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| Glenn's Journal for 9-29-02 - Vienna Sunday morning and we are up early (7:00 am) so we can be at the church to see the Viena Boy's Choir sing this morning. Service starts at 9:15 am and lasts approximately one hour. All four of us were competing for the bathroom this morning but we were all polite about it. The roommates were a little tired as they had not gotten back to the room until after 2:30 am and were heading out on a 10 hour bus ride to Venice today. We were ready and downstairs a little before 8:00 am where we headed off to find the church. After a short U-Bahn ride and a little walking we found ourselves at the palace looking for the church. We finally found a gentleman selling tickets to the service at $19 for a front row seat. We passed on the seating but he sent us off in the direction of the church. We arrived around 8:25 am with very few people in line for the standing room only spots. By 9:00 am the line had grown to be out the door but we felt comfortable being near the front of the line. A little after 9:00 am they let us in to the standing room only section which was quite small indeed. We were between the back pews which could not have held more than 45 people. We were a third of the way back even though there were only 12-15 people in front of us. Thank goodness we are tall. The service was spectacular but most of the singing came from a balcony way above our heads. One that we could not see. What we could see were the priests and the altar choir (consisting of mostly men) and the service itself. Near the end of the service the boy's choir came downstairs and sang a short verse while everyone snapped pictures. After the service some of the boys from the boy's choir came outside where plenty of people had their pictures taken with them. It was a good start to the day!!! Did I also mention that the sun was shining and the sky was blue!!! Yeah!!! What a beautiful day. We walked over to the Volksgarten (or garden next to the palace) and sat for a while enjoying the beautiful garden and the sunny day. We then continued to sight see including the Rathaus, Burgtheater, Parliment building, museums quarter, and back past the Staatsoper before stopping for lunch at the end of the shopping district (and, yes, near the Starbucks!!!). We had lunch from a stand in the middle of the square including bratwurst for myself and a hotdog for Erin. We shared a soda before Erin took off to Starbucks for a vanilla latte. After she enjoyed her latte we continued up through the shopping district, took a few photos of the Stephensplatz church, and watched a few street performers before catching the U-Bahn back to the hostel. We also bought tickets for a Mozart & Strauss concert for later that evening. Upon returning to our room we found that we were the only occupants currently so we took full advantage of the opportunity. We even napped a little later than we planned so dinner was a shared pizza near the location of the concert at Josefsplatz. The concert was enjoyable as it included works from Mozart & Strauss (you figured that from the title), an opera singer, and two ballet dancers. The musicians and artists were all in historical costume as well. The music was wonderful and we enjoyed the whole show. You will find plenty of these concerts all over the city and it is hard to tell which is better than the rest. We are not sure how this one compares to others but we felt like we could have picked a better one. Some concerts included dancing, while others were exclusively Strauss or Mozart. We could not complain as we enjoyed the concert thoroughly. The concert ended around 10:00 pm when we walked back towards the Rathaus to get a night photo of the place. It was well lit up including the circus that is currently staged in front of the building. We then returned to the hostel to find we still did not have any roommates. Yeah!! A room to ourselves but we do not expect to be so lucky tomorrow night. We read before cuddling up and falling asleep in each others arms. In the middle of the night I moved back to my own bed just for the space. These are single bunk beds we are staying in after all!!! |
| The Vienna Boy's Choir!!! |