Now that's what I call a monastery! 1173

This past Sunday Mirva and I (check my mad grammar) set out to visit Klosterneuberg, a small town a few miles north of Vienna, situated on the shore of the Donau and up onto the surrounding hills. The hills around Vienna may be small, but I like that they are there, London can feel too flat sometimes. Although it does have hills around Hampstead heath etc, they are a rather long way away, visually speaking. These ones stand out nicely.

Very appropriately for the religious nature of our destination, we were slightly hungover due to visiting a friend of my buddy's house and drinking tequila with some friendly Iranians. Ahem. Anyway, Klosterneuberg is possibly a more normal Austrian town, with a sleepy feel which, although I am sure was exaggerated by the day of the week, definitely marks it out from the main city. Even here though, the hand of the invisible person whose job it is to make sure that all of Austria is pretty can be seen.
The focal point of the town is the monastery complex, situated on a steep rise above the main street, with its imposing spires and a substantial group of surrounding buildings. Up close the towers are even more impressive, lots of nice embellishment going on there:



Note that one tower is a different colour, we'll come back to that later...

As we arrived, the main church of the monastery (the thing above) was emitting an impressive choral noise, so we decided to wander inside. It turns out that the interior is even more impressive than that of the Karlskirche. Go back and look at a picture of that, then imagine if it was longer, and all the marble was replaced with more gold leaf and paintings and astonishingly detailed carvings and other casually accumulated pieces of votive art. Woah! just about does it as a descriptive word. Adding to the atmosphere was the fact that it was the Sunday communion mass, so the local orchestra and choir were singing, the church was full, and there at the front was the priest in his robes blessing the bread wafers while the altar boy waved the incense burner around...

After this incredible experience, it was clear that we (well I) needed delicious chocolate cake in order to be able to appreciate any further magnificence. Luckily this sort of thing is not hard to find, and indeed we ended up in a rather cool, jazz oriented cafe where they served the tea with 4 different types of sugar and 3 hour glass timers for 3, 4 or 5 minutes so we could brew our tea to our satisfaction. Awesome.


Klosterneuberg has long been a place where the leaders of Austria have chosen to live or worship or build things, and one of the more impressive bricks in their wall of grandeur is the unfinished 18th century baroque palace of Kaiser Karl VI, planned to equal the Escorial palace in Spain. After he died with it unfinished, all work stopped, as neither the monks being forced to finance it nor his son (who was more interested in Schoenbrunn) wanted to carry it on. Only one of the planned four huge courtyards was built, but it is still huge. The picture above is of the unfinished saa terranum (or something like that) which is supposed to be a ridiculously epic room leading into the garden. Those 'atlantean' statues are REALLY big, and there's 8 of them in total round the room... Below you see the outside, which helps you understand the odd contrast between superficially finished exterior and bare brick interior seen through lots of the palace that was only recently opened up. Monks used it for wine storage! Note person for scale.
The reason I know so much is that you can only go round this place with a tour, and due to the time of year and the fact that it happened to be the english tour that was about to start as we came in, there were only three of us in our tour group. An old Austrian lady took us on a winding tour through the various phases and buildings of the monastery, palace and cloisters. All the doors were locked, so it felt very special, as we'd all have to wait for her to get a key out and open the door to some treasure before we went in, and then of course we were the only ones in there. There were painted figures, stained glass from the 12th century, a huge gold and enamel altar by a man called Nicholas of Verdun, roman artefacts etc etc. The sheer weight of history impresses me, and I find it hard to imagine what it is like for Mirva, as in Finland they don't have the same legacy of ridiculously old things as we do in other parts of Europe.

Finally, here is a view north, if you look carefully you might be able to see some huge castle looming romantically on the hoizon!

Not much to report this week. Work still very interesting. A finnish friend of Mirva's is visiting, she is called Outi which is pronounced like oaty with the t like a mixture between t and d and the emphasis completely on the first syllable. Weather nice.

Ummm.... bye!

PS if you are still wondering about the different coloured towers, it's because some guys who built the second tower in the 17th century didn't bother to colour match the limestone with the first tower! Basically it is a mistake/ labour or money saving device which is still glaringly obvious after 400 years! I think that this fact is very telling about humanity. I can't help but imagine whoever was building it loking at the pile of stones being delivered and thinking: 'oh crap'

Art is SO GREAT!

It has been another week of many thoughts floating around my brain in a fuzzy cloud, all clamouring to be given the precious (little) oxygen of publicity this blog can provide. So count yourselves lucky you are getting this blog post about awesome art and not about feminism and/or my privileged status in society. No, seriously.

By art here I mean the stuff you find in an art gallery. Something Mirva pointed out is that the word 'art' also technically applies to TV programs, music, epic poetry, cabinet making and so on, but I find it interesting that we native English speakers definitely understand that when I say 'I like art' I am basically talking about pictures. We use 'artist' at least as much as 'painter', even though Russel T Davies is very much one of these, but (as far as I know) not the other.

Anyway. I guess I have always liked art, but for most of my life I was definitely way more interested in making it than looking at it. As with most things required of a child by their school, I saw looking at art as a chore, and as a result of the hilariously superficial bullshit we were able to pass off as analysis of said art, I also saw it as faintly ridiculous. My personal creation sadly peaked at the age of 16 with my art GCSE, although I am not arrogant enough to assume that the mark I received was anything but weakly related to the quality of what I produced, picture wise.

Around this time, I began occasionally going to art galleries not just for school trips,but of my own accord, usually with friends. Be under no illusions, the first time I went to an art gallery like this (probably the Tate Modern?) I am sure it was not out of a pure desire to see art. Rather, going to an art gallery was a cool, grown up and different thing to be doing, from my point of view. If you say you went to a gallery at the weekend, you immediately mark yourself out as a certain kind of interesting, thoughtful, and yes, high class person, or so ran my thinking.

I think this attitude extends to a lot of things people do ostensibly for fun, many people go to places because they 'ought to'. Activities I include in this category include visiting art galleries, watching shakespeare, observing various historical ruins and even perhaps whole cities! Now, I am also certain that many people do not go to see Shakespeare or Athens because they 'ought to' but out of pure love for the thing involved, and that is the somewhat obscured point of this post.

I am extremely glad that I really, really enjoy going to art galleries. I realise that this is not a given, and I could have turned out as one of those 'ought to' people. But I feel the enjoyment I get from paintings is similar to the enjoyment I get from listening to brilliant music. I have one criterion for really good art, and that is: Does it look cool? Cool is not really a defined quantity, but what I am saying is that the visual impact of a piece is the thing. What about deeper meanings? Those can make a piece of art better, but if it doesn't look impressive then I am not interested. Note my choice of word though, impressive does not have to mean beautiful.

A few random points about my gallery enjoyment: galleries are about 500 times better if you have a friend with you. Pictures are made to be talked about, I would find it hard to be excited as much about something I couldn't excitedly gesture at and say loudly 'look at that! Wow!'. The second point is more a corollary of the 'does it look cool?' criterion. If a picture or sculpture does not look cool, I do not waste much extra time looking at it once this decision has been made. I do not believe that I 'ought to' be looking at everything in the place, if it is a boring chore, I stop staring at it!

Here in Vienna, there is a vast amount of art which just looks really really cool. Luckily for me it is also a real centre for works by some of the artistic movements I like best, namely the Impressionists and the (mostly) German Expressionists of the 20th century. There isn't a final point to this post other than the fact that I find visiting art galleries fun to an extent that I never expected would be the case only a few years ago, and I am glad that this is so! I leave you with a couple of pictures that 'looked cool' to me on the evening visit to the Albertina that inspired this post. First is 'Studie für Landschaft' by all round legend, Wassily Kandinsky, second is Mr Lyonel Feininger's 'The High Shore'.



Art, you guys!

Bis bald, der Tom.

Ed: The Visit (and other stories)

Yeah so I was cruelly prevented from writing nonsense on the internet at the usual interval by the visit of the famous Sir Edward Taylor, ex-mitbewohner and all round nice guy, so now I have lots to write about. It has been quite the month for visitors, beginning with a meeting with old school friend and fellow german student Tracy last Saturday. It is shameful and not a little surprising that I think the last time we met was about a year and a half ago, but I suppose that's life... Funny that when we do meet it is in Vienna.

As I type this I am looking at a large wall calendar gifted me by the Sushi restaurant I visited on Monday. I am sure in part due to the fact we were about 15 people, not only did we enjoy the low low sushi prices (€6 for 13 bits of sushi), we also got free lychees! I am by no means a sushi expert, so all I can say is that it was tastier than yo sushi and that I especially enjoyed the horseradish sauce/paste stuff (much to the shock of my companions...) Why is the sushi in a landlocked country so cheap?? Conspiracy theorists apply within.

Edward-san arrived on one of the more horrible days I have experienced in this fine city, and while I did enjoy taking him on a long meander through the relentlessly architecturally impressive city centre, I did feel that perhaps that Vienna was not showing her best side. The Naschmarkt was practically empty, meaning that every vendor stood behind their stall and shouted 'Gruess Gott!' or 'Bitte schon!' when you came within 10 metres of them. Mulled wine sellers deliberately take the lids off their wares and exaggeratedly waft the tempting smells towards you... Despite this high level of attention, we still managed to actually purchase some things, most of which we actually wanted. Ed was rather taken by the taste of the traditional still-fermenting wine drink known here as Sturm, which in Ed terms means he will attempt to make some when he gets home. Other purchases were some Medlars (they look like they are rotting/are actually rotting, but that is how they are meant to be eaten and they taste pretty good), some good Austrian cheese and some PROPER pickled gherkins. Ie the kind that are actually fermented in salt water rather than just added to vinegar. No need to keep them in the fridge. I have wanted to try some ever since I learned that what I thought were pickled gherkins actually weren't anything of the kind, and I am quite satisfied with them. Also bought were important ingredients for delicious stew, that evening's meal.

Thursday is the day of extreme lectures, so Ed was unleashed and set to roam free through the city. Thankfully the weather improved, turning into one of those lovely winter days where everything is crisp in the cool sun. He met me after university, appearing unscathed, and I showed off to him some of my favourite more modern architectural marvels, the Mullverbrennungsanlage and the Flakturm. Then we met up with Mirva at the Siebenstern brewery, to eat food Austrian style ('no vegetables please') and to try as many of the beers as possible. All of them proved good.

On Friday there was a veritable deluge of UCL students as we were joined by another friend from home, on a weekend visit from her erasmus year in Munich. We dined once more at the home of the 'best falafel in Vienna', which is indeed very good, though a difficult statement to fully prove, then returned to the market for more Sturm shenannegins (sp?). We explored the centre of town and then climbed the tower of the Stephansdom just as the sun was etting. The view IS worth the 343 steps, although the windows you look out of are rather small and I was hoping for more of a precarious balcony tbh.

Because things never happen spaced out, but instead all at once, Saturday was Mirva's birthday, so I took her to lunch. We debated going somewhere stupidly grand, but in the end settled on a proper Viennese cafe we had already visited once before. the Cafe Eiles is a large and quiet hotel style cafe,with no tourists (except us, we took many photos), just people sitting around reading newspapers clipped to these amazing and very handy newspaper holding wooden frames while sipping coffee. In common with a lot of the less touristy cafes and bars I have seen, it has an old fashioned vibe, harking back not only to the early 20th century but somehow also to the 80s with the posters and applainces on display and in use. I cannot explain it, maybe it is just that eerything still looks like it does in the 1980s published guide to Vienna I happen to possess. It is something about the lack of bright colours. I do not mean by this that it is unpleasant, far from it! It just has very interesting vibes.

Of course as mentioned previously the world is bad at scheduling, so Saturday was also the day I visited the opening of the large christmas market in front of the Rathaus. Beautiful and sparkly with smells of punch, cinnamon, gingerbread and cheese wafting in all directions among stalls of slightly ridiculous christmas decorations and hand made things. What you are really supposed to do is ignore these and just drink mulled wine and punch and enjoy the atmosphere, so we did.

Sunday I rested from the enforced actually having to do things (kidding guys, I enjoyed it) then went on what is becoming an almost traditional Sunday late afternoon walk. I am really enjoying playing around with my camera, I almost wish I had time to learn more not just by experiment, but I am pleased at what I have been getting recently anyhow.


Above: spot the chair
Below: spot the Mirva


This week: more work, less gallivanting, hopefully.

Yesterday was celebrate thwarted catholic plot day...

...and I didn't even notice! It is so strange how bonfire night is such a big and obvious part of my year and has been forever (how could you ignore a constant hail of explosions, flashing lights and smoke anyway?) and yet move to a country that doesn't have it and I don't suddenly feel this urge to watch things blow up. Well, no greater urge than normal, haha. I wondered if bonfire night was one of those internationalised festivals like halloween, but apparently not. I have discovered it is celebrated in New Zealand, which actually if you think about it is pretty odd really.

Yeah so Halloween. Seems a while ago, doesn't it? Basically I am super cool and down with what all the hip kids were listening to in 1793 or whenever. So, I accompanied my lovely girlfriend (oh snap, weren't expecting that, were you? Maybe you were, I wasn't. Well: good for you. Maybe wave hello. Be nice!) to a performance of Mozart's Requiem in the Karlskirche, Karlsplatz. I wasn't quite prepared for the grandeur of this building, I heard church and imagined something low key. Wien doesn't do low key churches:

This place was the church of the Emperors etc of Austria from the time of its completion sometime in the middle of the 18th century. The dome is 7o metres high on the outside and not much lower inside. You walk in and are assaulted by the most impossibly detailed interior decoration, all set in this vast, neck wrenchingly tall, echoing space, and over the altar there is a huge representation of the spirit with Yahweh or similar written in hebrew in the triangle at the centre.
The full height of the ceiling is quite hard to convey, as is the absolutely amazing stone used to face the interior and make the columns. I have literally no idea of what kind of stone it is, or its original location. It is called marble, but stonemasons call pretty much all rocks marble, whether they are or not... Sigh. It is very pretty though.
Normally you can climb the semi permanent scaffolding to get a look at the roof.

So, Mozart's Requiem. I was worried that while it would be a nice experience to 'collect' as it were, that I would not really enjoy the performance in itself. I do not have practice in appreciating classical music. The setting was a definite help, combined with the use of period instruments for a spellbindingly authentic feel. I kept thinking about all the other times and places at which it had been performed... I have a tendancy for my mind to wander during instrumental music, but once I really started to concentrate on the sounds and try and come up with my own interpretations of the meanings, I did get drawn in. There were moments where I really felt I got the transitions between different parts or moods or whatever of the music, and it sounded amazing. The overwhelming thing I felt after though was that I wanted to hear it again. it strikes me as the sort of thing you need to be properly familiar with to hold the whole thing in your head at once and follow the journey while knowing where you have come from. I did feel unprepared considering that Mirva was sitting next to me actually reading the score as it went along, but a man's got to start somewhere...

With assistance I think I might actually be able to sort through some of the last 400 years or so of music and get a sense of what I like and don't like, and the stories (real,romanticised, mythical, etc) behind some of that. Right now knowing nothing is actually quite fun, as I am constantly discovering things that are basic knowledge to other people.

The rest of my week really hasn't been anything to write home about, mostly I have been going to lectures and doing work for various courses. It has been a week of good german learning though, met my buddy for a drink on Tuesday (OK we went climbing but gave up after 20 minutes because there was only a rubbish bouldering wall THEN went for a drink...) and then chatted to a few members of my geology classes yesterday. Mainly about this one really annoying piece of wok which I completely understand and have all the right numbers and formulae to do but somehow doesn't work anyway. I was very happy to discover I was not alone in this. I really do need to write about the student protests here someday, but I cannot be bothered to write another full blog post right now.

Bis bald!