Flaktürme and Hundertwasser

I'm back home in London now, sleeping in my own bed and happy about it. I was unconscious for about seven hours last night, and I feel almost like a new person. I slept well at Bill's, I thought, but I guess being in our own bed gave my body permission to relax more deeply.

Bill and I packed a lot into my final morning in Vienna. First we went to the post office, where Bill had to pick up a package, and it was as clean and pleasant and polite an experience as one would expect. Along the way I saw the graffiti above, which reminded me of the Haus des Meeres the day before.

We decided, despite a light rain, to visit a park where two more of Vienna's six flaktürme are standing. The flaktürme somehow became the theme of this trip. (I've learned that flakturm is singular and flaktürme is plural.)

We took the underground to a neighborhood where we stumbled onto this amazing fountain -- circled with cherubs and various robed figures, along with frogs and lizards and eagles and antelope. It's a monument to St. Charles Borromeo, for whom the square is named. The fountain opened in 1909 and there's more about it here.

I can't imagine being Viennese and living around such beautiful, ornate, artistic creations all the time. I mean, London has its share of beauty, but it's more practical. Life in Vienna is like being served a new wedding cake every evening for dessert.

Except for the flaktürme, that is -- the biggest, ugliest things you could ever want to see. The Viennese must have been horrified when the Nazis built them. Can you imagine looking out the window of your elegant Art Nouveau apartment building and having that in the park across the street? But as Bill said, they weren't really in a position to complain.

This one has the words "Smashed to Pieces (In the Still of the Night)" written at the top. Apparently an artist wrote that phrase atop the one that eventually became the Haus des Meeres, and although that mural was covered up by a subsequent expansion of the aquarium, perhaps he wrote it atop this one too. Or maybe someone added it here in tribute to the other piece.

Anyway, I can now say I've seen all six of Vienna's flaktürme, for what it's worth.

The rain had subsided by this time, so we decided to walk to the canal and back toward Bill's apartment. Along the way we passed this curious structure, with whimsical, colorful pillars. This is part of the Hundertwasser Promenade, a walkway named for free-thinking architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser, who created both the pavilion above and the madcap recycling station we saw a few days ago, among other buildings.

As the path along the canal became more urban, we saw more and more truly incredible graffiti and street art. Bill is not a fan, but I argued that without the murals, these walls would all be drab and gray and I'm not sure that's an improvement. Give me the color any day.

Plus the art is always good for a laugh!
 

I wanted a sausage for lunch -- I was in Vienna, after all, the reason that "wieners" have the name they do in English. We stopped at this little stand on Schwedenplatz and I got a bratwurst in a bun with a Gösser beer.

It came nested inside an unsliced roll, like a little child tucked into bed. I have no idea how the guy got the sausage into that cocoon of bread -- he did it so fast as I was talking to Bill that I missed the process. It came with mustard and nothing else and it was fabulous.

Then, alas, it was time for my trip to come to an end. We walked to the flat, where I picked up my bag, said goodbye to Bill (who is probably happy to have his house back) and headed for the train station and then the airport. I was home in London by 7 p.m.

Haus des Meeres and Belvedere

I was amused by this poster across the street from Bill's apartment: "Usually I buy art at IKEA." (It also says "Easier than a Table at Mraz & Sohn," which is a Viennese restaurant.) It's an ad for this online art gallery.

Bill and I spent yesterday out and about, mainly at the Haus des Meeres, or House of the Sea. It's a public aquarium built inside an adapted flakturm, like the ones I showed you in yesterday's post. This is a bizarre idea, when you think about it -- housing sea creatures in a high-rise concrete bunker -- but I thought it was a brilliant way to re-use one of those Nazi-era hulks.

My only complaint is that it's not exactly spacious inside the tower -- lots of smallish rooms and winding hallways and stairs -- and there were quite a few people there yesterday. It was Ascension Day, a public holiday, with schools and many shops closed, so the place was swarming with kids.

There are great views of Vienna from the top deck.

In my video you'll also get a sample of the visible sea life at the aquarium, including small sharks practicing their synchronized swimming maneuvers, a colorful fish known as a queen coris or Formosa wrasse, and some jellyfish.

Here's what the building looks like from the outside. You can see the platforms known as "swallow's nests" that were designed to hold anti-aircraft guns, and now support wildlife exhibits. The video shows what they look like from above. (There were more than just fish at this aquarium -- there were also insects, small mammals like monkeys and lemurs, and reptiles.)

After enjoying the Haus des Meeres, we walked through a nearby shopping district along Mariahilfer Straße. We stopped at a place called Duran for "sandwiches," which were really single slices of bread with various toppings. I ambitiously bought a six-piece selection and ate them all with no problem. (They're pretty small.) The flavor combinations were quite sophisticated.

From there we decided to go to Belvedere Palace, one of the Hapsburg royal residences from the early 1700s. Along the way we passed lots of interesting architecture and scenery, like the row of colorful buildings above.

And here's the outside of Belvedere. You know those Hapsburgs -- always so understated.

I'd been to Belvedere Palace before, when I came to Vienna for the first time almost 30 years ago. So we didn't go inside. We simply wandered the grounds, including a formal garden with cascading fountains (which must have been engineering marvels in their day) and an adjacent botanical garden affiliated with the University of Vienna.

These sphinxes stood guard around the edges of the formal gardens.

By mid-afternoon we were exhausted, so we came back to Bill's and rested for a while. We had a modest dinner -- I got a falafel pita from a place near his flat and he had a leftover burrito from our Mexican meal the day before -- and in my ongoing campaign to educate Bill about '70s disaster flicks, we watched "The Towering Inferno." Bill pronounced it much better than "Earthquake," which I suppose is objectively true, though "Earthquake" will always hold a special place in my heart.

Alas, I've run out of time to show him "The Poseidon Adventure," though I will extract a promise from him to watch it. This afternoon I'm headed back to London!

Flakturm, the Library and a Corkscrew

Many of you had questions after yesterday's post about why Bill's furniture hadn't yet arrived in Vienna if he's been here since January. I owe you a little mea culpa on this point, because the fact is, the furniture hasn't been sent yet. It's all still in storage at their place back in the states. I think they were waiting until they'd found a place here -- which makes sense -- and now it's just a matter of working out the logistics of getting it shipped.

Above you'll see one of the Nazi air-raid defense towers in the Augarten, the park adjacent to Bill's flat. These towers come in a couple of different styles and are called flakturm. We took a walk through the park yesterday morning and came right to the base of the structures, which are truly massive and intimidatingly ugly -- a fitting metaphor for Nazism itself. That's partly why the towers are still here -- as a memorial to the horrors of that era. They're also so big and dense that demolishing them would cost a fortune, so they remain, scrawled with graffiti like the message above: "Never Again!"

Bill and I haven't quite figured out the purpose of the structure's features, like those big sets of iron girders that protrude from the sides. There's an article about the flakturm here that I intend to read and maybe that will be explained.

Our walk took us through the park and along the canal that runs toward the Danube. There were lots of interesting graffiti pieces and stickers en route -- as I told Bill, "If I start photographing this graffiti we'll be here all day!" But I couldn't resist a closer look at a few favorite pieces.

I see these stickers (above) around Bill's neighborhood and I have no idea what they mean. Half fox, half raccoon? A metaphor for European and North American cooperation, maybe?

This creature is lowering a box labeled "your opinion" into a skip (dumpster) labeled "did not ask for it."

I took this with blogger Bug in mind, because I know she likes her penguins.

We walked along the canal, which gradually became less urban and more of a green corridor, all the way to Vienna's futuristic and whimsical recycling plant, a quirky building with a big tower and colorful decorations on the sides.

Then we caught the underground toward the city center, where we went to the central library. Years ago I'd read a piece in the Washington Post about an exhibit there of the quirky items that the librarians had found in returned books. I thought this was a genius idea, having found a lot of weird bookmarks myself at the school library where I worked. Of course that exhibit was no longer on display (I did ask!) but Bill and I spent some time browsing the library anyway, and figuring out the system for locating English-language books (of which there are many). Bill checked out three books and then we made our way to lunch at a Mexican place in Nestroyplatz, named after Johann Nestroy, who I wrote about yesterday.

From there we walked back to his flat. I was intrigued by the mosaic on this otherwise rather bland apartment building along the way. There's a plaque on the building explaining that the original houses there were destroyed during World War II and the modern structure was erected in the early '60s with government funding. The mural is dated 1965. I like the way it progresses from Old Vienna on the left to a beehived woman and James Bond-looking guy in front of a sportscar on the right.

We spent the afternoon at Bill's flat, relaxing and reading. I read blogs but I didn't comment -- it's a long story but my system here makes commenting a bit cumbersome.

Here's a little video showing the view from his balcony:

We went to the grocery store, which is called Spar, in the evening and picked up some stuff for a modest dinner. I bought a bottle of red wine which we then couldn't open because Bill doesn't have a corkscrew. I went back to Spar for one but of course they were out of stock, so I simply bought a second bottle of wine with a screw top. If I happen to locate a corkscrew elsewhere I'll give it to Bill as a housewarming gift!

Last night we watched the movie "Earthquake" because Bill told me he'd never seen a '70s disaster movie. He's never seen "The Poseidon Adventure" or "The Towering Inferno" or "The Hindenburg" or "Airport" or "The Swarm." How is this possible?! "Earthquake" is the one I had most readily available, because of course I've purchased it to stream online, so we watched that. I'm not sure he was impressed. Well, there's no accounting for taste. 😂

Wien

Well, as you can see, I have made it to Österreich. I'm in my friend Bill's apartment near the Taborstraße underground station, in what he calls his "sun room" -- a spacious lofty room with a curved wall of windows at the corner of the building. Here's the view:

Not too shoddy! The only downside is, Bill and his husband David moved here in January and none of their stuff has arrived. So the only things in the sunroom are a lamp and WiFi router (on the floor) and a big sofa, which is where I'm sleeping. The whole space has a very repossessed look, kind of like Demi Moore's apartment at the end of "St. Elmo's Fire," when the creditors have come and hauled away her furniture. Several of the other rooms in Bill's place have nothing in them at all. Thank God for the sofa.

Bill's husband isn't here either -- he's back in New York working for a few months. That's partly why I wanted to come and visit poor Bill, who is utterly by himself. He doesn't know anyone here and doesn't speak German. He seems fine with it but I felt he could use some company, and since I have the time, why not?

I haven't seen Bill in 15 years, but he was present when Dave and I got Civil Unioned in New Jersey and he hung out with us quite a bit back in the brief time we lived there. In fact, he helped me get my job with Gannett after I was laid off by The New York Times Co. (Never mind that I was not a huge fan of Gannett -- he did warn me.) I've known Bill since the '90s, when we were both active in the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA).

So, anyway, we haven't really done much yet. We went out for dinner last night to a neighborhood place where I had salad with a piece of fish on it -- better than I'm making it sound -- and then took a walk afterwards to the Stephansplatz just so I could orient myself.

The statue above is Johann Nestroy, a singer/actor/playwright who is renowned in Austria. According to Wikipedia (which is never wrong), he wrote a play called "Einen Jux will er sich machen," which Google translates as "He Wants to Have Some Fun." It served as the source material for Thornton Wilder's "The Matchmaker," which in turn eventually became "Hello, Dolly!" So there's some Austrian theatre trivia for you, in case it comes up in your next pub quiz.

A Communist flyer posted near our restaurant last night

My flight here was mostly uneventful. At Heathrow, in the waiting area, I sat across from three 30-ish young adults who seemed to be flying together with a chaperone. One of them, a woman, was having a tearful meltdown, saying she "wanted to go home to Mum." The chaperone kept trying to convince her she would have fun, blah blah blah, and eventually they did head off together for some airplane. Hopefully the poor woman's mood improved, or that's going to be a long trip.

There is lots of graffiti here. Some of it is quite amazing, and some of it not so much. I could make myself crazy trying to photograph it all!

This phrase, according to Google, translates to: "Women in the resistance."

Today we're headed to the park adjacent to Bill's flat, and possibly along the nearby canal. The park features a couple of towering Nazi-era fortress-like structures made of concrete, apparently so massive that tearing them down isn't an option -- Bill tells me one has been turned into an aquarium! Should be interesting to see.

Note to self: Buy coffee, milk and sugar. Bill, bless his heart, is a tea-drinker, and yours truly needs his java in the morning.

Near Misses

Jan. 1973

I'm off to Vienna this morning, but believe it or not I'm writing this post live, rather than packing. I'm only going for three days so packing won't be very complicated! Plus my flight doesn't leave until 12:30 p.m. so I have plenty of time.

Yesterday I decided to finally dispose of all the slides I'd culled from the first two batches I bought. I started with about 2,200 slides, I'd guess, and during my initial sorting I'd probably put half in the trash pile, like the ones in my "Rejects" post from a few days back. Most of them are blurry, dark or otherwise damaged. Some are just boring.

But before I finally tossed them I wanted to give them all a second look, to make sure some pictures weren't worth keeping. Here are four of about ten I pulled out of the trash pile to save.

July 1967

June 1974

Feb. 1974

(The dates I'm giving are the dates on the slide. Obviously the picture above wasn't taken in February -- it's probably from the summer of 1973. I don't usually save flower pictures, unless they're unusual, because -- like pictures of the ocean, mountains, countryside or sunsets --they're seldom very interesting without a memory or story attached. But as a dahlia enthusiast I decided to give this one a reprieve.)

June 1976

I don't know why this one was in the trash pile -- it's a nice shot, with Mama Duck standing guard while her babies get fed by that girl. This shows why it's always good to give everything a second look!

Then I put the trash slides in a plastic bag and put it in the bin. I thought about trying to find someone to take them for craft projects or something like that, but I'm afraid someone unscrupulous will try to sell them on for the photographs, and having already been picked through, they're just not worth that. It's best to just toss them.

I've only barely looked at the three bags of slides I acquired most recently. Some of them feature the same people as the slides above, so obviously they came (at least in part) from the same families. I'll deal with those when I finish scanning the current ones. The Flickr album is up to 104 images, and there are at least 50 more to go!

Ford Galaxie Redux

A chameleon with its tongue out? A tadpole? A sperm? The possibilities are endless.

Yesterday was very quiet. I scanned and posted more slides, I read blogs, I read The New Yorker. I've been wrestling with squirrels who have dug up a certain teasel seedling for the fourth time -- for some reason they just do not want this plant to survive! (Boud has recommended peppermint oil to repel them; I looked in one of our local shops and they didn't have any, but I am on the hunt. There's always Amazon, but I'd rather buy local if possible.)

I did not walk yesterday. Sunday is a day of rest.

When I walked on Saturday afternoon, I came across this 1963 Ford Galaxie 500. I was admiring it and at the same time, something about it clicked in my memory. I came home and looked in my photos, and sure enough, I photographed this exact same car before -- seven years ago, on the other side of London!

What it's doing in our neighborhood now, I have no idea. I may go back today to take a closer look, assuming it wasn't just visiting temporarily. The painted-on wording on the car is gone now, so perhaps it was sold, but it's definitely the same vehicle, with rust spots in all the identical places.

I'm not sure I have anything else to report. I am off to Vienna tomorrow afternoon to see my friend Bill for a few days, so today will be mainly getting the plants watered and everything in place for that little odyssey. I'm going to put a wire screen over that seedling to fend off the squirrels while I'm gone!

Some Wild Garden Action

I came across this graffiti in Camden when walking along the canal a couple of weeks ago. Nothing like a wild-eyed Staffy to brighten my day!

More reading yesterday morning. I learned the Lib Dems won in our local elections -- apparently plenty of other voters felt as I did, that they were the most promising candidates on the ballot.

Then I took another walk after lunch, just a wide loop around the neighborhood via Maygrove Peace Park and the cemetery. The weather was perfect. It's so nice to get out and walk in a t-shirt. My only complaint is that we have had no significant rain for at least a month. It's dry as a bone out there, the ground is cracked, and although the lawn and most plants seem to be doing OK we could sure use some moisture.

I lost a couple of my cosmos seedlings to pigeons, which plucked the heads off them as if they were corn for the picking. And I lost my biggest zinnia to a slug or snail. I'm down to three surviving zinnias, four sunflowers and five cosmos.

Remember my old habit of picking up china shards while walking, on Hampstead Heath in particular? Well, I found these during my walk on Friday and added them to my bowl. Lots of Blue Willow, or something similar. I'm intrigued by that bit at far left with the lettering -- looks like "acs L" or perhaps "acs D." I tried Googling to figure out what it might come from. When I uploaded a photo, the AI assistant helpfully said, "This is a ceramic shard featuring cursive script." Yeah, thanks for that.

Further Googling tried to tell me it comes from this pottery, which is just wrong. The font doesn't match and the wording isn't right. I think it's French based on the fact that a word ends with "acs," but who knows. There's just not enough of it to tell.

We had a crazy week on the garden cam! Some very unusual activity and lots of it, which is why I have a nine-minute video featuring birds, squirrels, rodents, wandering pets and, yes, foxes. As usual I'll list everything below, with the most interesting moments in red in case you'd like to jump ahead.

We begin with Sharpie sniffing around. Then:
-- At 0:15, a little mouse comes out of a nearby bush. Man, that thing can jump!
-- At 0:36, Q-Tip (or some fox with a white-tipped tail) comes by.
-- It's followed at 0:51 by a black cat. This is not Blackie, who is all black. This is a different cat, much fluffier.
-- At 1:37, a fox is back. Looks like Crooked Tail. It sees something at the back of the garden and takes off after it.
-- At 1:51, squirrel and pigeon.
-- At 2:05, Sharpie is back, followed by Q-Tip, and then at 2:56 by Crooked Tail. (Again, my fox differentiation is not absolute.)
-- At 3:13, SQUIRREL PANIC!
-- At 3:22, Crooked Tail.
-- At 3:31, a starling.
-- At 3:39, squirrel long jump!
-- At 3:49, some kind of LBT (sparrow?) intimidates a pigeon.
-- At 4:10, a great tit flutters in, followed at 4:17 by a dunnock on the ground.
-- At 4:22, Crooked Tail is back.
-- At 4:34, a robin flutters up to perch on the camera.
-- At 4:53, you see my legs as I'm trimming our hazel tree. (I guess I count as wildlife!)
-- At 5:13, Crooked Tail comes by.
-- At 5:26, the mouse is back.
-- At 5:43, we see another tit hopping around.
-- At 5:59 we get some brilliant daytime footage of (I believe) Sharpie. It really shows off his or her coloring.
-- At 6:39, the dunnock is back.
-- At 6:49, I put down a couple of pork chop scraps for the foxes.
-- At 6:58, an unwelcome surprise! A RAT appears and carries away the pork! I've learned my lesson about feeding the foxes.
-- At 7:09, a fox appears and sniffs around, but the rat has apparently made off with all the food. This is followed by lots of coming-and-going by a couple of different animals, I believe, all within the span of about half an hour. They probably smell the meat but they're too late.
-- At 8:28, that friggin' rat is back.
-- At 8:48, a fox trots past. It's early morning, so you can really hear the dawn chorus, mainly robins and blackbirds.
-- At 9:08, there's a horrible screech, and then Pale Cat chases a fox past the camera!