Final Days in Vienna
Trip Start
Jun 22, 2008
1
7
9
Trip End
Aug 13, 2008
Vienna,
Austria
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Heading back to town, I got off at the Gasometer. There are actually four buildings that were used originally to store gas for the city. Recently they have been converted to apartments and a shopping and entertainment complex while retaining the original structures and facades. It was interesting to see what they had done with these otherwise now useless buildings rather than tear them down.
Once I was back in the city center I went to the Jagd- und Rüstkammer (hunting and armor hall - part of the Hofburg's museum complex), but it's closed on Tuesdays, so I just did some more sightseeing and then headed back to the apartment. A little bit later I went for a walk in the Augarten, a park near my apartment. There are three "claims to fame" for the Augarten: it's where the school for the Vienna Boys Choir is located, there is a porcelain factory there, and a flak tower from World War II is still standing. Then I caught a tram and wound up at the Fernwärme (distance heating) facility designed by Hundertwasser. Its architecture is almost as interesting as the Hundertwasser house and certainly doesn't look much like a heating plant.
The rest of the week I spent trying to get to the places that I hadn't already seen because of the Fan Zone or simply hadn't gotten to. One stop was the Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft (I love that word - it means the Danube Steamship Cruise Company - and yes, there really are three F's together in the middle) to see about a cruise between Melk and Krems, but I decided to save that for a subsequent visit. Some day I want to take a cruise and stop at some of the places with historical connections: Melk with its Baroque monastery, Dürnstein where Richard Lionheart was held captive, etc. Or I might bicycle at least part of the way.
Since most of what I did was simply typical tourist sightseeing I won't go into detail. However, a couple of incidents stand out. One day while on the tram, I became aware of a woman and her two daughters. The woman was doing a masterful job of teaching her girls to ignore what she told them. First they sat down together, but the younger girl wanted to sit in a single seat across the aisle and look out the window, so her mother said okay. But the little girl didn't want to sit and stood up repeatedly. The mother told her to stay seated or she would have to come and sit next to the mother. The little girl stayed seated for about 10 seconds and then was up again. There were repeated threats of various sorts, but until they got off the tram the little girl retained her seat on the other side of the aisle and never did have to do what her mother told her. I know it's tough to be consistent (I fight the same battle in the classroom), but when we let students/children ignore what we have said would have consequences, it teaches them all the wrong things. I try very hard to have few rules in my class but back them up all the time.
On Thursday I was planning to stay in and pack when I suddenly remembered two places I had wanted to visit and hadn't. One of them was the museum for the Deutscher Orden, or Teutonic Knights. Their museum is open only a couple of days a week for a short time each day. Fortunately I was still in the time frame for being open, so I hurried to the tram stop and went into the Innenstadt. When I arrived I asked the attendant about taking pictures. At first he said "no pictures", but then I explained that I was a teacher and wanted some things for class and would use no flash. He said to wait and tried to find the person in charge to ask him. However, that person was out, so eventually the attendant told me it was okay to take a couple of pictures - "without flash, and don't take pictures of everything." He was so nice and had tried so hard to help me that I stopped by on my way out to thank him once more. We talked for a little while. When I told him more about myself, he told me that he had an American son-in-law in Tucson. The grandchildren are bilingual, but the attendant finds their "American slang" horrible. During the conversation I asked about information on the Order. It needed to be fairly small and relatively lightweight. After the attendant showed me what they had, I decided on a magazine with feature articles about the Order. When I went to pay for the magazine the attendant said no and took the money for it out of his own wallet. It was such a nice gesture. After visiting the museum I stopped at the Stephansdom long enough to climb the south tower and get a spectacular view of greater Vienna. Then it was back to the apartment to finish packing.
My original plans were to stay until Saturday, but in order to get to Kenya and meet my brother, I changed the flight from London. So, bright and early Friday morning I headed to Vienna International Airport. My flight was Vienna-Stuttgart on German Wings, then Stuttgart-London Heathrow on British Airways. The connection from the city to the airport wasn't as often as I had thought, so I was running a little bit later than I wanted. Fortunately, since it was an intra-European flight the close of check-in wasn't too long before the flight and I had plenty of time. As it was, the flight was delayed about 45 minutes anyway because they had to swap planes. Since we weren't getting any information from the gate agents, we were just sitting around wondering what was going on. At least I wasn't on the bus that they had loaded just before the notice came that there was a hold. Those poor people were on the bus (the plane was at a remote boarding site) for about half an hour. Once we were finally on board the pilot explained what had happened.
Since I know that airlines are prone to these sorts of things, I had scheduled a three-hour layover in Stuttgart, so the delay didn't have me worried. I knew I had plenty of time for the connection. As it turned out, the delay actually did me a favor. By the time we arrived in Stuttgart and I made my way to the British Airways counter to check-in (German Wings doesn't have agreements with other airlines about baggage, so I had to collect my suitcase in Stuttgart - which also turned out to be good), I was within 24-hours of my Kenya flight's departure. That meant that BA would accept the suitcase as checked luggage all the way through. I didn't have to pick up the bag in London. Instead, I simply walked off the plan, went through immigration and customs, and headed to the bus stops outside the terminal. There I caught the "Hotel Hoppa" to the Ibis Heathrow Hotel for four Pounds Sterling. Several different routes operate, and each bus stops at only two or three hotels. On the way to the Ibis we stopped at Holiday Inn. Even though there was absolutely no one to be seen, the driver pulled in, stopped, opened the doors, waited a couple of seconds, then closed the doors and drove on. I guess he had to fulfill his contractual obligation to stop in case anyone wanted to board. The hotel gave me a room with a view of the airport, so I took a few pictures of planes landing. I had a great night's sleep, a leisurely breakfast the next morning, and an interesting ride to the terminal - but I'll tell about that next time.
Until then, as always möge der Herr Euch segnen.
