On The Art Of Eating Popovers: October 2008

With a sunrise like this, it was easy to wake up this morning. Just had to throw this one on here too.

And now, our crazy costume party. A few questionables and unmentionables are not pictured. Below are only some of the honorable mentions. I am sad I missed Paul Hess though - he was some Monstors Inc., female monstor whose costume involved a very cool mask and some 5 pillows and lipstick and a special monster voice. But he took it off before the party even started because he had music ministry practice.

Hippie after a successful bob

Rob dressing up in a normal-guy costume as he often does to disguise his normal super-hero self.

Me (Alice or Heidi or something), Oebb train-conductor Phil, Hippie Jon and Vampire? Christy

Phil bobbing...and about to get dunked

Most of the LCI students dressed up like smurfs

Cate Donovon and Jerome share a moment

Amanda Keena as Snow White

Eva Piras and Liz de St. Auben

Katie and Mitch as Profs Siefert and Asci

Mary Manion and Annie Jacobs as Mensa workers - complete with simmels in the pocket!

Fr. Ron as Fr. Ron - monks don't need to dress up - and Mark Kalpakgian

Me and 'Prof. Siefert'

Cowabunga dudes - Breeanne Walsh as a very cool ninja turtle

Caitlin and I went up to Vienna Friday night to see an opera. La Nozze di Figaro, the Marriage of Figaro! One of the best comedies, I am sure. Only 4 euros - FOUR EUROS - if you queue up hours ahead of time, and don't mind a nosebleed.

Old and new meet in Vienna

Caitlin and I, waiting in line with the rest of the lowerclass opera-lovers.

I went outside to take pictures, Caitlin saving me a spot.

The beautiful Staatoperhause

When I came back in, the little old man would under no circumstances allow me to go back up to Caitlin....who was not hopelessly far up in line and worrying what the heck happened to me. But where there is a will, there is a way - if you are sneaky enough.

the two of us, or the reflections thereof.

That's me - at the VIENNA OPERA!!!!!

Opera boxes soon to be filled with upper class viennese peering down with their opera glasses.

Me, looking blurry and disheveled.

Caitlin, looking fabulous just in her element as always.

A magnificent operahouse. Just gorgeous. But they don't have the long metal window-shades that you can play with like NYC.

The cast was superb. Figaro was my favorite. Susanna was a great actress, although the Countess had arguably the better voice.

The standing room only - aka Nose-bleed section, for good reason - area. So long as you don't pass out (Caitlin!) from the heat of so many packed in like cattle, and from standing still for 4 hours, and being dehydrated, it is quite nice. No, really, it was brilliant, however built that in.

I think this a a great candid moment of one of the violinists. Carmen, I was reminded of your dad in the joviality of this violinist, even though I have never met him. It was awesome to think that your dad played here! Do you know which operas your dad played in? Carmen, someday I hope you get to tie your handkercheif to the rail to claim your spot at the Vienna opera too. It is not fair that I get to before you.

After the opera, it being after eleven, we cannot go home, no that would be too simple. Of course the last train to Gaming leaves Vienna as the opera is starting. So Caitlin and I planned to go to Estzergom, Hungary, arriving there in the morning. The third largest church, after Hagia Sophia and St. Peter's is there - some Marian basilica with a ridiculously long name. It also boasts the 3rd largest organ, Cardinal Mindzenty, a personal favorite, and THE largest one-piece painting in the world. After, we were intending to go to Budapest and explore for some 4 hours or so. Nice plan on paper. Everything looked smooth and easy. And practically free: theoretically our expenses would be less than 10 euros, food included.

So, we burned some time waiting for our 3 am train out of Wein Sudbahnhof. There was a wild concert going on in the Rathause, which, I believe, is the city hall. It looked pretty all lit up.

We happened upon soldiers keeping guard over a massive military fair that filled all of the museumsplatz. This little jet, called the Eurofighter typhoon, was a little confusing: it had flags from 6 not necessarily friendly countries. I guess the Brits made it and sold it to all the others.

e EYE. Viennese, I have decided, are just plain off their rockers when it comes to what constitutes a great piece of art sometimes. I am so sick of seeing Gustav Klimt's the Kiss plastered everywhere. At least with the Mona, it is a likeable eye-pleasing portrait, if disproportionate fame to actual artistic worth, in my lowly opinion, anyway.
This was really really topping them all though. It hung in the Wein Sudbahnhof, as you go up the uphill moving sidewalk that kept Caitlin and I amused from 1:30 to 2:45 am. It is straight out of starwars. I don't really know what it does. Actually, there are two of them. They look across each other into the other eye, so that you are afraid (or at least I was) that there might be a laser beam between them they sear through human flesh, or perhaps, like in the Never Ending story's Sphynx statue, and laser will come out and get you if you don't believe enough in yourself. They blink. They make a creepy rattlesnake noise. They hum so lightly you think it is all in your head. They send a shiver up your spine if you let it get to you.

We get off the train from Bratislava and step into Hungary. Where is Hungary? no-where. Literally, no where. We got off, and saw nothing but darkness all around, and Caitlin turned to me and said "Where are we?" a disconcerted tone. The train became to roar away, and I shouted back "Don't worry - I am sure the trainstation is just on the other side of the track." At that moment, the train came to and end, and left us, our scarves still blowing, taking all of our optimism with it. There was nothing there. Nothing. Stairs going to the other side. Blackness. A dilapidated dark roofless building that looks like it hasn't been used since world war two. Nothing at all. Not even signs. Not that signs woud've helped any.

The only three words I know in Hugarian, taught me by Lucy, a Hungarian student here at the LCI: the words for shoe, time, and nightingale. And it is not like German, where i can understand the gist of what is written, and about every 7th word spoken. I am completely clueless when it comes to Hungarian.

So here we are. 4 am. Darkness. Cold. Waiting for a train to take us to Estzergom that never came. We ended up getting on another train going back to the previous station, and then riding it back again just so we could keep warm and safe.

We didn't get to Esztergom, but we did make it to Budapest, by a sort of round-about way.

When all else fails, play rummy. We were sitting against what I thought was a wall, on these piles of newspapers that we intended later to wad up and make a huge mountainoud bed out of. So I had my back against the wall later, falling asleep, thinking about the EYES. And suddenly, I woke up, or mostly woke up, to feel the wall suddenly shoving itself into me. I felt like screaming, but instead, turned to Caitlin and said, in a matter-of-fact voice that surprised myself, "I think there is someone in the wall, and he is coming out." Then I jumped up and saw the man, for man it was indeed, emerge.

Caitlin catching some shut-eye on das zug.

Nuttella a la' Hungary: mogyoro'kre'm. Tradition! Tradition!

Skyline of Buda. St. Istvan's Basilika. Contains, I am told, the fist of St. Stephen...but we didn't go there.

A Byz Church in Budapest

That is all the pictures I took during a whole day in Hungary. There was just not that much that was pleasing to my eye, and I don't take National Geographic pictures. I take pictures that I like to look at; things that I want to remember. All the Churches were locked or charged you or turned into shady Italian mafia restaurants. All of the streets were dirty. They buildings looked like Vienna - indeed it used to be called the Vienna of the East, when the Hapsbourgs were still in power. It seemed to me like a cross between Vienna and Istanbul or some other Turkish city. There seemed to be a war of religions going on, and I don't think the Catholics are winning. Transportation system is messy...and scary....I will leave it at that for now - some stories are best left untold until the proper time. It has seen better days, I am sure. Several different internet reviews described it as a sleepy city - I would describe it as more an apathetic city. It didn't seem friendly at all. Granted, it is still shaking off the communism that reigned there until only a dozen years ago or so.

Perhaps, on a warm sunny day, with a friend who could speak Hungarian, and after a night's rest, I might have a different opinion of the city. But I will never know, because I never want to go back. That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the day - I had a great travelling companion, nutella, and a Father in Heaven taking care of us, so you could have put me down on just about any place on earth and I could have enjoyed the day. I am just saying that my impression of the city was generally not favorable.

I have decided this is one bit of modern technology that I really like. Windpower what-you-may-call-ems. They are actually beautiful, to me. Slowly spinning, catching the wind and turning it into light in someone's home. They stand like watchmen across the fields.