I might have complained a lot about Vienna: the cars, the heat, the prices. But something that I actually really enjoyed about Vienna, was the huge amount of really cool street art that they had.

Down by the Donaukanal, things got wild.

This is your life. Do what you love, and do it often. If you don’t like something, change it. If you don’t like your job, quit. If you don’t have enough time, stop watching tv. If you are looking for the love of your life, stop. They will be waiting for you when you start doing things you love. Stop over analyzing, life is simple. All emotions are beautiful. When you eat, appreciate every last bite. Open your mind, arms, and heart to new things and people. We are united in our differences. Ask the next person you see what their passion is and share your inspiring dream with them. Travel often. Getting lost will help you find yourself. [illegible] once, seize them. Life [illegible] you meet and the things you [illegible] with them [illegible] and start creating [illegible] life is [illegible] you dream share your passion.

And on one side of the canal by Schwedenbrücke (a bridge), there even seemed to be a kind of workshop beneath the trees, and the place was covered in different kinds of paintings and statues. So cool!

When talking to dad about my trip, he said that while I was in Vienna, I should go and see the Hundertwasserhaus. When I told Max that my next stop after Münich would be Vienna, he also said that Hundertwasserhaus was worth a visit. When two persons with such good taste tell me to go somewhere, well, I would be stupid not to.

First, I went to the Kunsthaus Wien, the artist and architect Hundertwasser’s museum. There, the floor was uneven (because, according to a plaque, Hundertwasser had said that straight lines and flat surfaces are human creations and bores the brain – in nature, everything is changeable and uneven, and this keeps us awake and inspires us).

I didn’t feel like going to another art exhibition after Belvedere, so instead I went to the Kunsthaus café, where every table looked different and the trees offered a wonderful coolness. I ordered an apfelstrudel and a spritzer, because the guide book had said that those were typical Viennese things to order in a café. And they were good, I guess. Even though I don’t really see the point with mixing white wine with sparkling water, when you could drink them separately and get so much more taste out of it.

On the way from the Kunsthaus to Hundertwasserhaus, some of the other buildings were also colorfully decorated.

At the Hundertwasserhaus, a municipal apartment building created by the architect Pelikan based on the ideas of Hundertwasser, I was met by a crowd of tourists again. Apparently, tourists in general didn’t go to the Kunsthaus and they didn’t walk around on the streets surrounding the Hundertwasserhaus. They were just there, right in front of the colorful building, posing in front of the fountain. It’s fascinating, how they do it, the tourists (me included), and having to share the building watching with all these people almost ruined the experience for me. 

And it’s still an ordinary apartment building, with people living in it. Imagine being one of them, having to make your way through the hordes of tourists every day. It can’t be easy. Luckily, the inhabitants of the building have access to a total of 1000 square meters of roof terraces where trees and bushes grow, so – maybe they don’t even feel the need to leave the building that often.

Despite all the tourists, it was a really cool building. I like the idea, of letting things stick out, color, different shapes. It activates the brain, in the urban environment that otherwise usually is so monotonous. In a way, the philosophy behind kind of reminded me of what the architects behind the neighborhood in Skarpnäck where I grew up said about not making everything look the same, creating places for kids to go on adventures. And you all know how much I love Skarpnäck.

The Botanic Garden of Vienna is literally just next door to the Belvedere garden. But here, the plants and trees have been allowed to grow more freely. Almost too freely.

The entrance to the garden is free and the garden almost feels like a place that has been left to take care of itself. There were plenty of people sitting on the benches in the garden, eating lunch and talking, but the flower beds didn’t feel that well tended for and the trees were surrounded by shrubs.

I have this memory of reading somewhere that every nail in this tree was nailed there by different writers, as some kind of good luck or inspiration thing, but now I can’t find it anymore. The place where I read it, that is. So, I might just have made it up. Still, it was pretty cool: the porcupine tree.

One of the few flower beds that actually had flowers in them.

The Botanic Garden didn’t impress me. Still, it was nice to walk around there, in the shade from the big trees, such a huge contrast from the completely open discipline of the Belvedere garden.

Mr. P, resting on the foot of a sphinx. For some reason, all other tourists wanted to be photographed holding one of the sphinx’s breasts. They are even grey, the breasts, from all the touching. A pretty tasteless tourist tradition, in Mr. P’s opinion.

When I was a kid, I remember us having a painting of a woman being kissed, all dressed in gold and flowers, on our wall. I loved that painting, it was so mysterious. It must have gotten lost during a move or something, because it disappeared before my teens, way before I was old enough to know who painted it. For me, it still has that childhood magic over it.

It was Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss, of course. And it is part of the Vienna art museum Belvedere’s permanent collection (by them advertised as “the most famous kiss in the world”). For the sake of the very young art enthusiast in me, I therefore took the u-bahn out to the Belvedere palace to see The Kiss in real life.

The Belvedere museum is located in an 18th century palace, the summer residence of Prince Eugen. The two palaces are surrounded by an open, geometrically do-not-touch kind of garden. French inspired, I would say, and very sterile. Personally, I prefer the English garden, but yeah, there is something intriguing with the straight lines and extreme extent to which nature has been subdued in a place like this too, I suppose.

The view from the back of the Upper Belvedere down to the Lower Belvedere, the smaller of the palaces.

The Upper Belvedere (the larger of the palaces) was surrounded by statues, and everything in screaming white. In the sunshine, it was almost impossible to keep your eyes open without sunglasses.

The actual museum, though, in the Upper Belvedere where the permanent collection is being showed, was kind of a disappointment. The entrance fee to the museum was the highest of all the museums that I visited on my trip, the collection of paintings was way smaller than in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and less interesting than the Neue Pinakothek in Münich, and here you weren’t even allowed to take pictures! I think that’s just stingy.

The only part that I found remotely worthwhile was the 19th and early 20th century floor. There, they had a beautiful Finnish spring forest with birches by Akseli Gallén-Kallela, an uninteresting van Gogh and a decent Monet. And, of course, most of the museum’s Klimts – and they were quite a few. In so many different styles. He had a really wide repertoire, that Klimt.

The Kiss had the place of honor, occupying an entire wall in the innermost room. The room was dark, the wall black, and it was lighted in a way to made the gold in the painting seem like it was glowing. It is a huge painting, with so many details. And it is square, with gold-green empty space on both sides of the couple – space that is usually cut off in posters to fit the A-format. But seeing it like this, in the darkness, lighted up, in that massive wooden frame, it became obvious that the empty space around the couple is an essential part of creating the atmosphere in the painting. The fact that they’re standing on an edge. It makes the painting even more mysterious.

Down in the souvenir shop, they sold overpriced postcards and fridge magnets and umbrellas with the kissing couple, but I really didn’t feel like giving more money to this expensive museum. And also, a postcard felt so tiny and disrespectful, after seeing the real thing, huge and overwhelming. So I didn’t buy anything. Maybe, in the future when I have an entire wall to spare, I’ll buy the largest (square) poster of The Kiss that I can find, and hang it in my apartment. That will probably be a while, though. Quite a long while, I’m afraid.

 

In the lower Belvedere, they have changing exhibitions. Right now, there is a show called Decadence – Aspects of Austrian Symbolism. Symbolism was an art movement around 1900, where artists often depicted fairy tale creatures as a way to symbolize different aspects of the human psyche. The paintings were all very suggestive and usually painted in dark colors and blurry edges, as if to create the feeling of being in a dream. Despite this being much smaller than the Upper Belvedere, I very much preferred this part of the museum and felt almost hypnotized by some of the paintings.

The painter of the paintings that I liked the most was called Eduard Veith. His paintings were dark and ominous, but extremely beautiful and full of mystery. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take any photos there either, so instead I found this on the internet:

 

So maybe my short visit to Vienna happened at a very unfortunate time during my trip. I had just spent three amazing days in Münich, hanging out with wonderful people, and didn’t quite want to leave. And then I arrived in Vienna, it was way warmer than in Münich, the cars were everywhere and I couldn’t find zebra crossings anywhere! Seriously, how can a big culture metropolis like Vienna have such heavy traffic going through it everywhere? No, we didn’t get to a good start, Vienna and I. I’m sure I, under different circumstances, would have been able to like it. But now, ah, well. Let’s just say, in retrospect (I’m back home again, after all), Vienna turned out to be the city I liked the least of the cities of my trip.

Still, I wandered around the city for an entire Tuesday (2/7) and saw my fair share of pompous buildings.

The Votiv-kirche and Sigmund-Freud-Park in the morning sunshine. Funny/weird with the Coca Cola advertisement. I guess they’re doing some kind of restoration behind it, but still. I wonder what god would say…

The lovely little Volks-garten, a green pause for breath in between the parliament and the Royal Palace.

The Royal Palace. White, just like everything else. A nightmare in the sunshine for my camera.

I had first thought that maybe I could visit the Spanish Riding School. As a girl, there were several programs on TV about horses, and I’ve seen clips about the Spanish Riding School in Vienna with the white Slovenian horses many times. But when I arrived at the Riding School information office, I realized what an annoying hassle and how extremely expensive it would be to go see a show. I’ve already been to a horse show in Lipica, where they breed the white horses, and also, I’m not sure if I agree with the methods they are using when training the horses. The bits on some of those bridles look like a nightmare! So I decided to continue on my way.

But all buildings weren’t painted white in Vienna, after all. I love mint green.

After having wandered around almost all day, building up irritation over all the cars and the tourists and maybe a slight headache from the heat, I finally found something to be excited about. Down by the Donaukanal, by Schwedenplatz and the Schwedenbrücke, I found an oasis for street artists, a place that even seemed to be designated for that kind of expression. Eating a carton of take away noodles, I sat by the water and thought that maybe this wasn’t that bad, after all.

By the St Stephan church, the young men dressed in 18th century costumes created a human wall, impossible to get passed without first having to convince one of them that no, I did not want to go to a Mozart concert tonight. I love Mozart, especially singing his choir pieces, but going to a concert where the musicians are dressed in wigs and pastel silks just doesn’t sound like a guarantee of quality.

From the inside, St. Stephan looked kind of like any other old cathedral. Not as cool as St. Magnus in Kirkwall, that’s for sure. And far too many Japanese tourists, too.

I’m in Copenhagen, staying with Markus, an old friend from the Tanzania days (yet again this Facebook thing – before Friday, I hadn’t met Markus for twelve years, but now here I am in Copenhagen and everything is going great). And I really really want to go out and explore this city – but I am so exhausted. I seriously have no energy left to do anything. So, unfortunately, Copenhagen will be the city that I’ve seen the least of on this trip, despite staying here for three nights.

Tomorrow I’m taking the train back to Stockholm. Lina has said that she will cook dinner for me. I can’t wait.

So, the hostel where I’m staying in Bratislava was just robbed. Which means, I’ve lost my phone. It was in my bag, charging. Luckily, all my other valuables were safely locked in my locker.

This means, however, that I have no phone and that I will have to go to the police tomorrow to make a statement. I’ve also lost most of the phone numers that I had in the phone. So, in case you think I will be needing to contact you anytime soon (I will recieve a new sim card with the same number as my old one as soon as I get back home in a week), please send me your number in an e-mail or Facebook message.

Things just keep happening. This evening, I arrived in Bratislava. It’s only going to be a quick visit, since my Interrail ticket is about to expire. Tomorrow, I leave for Prague.

In Belgrade, I went to my first bachelorette party. I had time to experience the complications of traveling together with two best friends. I went to a Serbian wedding. I simply don’t know what to do with all the new experiences that I’ve picked up.

And, as if the Now wasn’t enough, on Friday I got the e-mail from the Swedish university acceptance office, telling me that I got acceptet to the Master’s program in Social-Ecological Resilience for Sustainable Development at Stockholm Resilience Center. Which is a pretty big deal for me. For this fall, I know that there were about eight applicants for every spot on the program, so the fact that I got accepted is, well, cool.

So now I know what I’ll be doing in the fall. And for the next two years too. Feels both good and a bit overwhelming.

Feels good to have started heading north for real too. Oh, I’m so looking forward to getting some real and proper sleep!

The weather in Munich had been decent, but pretty cold for being in the middle of summer. Naturally, I dressed accordingly on the morning I left for Vienna.

Well, as soon as I stepped off the train, I realised how unfitting my attire was. Vienna was hot and it was sunny and after locking up my bag at the train station, I spent the entire afternoon sweating and feeling slightly annoyed abou everything.

The first thing I did in Vienna was to eat a snitzel, because that was what they eat in Vienna. According to my guidebook. And sitting there, at the restaurant that actually was quite fancy, I had the realisation that this was the first time that I ate at a proper restaurant, by a table with the table cloths and everything, all by myself. Everywhere else, I’ve eaten different kinds of take away. It felt odd. Not as agreeable as walking around a city, sightseeing by yourself. That is nice. Sitting in a restaurant, not so much. Listening to music or a pod would be rude, so you just have to sit there and listen to your own thoughts. I studied the map, but that felt kind of unfitting too, at a restaurant with the waiter that came by and asked if the food tasted good. No, it was just odd. And the snitzel was dry.

Walking around Vienna, I thought of two things: The buildings all seemed to be built in the same kind of massive, heavy and decorated style, all painted in white, and it was really hard to cross the heavily trafficked roads. There were really few crossings, the roads were wide and the cars were everywere. Compared to Munich, where people bike and walk and many areas are pedestrian, this felt just too noisy and confusing.

Karlskirsche. Big church.

Lots of decorations in the ceiling, and restorations going on.

I felt relieved, once it was time for me to get my bag and catch the underground – to get out of the heat and stuffiness of the city, to get to a home and cooling shower. Off to the first Couchsurfing experience of this trip.