Austria trip day four (now with images!)
This does not feel like the fourth day. It feels like either the second day or the twentieth.
This morning I tried to upload the rest of the photos from the previous day to Flickr. The internet was mysteriously slow. The pictures are all up now, though. Check it.
After battling with the internet connection for a while, I gave up and ate breakfast and then we took the tram to Kunst Haus Wien, which translates to Vienna Art House.
The Kunst Haus Wien is mostly a museum of the works of Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who was an architect, a painter/printmaker, and. . .well, kind of a strange person. He designed the Kunst Haus, which is this crazy mashup of tiles and painted stucco and mirrors.
The floors are uneven because he thought uneven floors restored the balance that flat floors took away. He was big on restoring balance, I think. And on not relying too much on machines. It all sounds very good written out, but I feel like he was trying a bit too hard.
He also designed a church. The church looked like it had been made by drunken gnomes. I thought it was much uglier than the one it was replacing. But that's just me, man.
There were two floors of his art. He did stamps and flags but mostly prints and paintings. All of them looked kind of like this.
There were some prints that I liked, ones that looked like they belonged on the cover of Stanislaw Lem books, but for the most part I felt like they were repetitive and only whimsical for the sake of being hip and unusual.
The third and fourth floors were an exhibit of Elliot Erwitt's photography, which I liked a lot. All of his photographs were in black and white. He's been taking them for decades. There were pictures of Kruschev and Nixon and JFK and beaches in Brazil and jumping dogs and that over-reproduced picture of the boy on a bike with baguettes. He had a good eye for contrast and composition.
Oh, fuck me, I can't describe his stuff. Just go look at it.
After the Kunst Haus, we went to the Hundertwasserhaus, which isn't a house at all, but a series of apartments and a small grotto with stores in it. Apparently Mr. Hundertwasser didn't believe in painting things all one color, because it was patchworked stupidly in pastel colors.
I liked the fountain, though.
There wasn't much to see at the Hundertwasserhaus besides silly tiles and tourist junk, so we took the tram to the Naschmarkt. Here are some photos I took on the way there.
And here are some of the Naschmarkt.
The Naschmarkt is mostly food and some clothes. There are Asian food stalls and Italian food stalls and Greek food stalls and cheese stalls and butcher stalls and ice cream stalls and scarf stalls and touristy-sunglasses-and-cut-up-sweatshirt stalls. We bought gelato and ingredients for dinner there.
By that point, my brother and I were both very tired. We weren't even that tired, I think, but our feet hurt and the sun was beating down in a way that threatened dehydration and eventual heatstroke.
So we went home. Here are some pictures from the subway.
We had fresh strawberries, bread, Brie, broccoli, pork chops, and a slightly heated conversation for dinner. Then we discussed our plans for tomorrow. Dad is going to take me to the Pathologisch-anatomische Bundesmuseum, which is full of all manner of medical horrors. I'm far more excited about that than I ought to be.
That was my day. There's not much else to say, really. I'm pretty sure I already mentioned that I'm tired. I'm also pretty sure I should have stopped being tired by now. Oh well.
This morning I tried to upload the rest of the photos from the previous day to Flickr. The internet was mysteriously slow. The pictures are all up now, though. Check it.
After battling with the internet connection for a while, I gave up and ate breakfast and then we took the tram to Kunst Haus Wien, which translates to Vienna Art House.
The Kunst Haus Wien is mostly a museum of the works of Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who was an architect, a painter/printmaker, and. . .well, kind of a strange person. He designed the Kunst Haus, which is this crazy mashup of tiles and painted stucco and mirrors.
The floors are uneven because he thought uneven floors restored the balance that flat floors took away. He was big on restoring balance, I think. And on not relying too much on machines. It all sounds very good written out, but I feel like he was trying a bit too hard.
He also designed a church. The church looked like it had been made by drunken gnomes. I thought it was much uglier than the one it was replacing. But that's just me, man.
There were two floors of his art. He did stamps and flags but mostly prints and paintings. All of them looked kind of like this.
There were some prints that I liked, ones that looked like they belonged on the cover of Stanislaw Lem books, but for the most part I felt like they were repetitive and only whimsical for the sake of being hip and unusual.
The third and fourth floors were an exhibit of Elliot Erwitt's photography, which I liked a lot. All of his photographs were in black and white. He's been taking them for decades. There were pictures of Kruschev and Nixon and JFK and beaches in Brazil and jumping dogs and that over-reproduced picture of the boy on a bike with baguettes. He had a good eye for contrast and composition.
Oh, fuck me, I can't describe his stuff. Just go look at it.
After the Kunst Haus, we went to the Hundertwasserhaus, which isn't a house at all, but a series of apartments and a small grotto with stores in it. Apparently Mr. Hundertwasser didn't believe in painting things all one color, because it was patchworked stupidly in pastel colors.
I liked the fountain, though.
There wasn't much to see at the Hundertwasserhaus besides silly tiles and tourist junk, so we took the tram to the Naschmarkt. Here are some photos I took on the way there.
And here are some of the Naschmarkt.
The Naschmarkt is mostly food and some clothes. There are Asian food stalls and Italian food stalls and Greek food stalls and cheese stalls and butcher stalls and ice cream stalls and scarf stalls and touristy-sunglasses-and-cut-up-sweatshirt stalls. We bought gelato and ingredients for dinner there.
By that point, my brother and I were both very tired. We weren't even that tired, I think, but our feet hurt and the sun was beating down in a way that threatened dehydration and eventual heatstroke.
So we went home. Here are some pictures from the subway.
We had fresh strawberries, bread, Brie, broccoli, pork chops, and a slightly heated conversation for dinner. Then we discussed our plans for tomorrow. Dad is going to take me to the Pathologisch-anatomische Bundesmuseum, which is full of all manner of medical horrors. I'm far more excited about that than I ought to be.
That was my day. There's not much else to say, really. I'm pretty sure I already mentioned that I'm tired. I'm also pretty sure I should have stopped being tired by now. Oh well.