation is installed on the side of an air defense tower in Vienna, built during one of the World Wars. There are a couple scattered throughout the city, supposedly indestructible. The experts say that if the city tried to demolish them, it would destroy the surrounding neighborhoods. The quotation wasn't originally there (after all, it's not the type of sentiment one wants to hear during wartime), but was added as installation art a few years ago. It's written on one side in English and on the other side in German: "Zerschmettert in Stücke (Im Frieden der Nacht)." The remaining two sides repeat "In the still of the night" in both languages. I don't know why, but I love it.

I've done a lot in the last week, Internet, although I haven't been posting. Actually, I had trouble loading my pictures onto my computer. My harddrive filled up (something like 5 MB available...yikes!) and I messed up iPhoto trying to empty it. Anyway, I have photos now, and a super update of my adventures.



Secession Museum
Before World War One, a couple of artists (most notably Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele) decided they didn't like the way art worked in Vienna. So they succeeded from the prominent artist group and formed their own club. The Secession Museum was created to display modern, experimental art. Right now there's an exhibit called "The Death of the Audience" that examines art which involves the viewer...is asks the question, when the viewer is part of the artistic process, who is the audience? Who is the artist? It was super interesting. The large gallery had golden tinfoil and balls of red paper on the floor, that visitors could accidently or purposefully kick or play with...changing and recreating the display as artists, not just audience. Neat.



Ottakring Hike
Vienna has trails like the one shown above all over the city. They take you from very urban areas to very rural areas and back again, in an average of two-and-a-half, three hours. They also all combine to be one superhike that takes you all over the city in seven days. Anyway, Dr. Kling and I attempted to follow the route shown above, which begins right near my apartment, at the Ottarking U3 station (where the map says "Start"). I say attempted because about an hour into it, we made a wrong turn and got hopelessly lost for about two hours. See that star-shaped mark on the top left-hand corner of the map? Yeah, that's about the last thing we saw. We wandered around a suburban neighborhood (100% downhill, blegh) until we found a busstop. We took the bus to the train station, the train to the subway, and finally the subway to our respective apartments.



Schönbrunn Tiergarten
"Tiergarten" = Animal Garden = ZOO! Remember how much I love dinosaurs? That's how much I love zoos. I get a huge kick out of seeing the animals. The elephant shone above was my favorite animal of the day because (1) I love elephants and (2) he was chewing on a stick, like a puppy. Aww. I saw lots of baby animals, including a baby flamingo, which looks nothing like a grown up flamingo. They're little white fuzzballs. The Schönbrunn Zoo isn't big, but it's very comprehensive. Right now they're installing a South America exhibit. But they had a reptile house, and an insect house, and a rainforest house, plus African animals and polar animals (including Polar Bears! They're called "Eisbaren" in German, which translates to "Ice Bears," which I find to be very to-the-point).



Prunksaal at the ÖNB
Ohhh...pretty. This is the "Prunksaal," or State Hall, of the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (the ÖNB). I'm not completely sure if you can still check books out of here, although by the looks of it, you can (unless that person is on the ladder for funsies). Basically, it's beautiful and filled with books and I can't think of a better combination.

So that's basically what I've been up to, besides hanging out in the archives, looking at old stuff. I'll probably post again soon (within the next day or two) to describe what we've found in the Archives and discuss this amazing, wacky theatre piece we saw last night.

As usual, more photos can be found on my Facebook. Click here if you're not registered, but still want to see (Mom and Dad).

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