The inside of the church was beautiful, albeit packed with tourists. Usually I would object to being surrounded by so many tourists, but it was freezing outside and I was grateful for the warm generated by hordes of tourists and many burning candles. We then went shopping around town - I didn't find anything, but Zach found his new European supermodel jacket! (We did a little photoshoot in one the palace gardens, you'll see later.)
We then decided we'd had too much of church and now we needed some state. Good thing the Austrian parliament was open to visitors! We waited for our tour in the visitors' lobby and played with all their high-tech games and computer learning centers. (Yes, I have the high score on the kids' quiz.) And the tour was pretty cool, although it was kind of short. I'm sure the Austrian parliament does....things...but I think they try and keep a low profile out of the country. Like Germany, Austria has a multiparty system where a coalition of parties must to reached to be able to "form a government". Unsurprisingly, Austria has many similar parties as German does - Social Democratic Party, the Greens, Austrian's People's Party, Freedom Party of Austria, Alliance for the Future of Austria. It's a two chambered parliament and we got to see where everyone meets.
My favorite part of the tour was the fact that it was bi-lingual. Our guide would first say everything in German and then again in English. Which was actually a pretty good way to test my knowledge of German. Hilariously enough, not everything translates perfectly. Our guide loved to say: "Bitte kommen Sie hinein" (Please, come on in), but she often translated it as "Just, come in" which came out a lot ruder and funnier than I think she meant it to.
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| Tada! Parliament! Done up in a Neo-Greek style to remind us how awesome the Greeks were. |
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| We got little neckbands and earpieces for the tour. |
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| Emily - Secret spy. |
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| Almost the whole wall in the main lobby was covered in old Greek myths. |
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| Our tour guide and check out the statues of the gods behind her. |
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| Another big lobby. Used for receptions and parties. |
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| One of these things is not like other... |
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| The (Old) House of Lords This room isn't used anymore, but it was amazingly decorated. |
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| They even had a little viewing box for the emperor. He never came to visit, still bitter about not being absolutist anymore. |
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| The exquisitely detailed glass ceiling. |
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| From the old... |
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| To the new! They redesigned the chamber post WWII after a bomb destroyed this side of parliament. |
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| All the big drama happens here now. |
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| CAW! |
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| The little chamber in the middle. Now used for the 2nd house. |
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| They get the nice chairs, apparently. |
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| On the way out, Athena stands guard. |
Lessons Learned From the Opera:
1) Figure out how long it takes the UBahn to get to the Opera
2) We are not late here at the Viennese Opera.
3) We are always well-dressed here at the Viennese Opera
4) We always check our coats here at the Viennese Opera
5) We are not late here at the Viennese Opera
6) We reserve the right to give you dirty looks if you are late here at the Viennese Opera
7) No, you don't get a program, you were late, stupid.
So despite being late, we had a great time seeing "The Magic Flute" by Mozart. I really love Mozart's music and getting to see the Magic Flute in Vienna was pretty awesome. But the story of The Magic Flute is weird. Like, really, really, weird. Even though I'm 98% sure I understood everything that was going on in German, I'm not quite sure I understood what was going on plot-wise. There's magic, a dragon, a magic flute, a prince, a princess, a dude whose a bird but catches birds as a living (what?!), a magic flute, a creepy cult, slave masters, a Queen of the Night, a magic flute, a giant temple, and Ordeals...it's weird. Oh yeah, did I tell you the magic flute can summon animals? Oh and a magic flute.
Plus, I think all the operas nowadays are trying desperately to get more attendance by making everything ultra-modern and using only one or two set pieces. This adaptation used a giant cube as the set and they just rotated and lit the pieces differently when they wanted to change setting. Which was kind of cool, but also baffling. When is this opera supposed to take place? In the past? In the future? I had the same issue with "La Traviata" where the first act was super 1920s America, but the second act was 1800s, and the third act was all modern. It's confusing. Stop it.
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| "The Magic Flute was the Rocky Horror Picture Show of the 1700s." - Zach See also, creepy cult and animal people. |
Now, even though the plot of the magic flute is totally crazy and weird, it does have some gorgeous music (thanks Mozart!). One of the most amazing arias is the famous "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen" ("Hell's vengeance boils in my heart") aria sung by the Queen of the Night to her daughter (thanks Mom!). It's an aria like this one that make you feel utterly talentless. Can you sing a two octave span to a high F6? That's what I thought. To give you some perspective on how untalented we mere mortals are, have a video:
Yep. I feel the need to cultivate some sort of skill to compensate my lack of singing skills right about now.
But all in all, we had a super cultural day and had a great time at the opera. Even people who don't like opera would like "The Magic Flute", despite the cracked out plot. I would definitely like to see some more operas, but I don't know if that's in the card for the next couple of months. So I guess I'll just have to settle for this:
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