Vienna, you amaze me.

History!

How you cry out from the past. Glory and the desire to be a legend. Masters of your own time, forever altering the path of humanity in your contribution to who we are - for good or for bad - and what we will become.

So.
I explored some more of Igé - the houses really are beautiful - very clean lines and medieval aesthetics.

I got the train back to Paris and got the plane from Orly airport to Vienna, Austria. The flight was great, we flew over the Alps and I got some amazing shots from the window, such a pure panorama of whiteness.

Graham picked me up from the airport and we got the train to the city. He lives literally in the middle of Vienna in his father's apartment, beautiful place. There's a kindergarten down on the bottom floor.

He had to work that night so I went with him to the bar he works at (funnily enough it's an Australian themed one) and hanged out meeting heaps of international people.
Really friendly place, good pizza and the soccer was on which was fun - you really KNOW you are in Europe when you watch the soccer matches in a little bar.
I met a really cool couple, the guy was Scottish and the woman Italian. Such an interesting variety - she is on her fifth year of an English degree and it was kind of strange to be able to talk to everyone in English, thought it would be more of a struggle but once you get their accent you can usually lipread them well.

Today... Ah! That was awesome. Walked out of Graham's, walked up the road to the ring - one of the public gardens in Vienna - which was huge. So many beautiful statues and monuments.

I saw the statue of Johann Strauss the first - I can now say I have a visual reference to the beauty and power of music. That sculpture is crazy good. The legend of Strauss lives on. One of the greatest violinists and composers of his time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Strauss_I

Grabbed a Kaiserkreiner (cheese filled sausage) which is put into a hollowed out bread roll which you spike onto a metal pole - the idea was so simple but so good, honestly can't believe I thought of that one. And the sausage was amaaaazing.

For the rest of the day I wandered around the city with Graham - I must thank him profusely for holding the iPhone so I could sign with both hands for the second part of the vlog. :) Should make me somewhat more understandable maybe? *grins*

I saw the opera house

The famed Saint Stephen's Cathedral (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Stephen's_Cathedral,_Vienna)

The place where Hitler spoke to his troops

And many many other amazing sights. Street artists, sculptures on virtually every building and people everywhere. I saw the Plague Column that was raised in tribute to those that died in the Black Plague of the late 1600s and as a plea for it to stop. One third of Europe died during that epidemic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pests%C3%A4ule_(Vienna)

Six hours of walking later, I manage to stumble home and fall over. What a day. What a field of dreams. What power, eloquency and master-artisans must have existed during the centuries this place has been up? What happened to us as a human race? We don't build like that anymore.
At one point I remarked to Graham somewhat along these lines and we talked about what it would have been like if humans had kept striving to better themselves.

Time to go explore some more. I have no idea where we will stroll off to but I'm absolutely sure of one thing: I'm looking forward to it.

Enjoy the first part of my vlog for my students.