Looking for the traditional Viennese coffee house, the Jelinek is keeping some of the athmosphere without declining to a museum. Here the spirit is alive: Good coffee, Newspapers, discussion and you stay for ever. A must-see. The Jelinek is just one of my favourites. It is literally the quietest place I’ve ever been to. Very relaxing, beautiful old interior, cosy and charming. And the waiters are very friendly which is quite untypical for Vienna.
Thats the power of the climate change. It seems as if the whole world disappears in the snow. Well, at least the northern hemisphere. Remember, in Australia is summer now. But snow, snow, everywhere snow in europe and america.
The New York Times has even called its readers recently to share their best photographs from the snowstorm that hit the East Coast. Have a look. I took that photo right after i left the university wich you can see in the background again. I promise, tomorrow you’ll see a photo without the university. And then, i walk to the tramway station and have to read (here on the right display)…
“Fahrtbehinderung wegen Opernball” – “obstruction of traffic because of the opera ball”. Maybe you’ve heard before of the Opernball. I don’t know, what i should say about the Openball, except i don’t like him. It’s all very phony. It’s a simulation of the good old days, the golden ages of the empire with a lot pseudo-VIPs. And it obstructs the traffic.
It’s snowing again! But it’s not as cold as yesterday – it follwos: the snow melts quickly and there is only mud. However, today I’m gone in the lunch break for a walk: Along the ring road, past the university and i went into the Volksgarten (public gardens). And while I walked, came to my ipod, which I have set to shuffle suddenly opera music (G. Meyerber: Le Hugontte) – yes, that’s something I listen – i’m in Vienna after all. And in some way the music fits. Because you walk past these imperial buildings, the snow drifts through the air … it’s kind of romantic. I felt like in Milos Foreman’s movie “Amadeus” (especially when I went through this sloping narrow street, which I also photographed), but the movie was actually shot in Prague.
I thought, why only one photo every day – today there are six.
By the way, Vienna is in fact a film city. Many films are set in Vienna, but the least of it were probably actually shot in Vienna. But there is also a opposite case, like the famous TV miniseries from the 70′s “Holocaust”, whose main characters come from Berlin, but the series was shot (partly) in Vienna. Maybe I’ll one day take a photo of the house of the Weiss family (as they were called). And a fairly well-known film plays in Vienna and was also shot in. It’s Richard Linklater’s “Before Sunrise”. There is a scene in wich Ethan Hawke and July Delpy sitting in the so called “ring rail” and talk, while outside pass all the majestic and magnificent Ringstrassen buildings by. Maybe it is that old tram, which we can see here on the one picture. Hm, I think some places of this movie I must once go shooting.
Just around the corner from my apartment is the Freud Museum. I’ve never been inside. That needs to change before I leave Vienna any time. In fact, many people come to vienna to visit the places of freud or to feel for anything from his spirit. Vienna is anyway a city where many people come to feel or be inspired by any sorts of ghosts – may it be Beethoven, Mozart, the emporer etc. Vienna is a city of ghosts. Well, the most citys are or rather, have his own ghosts. But no one is so much cling to its ghosts, as vienna. Actually, vienna define itself through its ghosts. As i said: Vienna is the city of Freud, Mozart, Beethoven, the emporer and what else. New York for example, is or has the image of the embodiement of the american dream – everything is possible there – and NY is the cultural melting pot per se. Vienna in the other hand, lives in the past and adapts itself to “the New” very slowly. In vienna you can’t make something of yourself, you just can be somebody. The golden age of vienna is gone.
This is the pretty ugly subway and tramway station Schottentor (scotsgate) – build in the 60s – easily recognizable by the colors that were used: orange, brown and purple. It is named after the city gate in the city wall, which once stood here. Today it is one of the most busiest hubs (not on this pic 
). The University of Vienna is right above the station. So its mainly frequented by students. 12 tram lines meet here at the ground- and underground level. The former city wall was removed in the 1850s under command of the emperor, who wanted a boulevard like the champs elysee in Paris – he got it with the Ringstraße (ring road), which was build in place of the city wall. All the famous Ringstraßengebäude (ring road buildings), like the opera or the university, was build after that. They are not hundreds of years old, as as most tourists believe, they are not even 150 years old.
By the way, its dam cold here in vienna. The snow comes and goes. In the morning there was a snowstorm and now there is nothing to see more of it.
Well, i’m not new in this city. I live here since 2006. So 4 years. I’m not sure if this is already too long or maybe to short, because there is a love-hate-relationship between me and this city. It seems to me sometimes that vienna is just a little bigger village, but then there are so much cultural offers in this historic city and in some corners you can feel the young creative energy of a big-city-life. I’m torn between this sometimes boring, conservative museum, that vienna can be, and the multicultural metropolis.
The first pic i will show you is maybe actually pretty boring and lame. But it is my first daily view on vienna – a look down to the street, what the people wear…do i need a scarf and a hat or is a t-shirt ok?
