Shanghaied: Vienna, Day 1

On October 17th, a group of my friends and I took a bus from Brno to Vienna, the capital of Austria. Vienna is about 2 hours away by bus (even though it's only 70 miles away). I have been through Vienna several times, but I had never actually stopped to tour until now. Vienna, called "Wien" in German, has a population of about 1.7 million. As a side note, "Wiener Schnitzel" is named after Vienna. I just noticed all the pictures from this trip are pretty bad, but they at least give you an idea of what I was seeing.

The altar of St. Stephen's Cathedral

St. Stephen's Cathedral (can't get a full picture as there isn't much space in front)

Our first stop was St. Stephen's Cathedral. As we walked to the front of the church, the first thing we saw was a homeless man vomit in a trash can a few feet from us. We quickly entered the church after that, skirting around the people bringing in Christmas trees to decorate the church (on Oct. 17th?). The present Gothic church is the third on that spot. At the entrance of the church is the original Romanesque facade (c. 1240). The church survived bombing in WWII, but in the last days of the war, the roof caught on fire. The wooden roof burned and the world's second largest bell (21 tons) fell to the ground (it has since been placed back in the church tower). Beethoven realized he was completely deaf when he couldn't hear the bells from the cathedral. I went up the 343 steps to the viewing area at the top of the 450 foot high south tower.

Vienna as viewed from the south tower of St. Stephen's

Note the tiles, each is "owned" by a local who donated to redo the roof after WWII

The double-headed eagle, symbol of the Habsburg monarchy

A view of the Vienna City Hall

My next destination was The Vienna International Center, the United Nations Office at Vienna. The UN has four headquarters: New York is the main HQ, but there are also branches in Vienna, Geneva, and Nairobi. The Vienna location houses the main offices of the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the international weapons inspectors. On my tour, I was able to see a meeting of the Conference Against Transnational Organized Crime. The main language I heard all around the complex was English. English is spoken most widely as the international language in the UN, but all meetings are translated into the official UN languages of Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, and Spanish.

The Vienna International Center: The UN's Vienna HQ (not my picture)

The main entrance of the UN with the flags of all 192 voting members (plus one observer, The Vatican)

A UN meeting room, with translators in the boxes at the center top area

Later that night, after checking into our hostel, we headed to the opera. The Vienna State Opera is a beautiful building, even though the architect who designed it 130 years ago committed suicide after a negative critical reception. The building is a replica of the original, destroyed in WWII. Rather than pay the high price of the building tour, we took Rick Steves' trusty tourist advice and bought some of the 567 standing-room tickets for €3.50 to see the opera "Faust." The opera was in French, but there was a small screen in front of each seat (or standing area) offering a translation in other languages. I thought it was interesting reading mine in English, the screen in front of me in German and hearing French and kind of understanding all three. After a while, we decided about 45 minutes of standing (and opera) was enough and left. On our way out, we had the opera entrance all to ourselves for pictures of the stunning architecture. We decided to pass on the Opera Toilet Vienna Experience, a bathroom in the subway station outside the opera, playing "The Blue Danube" (as the sign says, "A Theatrical Ambience for Nature's Call"). The "experience" costs €0.60 (but the Burger King's bathroom was free).

The Vienna State Opera House