Wienerwald

This post is basically only here to point you towards the pictures I took on my hike through the Wienerwald about 10 days or so back. Looking back at the photos now is odd, because in the intervening time the average temperature has dropped over 10 degrees and it is now grey and occasionally rainy for whole days at a time. The benefits of this are that when I went on a walk to mostly the same places as are in this album on Sunday, it was a completely different experience, with copious edible and non-edible fungi and the surprise discovery of FIRE SALAMANDERS on three separate occasions...

Other things wot I have done: carried on being officially a PhD student. It's still pretty great. More importantly, I have consumed a lot more beer than normal, because Ed's advent in town meant that we needed to rekindle his memories of Austrian breweries. I guess the reason I don't normally go to them so often is that I am safe in the knowledge that they will always be there when I want them. This is a pretty reassuring fact.

On Saturday I FINALLY had the opportunity to watch a performance by the Manuel Legris- headed Vienna Staatsoper Ballet, featuring everyone's favourite ballet dancer and friend, Ash! The performance was a series of 4 pieces, half originally choreographed by one George Ballanchine, the other by Jerome Robbins. Of course these names meant nothing to me at the beginning of the performance, but now I am very much impressed. I find super traditional, greek god and fairy based ballet to be a little hard to swallow, it is hard to be emotionally affected and drawn in to dancing when you are distracted by how the plot seems to be solely designed to entertain princes and princesses with lots of money and free time. Needless to say this had nothing to do with that type of ballet, even the more traditional style pieces gave you space to interpret the dance yourself and, frankly, just sit there open mouthed at how impressive it all was.

My favourite piece was the ballet 'Glass Pieces', set to music by Philip Glass (such as this piece of genius). Describing what actually happened in the ballet seems pretty pointless, but it made me think of computers and cities and communist utopias and martial arts and it also made me really addicted to listening to Philip Glass. All results which are not necessarily expected when one sets out to watch a ballet!

The best thing about the whole evening (apart from finally seeing a longstanding friend and fomer Mitbewohner do the thing he has trained to do since he was 11) was that whatever happened on stage, I was always just as excited to see what the heck would happen next! Surprises are great, especially when they are good.

Bis bald, der Tom.