All About The Food

It ain't all castles, cathedrals, and palaces. People got to eat too. A few images to wet your whistle...

sore body

Well, tonight at 6pm marks my 10th and last consecutive class in five days. I'm tired! Everyday between classes we've been running around trying to see a new museum or area of town. Today we took a break from being a tourist however. Yesterday's visit to the Leopold museum was enough to sustain us for a day, though. It was amazing. Of course, Evie enjoyed the lobby most of all...lots of soccer ball throwing with one parent while the other looked at works by Klimt (like the one here), Schiele, Kokoschka, or Muehl, to name a few. Tomorrow, I think we'll attempt to hit the Schonbrunn castle. I think I remember reading there is also a zoo there, so Evie will be happy.

Yes, a week of heavy dancing after very little dancing has yielded some noticeable changes in my body. Lifting Evie hurts. My feet are banged up. I have bruises on my shoulders from rolling. My legs feel like anvils. But I'm not complaining! Being a student here is the best. Being a student PERIOD is the best. I found myself explaining to one of my new Austrian friends, Sabina, that I have felt like a big empty container and this week has slowly been filling me up with new information, ready to spill it back out to my students in some sort of transformed way. This workshop was well timed for me- I needed this more than I think I ever have. Dancing and living in Vienna for three weeks is putting gas back in the tank.

Last night I saw a beautiful performance of Jérôme Bel's work, performed by Cédric Andrieux. Stunning work. I wrote about it more at my CTS in Vienna blog...

I continue to marvel at the scene in these theatre spaces. It is THE place to be! The houses are always packed, the energy even in the coat room is tangible. I feel myself smiling like a little kid.

Evie has been at the Impulstanz headquarters with me the last two mornings; she has enjoyed childcare services by a lovely woman named Slyvia while Mommy dances and Daddy rides a bike around town. Afterwards, she and I have lunch at the Impulstanz cafe. Everyone stops in their tracks to admire her. She charms them all with a smile. Suddenly, people notice me it seems. Thanks Evie!

Tomorrow, the castle. Sunday, we hit Prague. Life is good.

A biking point of view

Today, we discovered City Bike - Vienna's public system of bike-for-almost-free access throughout the city. One merely walks up to one of the many kiosks throughout the city, slides in a credit card, and minutes later, is riding one of the hundreds of bikes available to locals and tourists. When one tires of riding, they can drop the bike off at any kiosk. If i did this correctly, it cost me about 1 Euro for my ride.

Here are a few snaps from my ride around the city:


This is the parliament building (as in government, not P-Funk)


An unknown plaza


Never figured out what this building was, but it looked like an apartment. If so, cool place to live, eh?!


View from the Leopold Museum into the MuseumQuarter square


Didn't catch the name of this cathedral, next to Sigmund Freud park


Hmm...


..three years out of office and the love for W is still strong

Evie likes pink bikes

Roseola

Roseola. Or should I say "there's something you never thought you'd google"? (mom- I know you are googling this right now)... Well, thanks to Alyssa, our wise, fellow-parent friend in Winston-Salem, we now have a definitive diagnosis of Evie's virus. Alyssa's daughter Sage battled through this too. Thankfully, Evie is in the clear. Basically, after 5 days of high fevers, a rash arrives all over the body. Fabulous. BUT! Today she ate like a bear waking up from hibernation. It was awesome. After my morning dance class (which was also awesome), we also took her to the natural history museum elephant again (of course) and actually went inside the museum this time too. Evie loved the iguana, and the fish and birds. The large dinosaur bones, not so much. We were really wooed inside to see the 25,000 year old Venus of Willendorf statue, a primitive goddess figure and the oldest known art piece in the world. It's as big as a jar of baby food. She had no feet, the poor goddess! Then we walked through the Nascht markt again, and a vendor who was quite taken with Evie gave her a free apricot...even with her rash, no less. Making our way back towards our apartment, I headed straight for dance class #2 tonight at 6pm, arriving geared up and ready to go until I realized just how young everyone was around me. Kept thinking to myself: "do any of you people have a one year old? Do you sing songs and pretend you're an elephant too?" Ah, to be in your twenties and dance like you're in your twenties. I'm not going to be sore tomorrow, I swear. Jeffrey cooked a delicious dinner tonight and now we are chilling. More dancing awaits all week. Tomorrow night, we have Coly and Nana babysitting and we're off to the symphony! When in Vienna....

Catching up

Sunday, 4:15pm. Christina here and we're back from the abyss aka "Evie's virus". It's been a tough few days! Our dearest little one has been a champ, with all things considered- she totally tolerated a high fever and sore throat that has been hanging around more or less for five days now. Finally, two doctor visits later and some Viennese nose drops in her system to help with her sore throat and ears, we're happy to report that her fever has broken for over 24 hours and she's slowly re-emerging as the fun girl she truly is. So today, to start off our Sunday morning, we took her to a butterfly museum! Athena and Nicole opted instead to see the Lippinzer stallions. Probably the smarter move. The schmetterlinghaus yielded only 7 or 8 butterflies and was very small inside. But Evie was still quite excited by it all, so we were too. After our short visit to see the schmetterlings, I left for my workshop at IMPULSTANZ (more on this later) while dad took Evie back to the elephant in front of the Natural History Museum. Her. favorite. thing. ever. We're reunited now...and I start a new series of classes at Impulstanz tomorrow.

The last two nights we have enjoyed dinners with the busy jet setters Nicole and Athena, who have been packing their Vienna site seeing activities to the brim. Evie has loved tilting her sippy cup back, taking in a good, long gulp of her milk or water while we do the same with our beverages (beer, in most cases). Last night we hit a rib joint, the night before was the famous wiener schnitzel at Figlmuller restaurant. Meat is always on the menu, folks. Lots of it. And lots of beer. I wonder how one is ever a vegetarian in this town. Or a non-beer drinker. Fortunately, we're all fond of both.

So more on Impulstanz: this weekend, I've enjoyed a two day writing/improvisation/composition workshop with Sabina Holzer, a Vienna-based artist. I was in a workshop with 9 other folks from all over the world: Paris, Romania, Tokyo, Holland, Egypt, England...and me, representing the United States of America. Wonderful to dance and talk shop with such interesting people. I also felt so fortunate to see a performance at the museum quarter theatre by a company from South Africa. I'm writing a review of that performance this week for "Theatre Journal". So yes, there is some work to do. So for now, signing off, but I'll leave a couple more pictures!

Jeff Versus The Giant Schnitzel

Date: 23. July
Location: Figlmuller, Vienna
Winner: Jeff by Knockout