6/15
I wake up feeling worse than the night before, I can barely get out of bed. I lay there until about noon, and then painfully drag myself through a shower and out into the street. I am hurting, but I’ll be damned if I am going to let this cold derail me. First I find some fresh squeezed orange juice in a market, then get a chicken sandwich, which I am basically unable to eat because I am nauseous. Hop on the metro and into the city. Vienna is like a breath of fresh air, everything is so clean and efficient and pleasant. There is a drastic, marked change in the attitude of the people. They don’t look away as you pass, they say hello and where are you from, and I feel in a way like I have surfaced from being underwater for weeks. I realize that the hassles down south have been getting me down, and I am glad to be moving north. Vienna has parks and tree-lined paths and statues and monuments and breathtaking architecture galore; there is something almost musical about it, something sublime, and I find myself actually singing out loud as I stroll down the Ringstrasse. I go to the Hapsburg castle, there is a trio of musicians performing classical music on a mandolin, an accordion and a lute-like acoustic bass of some kind. They are amazing – I stop and stare. The mandolin player is OUT OF HIS MIND, his hands fly all over the fretboard at light speed and twist in grotesque contorted fingerings, and I feel like Kerouac’s buddy sitting in front of the jazz trumpeter, “blow, blow…” The guy just knocks my head off. The little crowd looks interested, but I wonder if they really know just how good this is. When they are done, I walk away, dazed. I walk through a gorgeous garden filled with roses of all shapes and sizes, and gaze in wonder at the Renaissance triumph that is the Parliament building. I spot a raven standing beneath a tree. Vienna is truly a magical place. I pass a metro station and a crazed dirty man stumbles around a corner. He starts to scream, a long cry of rage and despair. His mouth grows and grows in size until it envelopes his entire face, he has the largest mouth in the world, his wild eyes bug-eyed on the margins. “Ayayayayaya!” I guess even a city this beautiful will never work for everyone. I stop in a park, my cold has overwhelmed me, and I collapse under a tree near a pond. Pigeons and duck frolic, girls sunbathe. There are three homeless fellows there that are a bit the worse for wear but at the same time dignified and almost regal, one of them wears a sports coat and a cap and his beard is groomed and combed. They sit about, chatting like philosophers. I get up after a nap by the pond, and head for the touristy area close to the river where all the cafes and bars are. I stop in and watch a little World Cup (Ecuador beats Costa Rica). When these football players make contact with each other, they collapse as if they have been shot with a rifle, like burn victims, writhing and thrashing in mortal agony. In two minutes they usually make remarkable recoveries and are running around again. I head back on the metro, go to my room and chat with my roommate Alex from Brazil, who flies helicopters for a living with the military and has recently been to Romania. I eat an apricot, then have a nap. Later on I go down to the bar, have my free drink and talk with some people. Just that one drink leaves me feeling faint from the cold, so I go to bed. I lay up half the night, feverish and disoriented, sweating like a man in the jungle, “good lord I feel like I’m dyin’.”
Tags: austria, europe, Travel, vienna
hound33