Forth! And fear no darkness!: Four Visitors

Sorry for such a big delay! Life has been non-stop here, so I will do my best to give a couple of shorter posts detailing my last few weekends!

Thursday, November 11 began a long and quite enjoyable weekend. About 9pm Quinn Rodgers (a friend from KC) rang the bell at my apartment. He was supposed to be in a couple hours earlier but his flight had been delayed and he had gotten a bit lost. He finally made it, and we pretty much just hung out with my roommates for a few hours. We went out with David to get food and Pat left to go help Mal Kennedy (a friend from Davidson studying in Florence) find her way from airport. The four of us stayed up for quite a while talking and reminiscing.

The next morning I had german at 9, and while I was gone Quinn went to the airport to pick up his girlfriend Laura Jerzyk (also a KC friend of mine). After class we went on a tour around the city. We walked through the open-air market, ate some food, and then I dropped them off at the Art History Museum. I let them spend the rest of the afternoon there, and then we reconvened at the apartment with Pat, Mal, and yet another Davidson visitor, Melissa Hickey (currently studying in Madrid). The six of us as well as David went out to Schnitzelwirt for dinner where Roger and Ashley met us. (I am realizing this is a lot of names to keep track of, sorry!) After dinner we were invited to a cocktail party at Claire Clancy’s house/mansion way out in the Viennese suburbs. This was fun – our guests got to meet a lot of the rest of our friends, and I got to see a part of Vienna I had never seen and didn’t even know existed.

The next morning we got up and showered. I headed out with Laura and Quinn around noon. We ate a käsekrainer and then went to wander around Schonnbrun for the day. It is a much different palace at the beginning of winter than it is during the fall – all of the flowers had been dug up, the colorful vines were brown, and the giant walls of green trees were simply transparent twigs. Still, it was a different kind of pretty, and it wasn’t a particularly cold day. We walked to the top of the hill to enjoy the view, and eventually meandered back down and wandered around the grounds. That evening we went to the Volksoper to see an operette. Our tickets were cheap because we were kind of behind a pole, but we could all still see most of the stage and read the translations. Some of the music was amazing and on occasion the notes one of the singers would hit gave me goosebumps. For dinner after the opera we went to a small, hidden restaurant named Beisl zum...something I can't remember. But the food there was amazing and we all left very full. Afterward we hung out at the apartment for a while with Pat, Mal, Melissa, and David, and then we went out to one of our favorite spots named Chelsea.

Sunday Laura had an evening flight, so we got up early enough to head to the Belvedere Palace for a little while during the day. Laura and Quinn visited the Upper Belvedere to see the Klimt works, while David, Melissa, and I walked through the Rodin and Valie Export exhibits in the Lower (Mal had a flight out around midday). Eventually Quinn and I dropped Laura off at the airport. It was far cheaper for Quinn to fly out on Monday, so he stayed an extra night. We spent the rest of the evening just sitting around and watching football in the apartment. Monday morning I saw Quinn off to the airport and then headed to class to start my week.

This was hopefully a somewhat shorter post. Here are some pictures, I’ll put up another post soon!