Back in Europe, but not yet in France

...and, I'm back!  Despite the gap in my blogging, I did not disappear into the howling void of delayed airline transit for my entire vacation, although I was definitely afraid at certain points that that was going to happen.  I was supposed to get back to California on the 19th of December, and I did not actually make it home until the morning of the 25th, after numerous delays, bad weather, striking airport workers, missed connections, expensive emergency hotel stays, and more hours waiting in Charles de Gaulle airport than I like to think about.  It was enough to shake my belief in the efficacy of air travel as a modern means of transportation, and it made me want to celebrate Christmas in June so I wouldn't have to travel at the same time as everybody else in the western world.  Nevertheless, when I finally got home, I had a lovely time--far too short, as it seemed to me when I left two days ago.

The journey back to the old world was not nearly as traumatic as one home, although it had its drawbacks (the worst airplane food I have ever eaten, and a seat neighbor who spoke almost no English, drank 10 whiskeys over the course of a 9-hour flight, and passed out on me so that I had to go and get a stewardess to yell at him in Polish...)  Once I arrived, though, things started looking up.  I had made plans to visit an Austrian college friend for the last weekend of here winter break, and so I flew in to Vienna, where we are spending three days together before I go back to France and work and she goes back to her home town of Graz.

I was more or less drunk from sleep deprivation when I arrived yesterday (its hard to sleep when you have to keep pushing an inter Pole off your shoulder), but I had an amazing 12 hours of sleep at our hotel last night, and started the morning off feeling like the proverbial daisy.  Vienna really is a great city to be a tourist.  I had not thought much about what it would be like there, besides the fact that it would be great to see Katrin, so I hadn't spent a lot of time looking forward to doing anything particular.  It turns out, that there is a lot to look forward to. 

We started off the day by going to watch a morning training session at the Spanish Riding School.  This is the traditional home of the Lipizzaner Stallions, whom I had read a book about and loved as a child, but had almost forgotten that they were even an attraction in Vienna.  It was only last night, when we came into the central square of the Hofburg (the giant complex of imperial palaces and houses of state that is at the center of the city), when I saw the statue of the Emperor sitting on his horse and remembered vividly the scene in Marguerite Henry's book White Stallion of Vienna when the boy Hans climbs up to sit behind him in the middle of the night and resolves to become a riding master at the Spanische Hofreitschule, that I felt the thrill of recognition and excitement you get when you see something you loved as a child reappear in your life.  Fortunately, although there were no performances this weekend (and they probably would have been too expensive for me if they were), we were able to visit the horses exercise period, which is open to the public.  The training is done to music, and it takes place in the same gallery where they perform, and where they were once watched by the emperor (indeed, the school is also at the Hofburg).  It felt like part of a tradition from another era.  It was also beautiful--the cues the riders give their horses are almost invisible, and the horses go from pace to pace like dancers.  It was like watching ballet for me, with none of the bitterness of remembered experience.  The only thing that would have improved it would have been if they did any of the airs above the ground (which I was secretly hoping to see), but I suppose I will have to come back and see a show for that.

After the riding school, we went to the other side of the same building, to see the museum of the imperial silver collection, the imperial apartments, and the museum commemorating the Empress Elizabeth, who was the wife of the Emperor Franz Joseph and, apparently, both a great beauty and a real piece of work.  The entire experience was one of overwhelming luxury--great to see, but one is glad that the state is no longer paying to showcase its power and glory in the bodies and lifestyles of a privileged royal family.  Some of their excesses were slightly mind-blowing: a 140-person gold-plated state dinner set, for example, or the fact that Sisi used to wash her ankle-length hair in a mixture of egg yolk and cognac... You understand why people became communists.

After all that, we were in need of sustenance.  Fortunately, Vienna is a city where they do right by coffee breaks.  We ended up at the cafe of the Hotel Sacher, where I tried the "Original Sacher Torte," a cake that was invented in 1832, whose success predates the hotel, and whose recipe is a closely guarded secret.  The original is kept in a safe under lock and key, according to the informative menu.  Having tried it, I can see how it has stayed popular for 180 years.