vienna, day 3

Krysta shared an observation about this city earlier: everything seems to work on the honor system. This came up after our outing this morning to the Spanish Riding School, where these guys ride horses for show using really old techniques. This is the extent of my understanding of horseback riding. We attended their "morning exercises" this morning, which was a bit of a disappointment, in part because of my lack of knowledge of the sport. Krysta enjoyed herself a bit more because she used to ride in middle school, so she could appreciate the finer points of what we were seeing. To me, it just looked like some horses walking around.

Back to the honor system, at the Riding School there were several signs and announcements that taking pictures or video was "verboten", and yet I think I was probably the only American there who followed that rule. Now, they did only have one elderly usher who would walk around the gallery and remind anyone he saw with a camera out, but they usually just waited until he left and then pulled it back out. People were even taking flash photos, and one of those spooked one of the horses, drawing some stern glares from the rider.

I pointed out that there was so little enforcement, and thats when Krysta pointed out that people here just seem to accept, largely, that the rules are meant to be followed. We have yet to be asked to show our weekly metro pass, 3 days and lots of rides into the trip. And people here obey the walk/don't walk signs religiously. Its a really lovely thing, I think, and it probably helps the trains run on time. It also makes me embarrassed when my countrymen come in and assume, as Americans so often do, that the rules simply apply to everyone except themselves.

/rant

The weather here continues to be gorgeous, much warmer than we anticipated. After our morning at the "Reitschule" we walked northward to a place called Bio Bar, a vegetarian restaurant Krysta found on the internet. Our food was yummy, and I enjoyed some more good Austrian beer (this one was organic!). Then we headed back down to Neue Berg, which houses the Museum of Musical Instruments and the Museum of Arms and Armor. These were pretty cool, although I have very few pictures because it was so dark in most of the rooms. I have a lot of video though, because that was faring better in the low light. There were some incredibly ornate keyboard instruments, and some oboes carved and painted to look like dragons.

We had another museum we had hoped to get to today, but we were feeling done with museums, so we sat and had coffee and a rasberry soda, then strolled over to the gardens in front of the Rathaus (town hall). It was a lovely setting.

We met up with our hosts as they were finishing up their rehearsal for a production of Cossi fan tutti. On our walk there we stopped for a milkshake! It was pretty fun to watch an opera dress rehearsal. I was watching to conductor for a while, and it surprised me when he started speaking in German. I was so lost in watching him spur on the orchestra in motions understood by any musician regardless of langauge, that I had simply forgotten he was Austrian.

The evening concluded with dinner at an Italian place called Firenze. Since its still "Spargel" time, I had a delicious tagliolini with white and green asparagus tips and a cream sauce. Then we all shared a dessert with strawberries and asparagus with vanilla ice cream. It was interesting, and not something I would necessarily seek out, but I enjoyed the experience.

Tomorrow is our last day here in Wien before we hop a train on Friday to Krakow. We're hoping to visit the Imperial Treasury and the Naschtmarkt. The nice thing about staying with American friends who are living here long term is that we get to go be tourists on our own during the day, and then get little glimpses of everyday life from our gracious hosts. Its been a lovely trip so far and this looks sure to continue.