*Vienna, Mozart, and the U.S. Military Police*

03Apr08

Arriving in Vienna in the morning was kind of a trip seeing as how it always takes a bit to get one’s bearings in a new city (especially one that doesn’t exist in your language). I navigated my way to the hostel thanks to the Hostel Ruthenstiener’s impeccable brochure (picked up at the Generator Hostel in London) and made it there with relative ease, despite the realization that neither my bank card or my credit card were working in the ATMs and not knowing if the problem was that I was in Austria or if the problem was with on the other end (more on that later).

After checking in and getting to know the place, I left the luggage and figured out where I was on the city map that they had posted. A little bit of Geography here, you can always tell where the oldest part of any city is just by looking at the river (or train tracks if your in the Midwest) and finding where the streets stem from that rather than in a grid-like North-South, East-West pattern. I decided to go to where the streets looked the most confusing and an hour later I found myself in the city on the Danube: Old(e) Time Vienna.







Cities in Europe always seem to be known by their cathedrals and Vienna is no exception. I wish I could say that the darkened spires of the gothic St. Stephan’s cathedral impressed me more, but at this point, I’m a little “cathedral-ed” out. It looked cool, but I couldn’t sit and stare at it for an hour like I had for other churches I had seen on this trip. Sorry Vienna, sorry God.

From the city map at the hostel, I had figured out that the Mozart museum was only a block away from St. Stephen’s and that’s where I headed next. Now, I have very little experience with classical music and have never really, you know, gotten it; however, I happen to be in a relationship with a semi-professional singer with impeccable taste in music (classical AND not classical) and like any fella who has ever married above his station (not to cast dispersions on my family - or hers…just saying that in our relationship there is a healthy respect for both “high culture” (ex: classical music) and “low culture” (ex: comic books)…I think you can figure out who specializes in each in our relationship), I have developed a descent amount of knowledge and respect for what the wife(ish) has suggested. My favorite classical piece that the wife(ish) has shown me was Mozart’s Requiem. Along with digging Mozart’s ultimate masterpiece, we had watched Amadeus sometime in the last year so, even though the movie was a bit sensationalized; I was able to approach the museum with a sufficient amount of knowledge to enjoy it. I can’t say that I would be able to do that had I never met the wife(ish), one of probably a million things that I owe her for.

However…Getting to the Mozart museum was another matter: took me an hour and a half of walking down streets from the cathedral until I finally found the museum, which looked like just any other apartment building in Vienna. The reason for this, I found out, was that it actually was one of Mozart’s residences during his stay in Vienna (one of eleven, I think…he had a habit of moving a lot, I guess).
While there wasn’t a whole lot to see on the tour, the audio tour (which I have found utterly boring in other museums) was incredible. First, it had an option for English, so that was good; also, they dispensed with the minutia that historical sights always seem to get wrapped up in when it comes to stories of historical importance. They didn’t go into his childhood too much or nonsense like what life was like when Mozart was alive. The tour was more about Mozart’s relationship with the city of Vienna and its people and also what the circumstances were that lead to some of his most famous works being written in Vienna: The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, and Mozart’s Requiem. (Please please please don’t feel bad or ashamed if you only identify these as works by their use in the Lonny Tunes cartoons…that’s just a good a place to start as any. There should never be anything elitist or exclusionary about music - ever.)

Later that night I met a couple from San Francisco and had a wonderful conversation as they tag-teamed between using their computer-phone-thing, and talking to me. I found out that he had been a MP in the Army Reserve and had been to both Iraq and, get this, Abu Graihb…he even knew the people who were responsible for the pictures and stupid crap, though he said that he was never under any suspicion for doing any of that nasty stuff. It was an interesting perspective to gain as I talked to both of them: I got to talk to him about military stuff and what its like to be on the outside looking in at the whole crap-storm of problems that, even though we were oblivious, we’re partly responsible for…and to talk to her about what it’s like to live with someone who made it through those experiences without getting too much on him (he has given up being a cop to go back to school for Communicative Disorders so that he can teach autistic kids).