Update

I haven’t had the chance to update this blog for a while since I haven’t had Internet for the past week but I kept a journal every night with the intentions of publishing them once I find the time. SO here it is starting from last Friday.

Friday May 27:

At 9:45 this morning, we met up with rest of the group at the Institut and Professor Tate took us all to the Albertine museum. There we walked through the Der Blaue Reiter (the Blue Rider) exhibit. The Blue Riders were an art movement that attempted an artistic renewal of 20^th century; it included major artists such as Kandinsky, Pete Klee, Franz Marc, Heinrich Compendonk, Alfred Kubin, and Alexej Jawlensky. What made the Blue Riders so unique was the fact that they did not share a common artistic style; instead they portrayed a variety of strength and artistic talent. The exhibition was absolutely beautiful and inspirational. We spent a few hours at the gallery and sketched as much as we could; I was most impressed by the line work and etchings of Lyonel Feininger and Alfred Kubin. Anna and I also stopped by Mel Ramos exhibition (he does photo-realistic paintings of pin up girl cigarette ads as well as parodies of infamous past works) and the Albertine’s permanent collection (they had original sketches from Michelangelo, paintings from Egon Schiele and the palace apartments). We had an hour for lunch before heading back to class so we stopped by a street vendor on our way and bought sandwiches; the woman that worked there didn’t know any English so it was a good opportunity to practice my German. In class, Tate gave an inspirational speech reading excerpts from Bacho (a former Japanese NEET who decided one day that he would leave the comforts of his apartment and actually experience the world) and showed us various photographic masterpieces by an artist we will actually visit sometime next week.

After class, we met up with Alexandra and her boyfriend, and walked down to Hein Troy’s studio. Troy is an architect and an extremely talented one at that. He is young but has so much experience and knowledge under his belt. He talked to us for a few hours and showed us some commissions he has worked on in the past. In particular, I really enjoyed a house he designed and built for these twins. They wanted the same exact flat design but Troy thought it would be more fun to design two extremely different spaces and make them each so beautiful the twins would have no complaints. He also showed us his awesome sketchbook collection. He is very particular about the type of sketchbook he uses and when he found out the company that manufactures that particular sketchbook would stop producing them, he ordered everything he could find online. He is very committed to his work and extremely creative which was great for us to see; it was truly motivational. We are planned to see one of the houses he designed later in the trip; I am so excited!

We made plans with the group for later that night for the festivals that would be going on in central Vienna. We decided we would meet on the stairs facing St. Stephans. When Anna and I headed out, however, it started raining pretty hard. As we stepped out from the Ubon (the Vienna Metro Station), we were hit by a downpour of cold freezing rain, and as we sprinted to the church, lightening and thunder created chaos as everyone started running for shelter. As we were running we ran into the boys, Matthew, Adam and Matt, from our group; after a quick look at the lighting show at St. Stephans we decided we would wait by the steps for the rest of the group. We were joined by William and Kat but no one else showed, so we headed out to see what else was going on. After getting lost in the rain a few times we found that the food and beer fest were shut down due to rain. We were told all churches would be holding a ceremony of sorts so we headed out to see if there was anything interesting worth seeing. We stopped by a few churches, listened to the choir but decided in the end that we would go to an outdoor concert by K&D (a famous techno band that was coming back together after 16 years to sing in Vienna).  The beats were pretty fun and the crowd seemed to be enjoying the performances so we joined in. We all danced and joked around, met a few people including two guys from Canada who were here for a biophysics conference. Then we all decided a midnight snack would be a great idea before heading back to St. Stephans to hear the chanting of the Monks. Matt and I split a hot dog, which I hadn’t tried yet; it was delicious (a bread roll that has a one sided whole where they pour the condiments into first an then slide the hot dog through). We ended up having to stuff our faces while taking shelter in a telephone booth. We walked back trough the rain to St. Stephans and watched the Monks, which was truly beautiful to see. Overall the night was a success and I had a ton of fun, even though I was soaked to the bone, covered in mud, and completely exhausted. The festivities are planned to last the entire weekend so tomorrow awaits yet another adventure through the streets of Vienna.

Saturday May 28:

Today was a gloomy, rainy day and I woke up feeling exhausted from the day before. Looking out my bedroom window it was clear it was just going to be one of those lazy, take-it-easy sort of day. The morning was off to a pretty slow start. Our Viennese mother and father go to the countryside every weekend so they said their good-byes and took off, taking kitty (my official new name for Beethoven) and the internet with them. Anna and I spent a few hours writing, sketching, looking through photographs and designing. We both took turns getting laundry done and hanging them up to dry. Then when the rain had stopped for a bit, we decided we would go get some lunch and grocery shop. The sandwich shop we went to was closed and it seemed most places closed early on weekends so we bought a few stuff from the grocery and headed back to the apartment. After a long late lunch we lazed around for a bit before getting ready to see the festivities.

By the entrance to the palace there was some beautiful music being played, it sounded like a mix of Turkish, Arabic and Middle Eastern inspired sounds. On the other side (the same place we listened to K&D last night) a German pop star was performing. She wasn’t my cup of tea but there was a huge crowd out to see her. We checked out some of the tents with food, wine and beer and headed to the beer fest. At the beer fest we ran into some girls from our group and later that night into Tate, Khaki (his wife), Alexandra and her boyfriend. We hung out with Tate for most of the night until they started shutting down the fest and we were asked to leave. We had a massive midnight snack and then called it a night. Overall it was a fun night.

Sunday May 29:

Today started out pretty lazy. I stayed in most of the morning, sketching, editing photos and cleaning around. Around midday Anna and I went out to the Prater, which is fast becoming our favourite place to go. We packed some lunch and snacks, grabbed our camera and sketchbooks and a picnic blanket we found in our room and headed out. It was absolutely beautiful out, the sun was blazing but the cold wind balanced it out. We set up our picnic on the grass facing some lovely flowers, we just spent most of the day talking about life, being an artist and being in Vienna. We took a nice long nap out under the sun and then took ton of pictures and sketched along the way. On Sunday’s in Vienna you can hardly find any places that are open; all grocery stores are closed and most restaurants are too. Unfortunately for us, we had just run out of most of our easy to make food and when we tried to work the stove we failed miserably. So we went out for a walk and decided if we run into any restaurants that were open we would just take our chances with us. To our luck, the only restaurant we found to be open was Hit MI, the sushi place our Viennese family took us out to the first few days we were here. I tried the fried noodles this time and it was delicious. We walked around for a few hours and discovered some beautiful spots near our apartment. Right across the sushi restaurant there is an old theatre that was burnt down; we got a closer look and decided we would definitely come back for a photo shoot soon. We also discovered a bike trail along the Danube canal and will make plans to revisit with our bikes. We got back to our apartment and took it easy the rest of the night knowing we would have a busy day tomorrow.

Monday May 30:

When we woke up this morning, our Viennese family was still not back, which meant kitty had not sneaked into our room, like he does every morning, and we didn’t find him curled up next to Anna and of course no internet. We had a late start to the day, mainly because I felt completely exhausted for no good reason. We met up with the group a few minutes after we had been scheduled to meet and found out today would be all about sketching. We walked to the National Museum of Fine Art, I almost got ran over by a group of bikers, and spent an hour or so sketching the exterior of the building and the map of the surrounding area. Afterward, we walked to the Succession Building to sketch some more. After a quick lunch on the lawn facing the beautiful structure of the Secession building, we met up back at the institute for class (we studied Egon Schiele’s work) and then headed off to Alles Wird Gud (means All is good in german), an architecture company. It was a really interesting visit; we met Herfig, who is the founder of the company. He talked to us about his past and recent projects and the obstacles of being a college drop-out attempting to start a business. After the talk, Professor Tate invited Herfig to dinner and drinks, where we all sat together and got to know the group better. Herfig invited us to an architect-party later in the week, so some of us will possibly join him. Some of the group decided we would go to the Prater Amusement Park to eat and hang out for a bit. After a few hours enjoying the lit up lights in the park, we decided we would try the highest ride in the park. It didn’t look fast or scary in the least, but the height was a huge intimidation. I have always been uncomfortable with heights but in the moment I decided I would get on. Anna and I were sitting side by side, and as soon the ride began and we were off the ground, I started screaming. The height was awful and the pitch-blackness of the night was extremely intimidating. I screamed my guts out the entire ride… despite the others never letting me live this down it was well worth it. As a pat in the back for attempting the ride and mostly keeping our cool, we decided we would get ice cream for the fifth night in a row at Zanoni & Zanoni (I tried the Boscotti gelato this time and thus far it is my favourite). When Anna and I arrived back the apartment, we found our host mother was back; she would be leaving the next day again but for the time being all is good.