22 October 2008: Vienna, Austria

I woke up early, as I do, and Sarah presented me with a chocolate croissante. It's hard to think of a better way to minimize the terribleness of waking up early after you've been drinking.

I spent the early part of this morning researching a new possible way for me to make money-- selling plasma. Axel, who shall never be spoken of again after this, told me that it's very easy to sell plasma in Vienna and that you get €25 for every session. That was my kind of gig. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to research it, and this morning I discovered that you have to take a test first to make sure your plasma is disease-free. Which makes sense. But the test results take a week to come back, which also means I wasn't getting any money for plasma.

At around noon a bunch of Mo's friends came over and Mo made a vat of pasta, to which I helped myself, and then I helped Corina with her English homework. She had to write a story about two robots-- it was a pretty bizarre assignment-- and I decided that one should be an abusive alcohol robot and the other should be a fat chick virgin robot. What happened was the fat chick virgin robot was dying for attention-- as fat chick virgins of any species are prone to do-- and so she fell for the abusive alcoholic robot. And then even when he hit her after sex she just thought "oh, I love it rough," but when she got on top for another round she killed him from her weight. But she was pregnant with the love child, although since she was still a fat chick robot no one noticed. And when she gave birth she put the baby in a dumpster. The end.

(Guess who wrote the entire story.)

I meant for this to be my last day in Vienna, and to go to Graz the following morning, so I went out with Niko and Sarah for one final day of seeing the city. My mom wanted me to check out the Hundertwasser Museum, which would incredibly enough have been the first museum of the trip. I'm not too crazy about spending money to go into a museum when I can appreciate a place for free outside, but this place is my mom's favorite museum and she really wanted me to check it out.

So the three of us walked to the museum, where I was dumb-struck by the €9 entrance fee-- no museum would have been worth food for three days, not a chance. But the thing about the Hundertwasser Museum is that it's a place where "I only have €4 but my mom loves this museum and she really wants me to see it" gets you in for €3. Well, so long as you smile. As per usual.

The other thing about the Hundertwasser Museum is that it is absolutely and completely worth €3-- and even worth €9 if that isn't, like I said, food for three days. The first floor is of Hundertwasser's art, which is actually pretty cool-- and paintings don't really do it for me, usually. But the second floor is what really makes the museum worthwhile.

The second floor is partly composed of more paintings and, like I said, they are pretty cool-- google Hundertwasser for a look at them. But the second floor is mostly dedicated to Hundertwasser's belief in the importance of creativity in children's lives. Essentially, he believes that a creative environment promotes and ecourages creativity in children, and the second floor contains his plans, and their results, for re-designing schools, hospitals, etc., into colorful and creative buildings.

I know I can't really describe what it all means, not least of all because at the time I'm writing this I saw the museum over a week ago, but here are some of the quotes that are interspersed amongst the art on the second floor:

- "Our real illiteracy is our inability to create."
- "I am proud of being a beautifyer."
- "A straight line is a dangerous, comfortable fiction."

(In explaining what his building designs are intended to aid against:)

- "Rectilinear, ice-cold repression of the children's soul and suppression of growing creativity."

(The benefits of putting children into new, creative environments:)

- "They will communicate to other people the beauty and harmony they witnessed and spread the message to the world."

Along with the importance of creativity, the second floor also stressed the importance of going back to nature-- one of his designs is for a sort of nature-haven, free from the trappings and negatives of industrialized society. To this end, he says "It helps to bring back to man what he is longing for and what technology cannot do." In addition to this, though, there are trees planted in the museum that grow out of the window. Hundertwasser called them "tree tenants," saying that they pay their rent from the environmental benefits they provide to society. Interesting.

Anyway, I can't do the museum even 1/5 the amount of justice it deserves, so I recommend it to anyone who goes to Vienna. Suffice it to say, I spent nearly two hours in the museum and could/would have spent twice as long were it not for Niko and Sarah waiting for me downstairs.

They were as gracious as could be, despite having waited for me, and we took a walk over to the Prater, a 150 year-old ferris wheel from which you can see the entire city-- a staple to many European cities, but a ridiculously old staple to Vienna. We didn't go on it, of course, but it was a lovely walk, if a bit overcast.

And then, as we kept walking, we came upon an amusement park. I mean, a completely random amusement park in the middle of this beautiful greenness, and Sarah said she wanted to go on a ride. I thought it sounded fun, but Niko absolutely and positively refused. I was going to ask him if he needed a new tampon or had a box of Thin Mints that I could buy, but he said "My stomach is not glad to be on that ride." And how can you make fun of someone who says that?

So Sarah and I went on a ride-- Niko bought my ticket, which was incredible-- and it was one of those things where there are seats on both sides of a long stick, for lack of a better word, and the stick swings around. That's a TERRIBLE description, but it was an amusement park ride and it was brilliant fun. So there.

And that was how we spent the day, just walking around and hanging out and having a great time. Niko, by this point, had pretty much clinched his spot as the nicest person I had met on my trip so far, and Sarah was just a total sweetheart. It was like hanging out with old friends.

Back to the flat, eventually, and Mo had made steak fajitas for dinner-- although I had to supplement them with Ramen noodles, on account of being absolutely famished. After dinner I did the rest of Corina's homework, partly because it was the least I could do to thank Mo for letting me crash at his place-- by doing his friend's homework-- and partly because it was actually pretty fun. Corina had to write a fake application for an Artificial Intelligence program, or something along those lines. The highlights were that she wanted to help develop artificial intelligence because her sisters are naturally retarded, and she wanted to study in the program in Brussels because she could just be a prostitute in Amsterdam if it didn't work out. It was basically like any assignment I ever wrote in five years at the University of Michigan, it really was.

That night I went with Niko and Mo to meet some of their friends in a "typical Viennese cafe," which was mostly just a bar. It was fun and I hung out with Benny, the kid from the first night, again. It was practically like hanging out with the Austrian three stooges: Niko, Benny, and Mo.

When we got back to the flat, I went up to the rooftop terrace with Mo and Corina-- Niko had gone back to Sarah's. Vienna isn't really such an incredible panorama from above, to be honest, but this view had a something that meant a bit more to me than Citadel in Budapest. I think what it was is that, here I was, technically an American tourist in Vienna, yet I was on a rooftop terrace overlooking the entire city. I was on this particular roof in this particular city, and even though I am nowhere close to being Viennese, on this particular night it was almost like Vienna was MY city. That's a feeling I would never have gotten in a hostel, no matter how long I stayed in the city, and I'm pretty sure that even Astrid has never had that experience before.

When I woke up I had meant for this day to be my last, but at this point, and after such a nice day, I knew that wasn't possible. I was staying another day.

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The most adorable thing about Austrians? They always pronounce the V in English words as a W. Even the ones who speak English nearly fluently, it's still a W. There's nothing better than asking an Austrian who sang "YMCA" and then having him or her respond "the Willage People of course." Gets me every time. Almost as much as when Spanish people laugh like "Ja Ja Ja." Almost.