overdue

There's much to tell and little time, but we're coming home soon (Saturday!), and I'm sure many a story will be exchanged upon return. In the meantime, since I last wrote...

Mom and I split up our last full day in Vienna, as she wanted to see boring musuems and I wanted to see interesting ones. No reason to torture one another, we figured. I hit the 'Haus der Musik' - Vienna's Experience Music Project, if you will. Much, much better though. Everything was ultra-interactive, demonstrating the way sound operates as an experience within our body. Though it was just a teeny section, I found the room the simulates the sensations experienced by a fetus in the womb fascinating. (Shon, I think you would have thought in interesting too.) The whole place was just very unconventional, and managed to tear apart music and sound - in the midst of a city that puts an absolutely enormous emphasis on music (which, in many ways, is probably what incites a certain respect for the unconvention) - with a great respect paid to the ability of the body to turn purely fluid sound into music. It was really interesting. (And I ended up modeling in a couple of the exhibits for a Vienna musuem guide, so if you're in Vienna and you pick up a brochure with my picture in it, don't be too surprised.)

That morning, I also enjoyed my first (and actually only, oddly enough) romp in a classic Vienna coffeehouse. I had an incredibly delicious apricot cake with my coffee, which I'd like my favorite Portland coffeeshops to start making... The coffeehouses are a real experience - people sit and linger, like we do at home, but as the norm. Taking a coffee to go isn't just unheard of; it's an impossibility. The waiter is dressed in a formal tuxedo, and he comes and takes your order, as a waiter at a restaurant would do. It was lovely - again, I felt like I was entertaining myself in the most sophisticated of fashion. That was, of course, until we got to...

The Operahouse. Now, I'd repeat the Vienna Operahouse over and over, if I thought that might mean anything to anyone I know. Alas, I know Portland doesn't have much of a thriving opera scene (or anywhere in the States, as far as I know, for my favorite out-of-towners), so allow me to explain... evidently, the Vienna Operahouse is the epitome of operahouses (I'm convinced that's because there are very few places specifically devoted to opera, so the competition is minimal - though it is truly spectacular). It's one of those see-and-be-seen places - one of those places classical music conisseurs must step foot in to reflect on life with a smile. Our tickets were for a Sunday evening opera - Don Carlo. It was five hours.(!) We had box seats, with limited viewing, which turned out to be very limited, but at the price we paid, we didn't care. We could lean forward in our seats, or stand up in the box and catch a decent view. Even so, the music was entirely enjoyable all along. When I get home, be sure to ask me about the king of Spain making an appearance...

Early the next morning, we picked up our cute little Euro-car (after getting absolutely LOST on foot, luggage in tow) and hit the road to Hallstatt. En route, we stopped in Melk (where many of you will be receiving postcards from, as it was the only bag of postcards we could find for a few days), which had a splendid abbey Mom was excited to see. It was a delightful little town, very quaint. It seemed almost Oregon-beach-town-like to me, in a totally non-beachy, but tolerable-and-even-lovable kitcshy kind of way. The abbey was really interested. It'd been restored just ten years ago (ish), so all the paint was bright, the wood finely polished and the marble unchipped. It was fascinating to see a cathedral (calling these places 'churches' seems to fail to convey their enormity) in tip-top shape, the way it would have looked when first created. The Melk abbey had been restored in its original baroque style, so what we saw was near exactly what its inhabitants saw hundreds of years ago. It made for an interesting contrast to what we've seen at every other large, dusty, faded, chipped and antiqued European cathedral. And the library was fabulous... ask Trippe to see the postcard I sent him - it's really cool.

We drove to Hallstatt via backroads, along the Danube River, through the Wachau Valley (unthriving Austrian winecountry, thanks to a nasty scandal in the '90s about Austrians sweetening their wine with antifreeze - apparently true, though they claim they were framed as scapegoats and the practice was actually widespread - an uproar from which the industry has yet to really recover) and in the southern lake districts of Austria. It was an absolutely beautiful drive, save for the torrential downpours and seemingly unending tunnels (we don't have tunnels like these in the States - they're really weird). Despite the rain that evening, Hallstatt was an absolutely lovely quiet oasis. We ate dinner inside for the second night on our entire trip, watched a man lead a swan couple and their swan ducklings off the road and contemplated the bizarrely lighted sky at 9:30pm (it usually gets dark here about 8:45). The next day, we sipped coffee, took a boat ride and jumped on a hanging bridge, beat the rain at every turn and toured the salt mines (they let you - make you! - slide down wooden banisters! It's so great!). We drove into Salzburg late, where we quickly fell asleep in preperation for our last day with the luxary of our little car...

(I think I'm ending every paragraph with an ellipses transition. Sorry - the travel is evidently wearing on my compositional creativity.) The next day (Wednesday, by this point), we drove south-ish out of Salzburg, back through some of the senic roads we'd driven the day prior. We stopped for two hikes - one through a beautiful Ramona-Falls-esque waterfall (or Vasserfall, in German) and one on this fancy little pedestrian bridge over more waterfalls - similar to the Tremmelbach Falls hike we took in Switzerland. Both hikes were fabulous - particularly the first one, because it wasn't overrun as an obvious tourist destination. The other falls, however, were wonderful, because the bridge was built out of the rock, so we really were over the falls for the better part of the hike. It was an absolutely wonderful day - probably my second favorite of the trip (only behind the Samaria Gorge hike).

We're finally to today! Today we were the most sterotypical tourists we've ever been... we took the Sound of Music tour. And it was wonderful. We really enjoyed it. I realized just how much I'm missing all of you, because once it was over, I realized my favorite part had just been talking with a group of people for more than five minutes. Nevertheless, the tour was great. We saw all the classic spots - the front and back of the VonTrapp mansion, the gazebo, the abbey, the wedding church, as well as various asundry gardens, gates, lakes and meadows. We had all our precious Sound of Music myths debunked, but no one on our tour cried, which was good. Our guide was great, giving us lots of Austrian info, in addition to the Sound of Music bits. We drove through another part of the lake district, via delightful crater, which provided an enormity of incredible views.

And before I wrap this up, with the ten minutes I have left, let me enlight you into the new world to which I've been exposed... Canyoning. Anyone heard of it? Because I'm going to be searching for some companions... Evidently, people put on wetsuits and follow the water in a canyon as close as possible, using whatever means necessary, to avoid getting wet - hiking, climbing, spelunking, etc.

Okay, I have much to think on regarding Austrian culture, especially with regard their musical appreciations, but all that will have to wait for a cup of Stumptown... I miss and love you all so much, and truly can't wait to bring you all into my world of the last three weeks. See you in two days!