2 posts tagged “old things”
Well, I'm probably cruising for a bruising from my mom in posting this. Or at least a big boy spanking. But lately I haven't had too many opportunities to stretch my legs in photography and I'd like to share with you one such chance I did have. Recently my friends and I took a trip into Burgenland to a small town which hosted an old castle called Rotenturm (Red Tower). Rotenturm was built around the middle of the 19th century and after the second World War was occupied by Soviet soldiers as an outpost, as were many such old Austrian castles. Apparently the place has been out of use and in disrepair since the Soviets left, and as is usual in Austria was in danger of being torn down, until recently the state undertook the task of renovating it. Being in disrepair, under renovation, and owned by the state, you can imagine that this is not a place where just anyone can prance in and have a gander. Only given our love of old abandoned buildings and Chris's penchant for getting into them somehow, we decided to take a chance in the name of rebel photography.
Now don't misunderstand me. I was plenty nervous about breaking into a castle in Austria, no less while I'm living illegally here. I actually dreamed the night before of being deported for having done something stupid at a party and then easily caught by the police because I was dressed up like a clown, make up and all. So I was doing my part in acting inconspicuous walking around the fenced-in castle exterior at first. We were just having a look-see, was all. taking a few photos of this beautiful bit of brick deterioration, and observing the vegetation, including the weirdest looking fruit (?) we've ever seen. We called it a turkey plant.
After scoping out the scene, we got a little more dangerous and crossed the fence, where we were able touch the building for ourselves, climb the back steps, and feel a little more like outlaws. I stayed back a little at this point, letting the others test the waters for sharks, before I plunged in. They spent a while within the fence trying to find a point of entry. There was away into the basement via planks into the bottom windows, but after stumbling around in the dark down they they emerged again to look for another way. Eventually they found it through a window in front protected only by a sheet of plastic. Apparently this is where the renovators also come and go. I was bumming around outside the fence still for a good five minutes before I realized they had made it inside. So I dared to follow in their footsteps only completely on my own. I scoped things out in the front on the safe side of the fence. There was a cardboard police officer on the street in front of the castle, and as he was pretty far away I seriously watched him for several minutes trying to figure out if it was a real police officer watching me! My digital camera came through for me again in that I zoomed in on him and took a photo, which I zoomed in again on to see just what was looking in my direction. You can see for yourself. Once I realized it was just cardboard staring me down, I hopped the fence and crossed the building site to duck into something like the garage of the castle, which was filled with bricks and sawhorses belonging to the workers. It was connected to the foyer only the door was boarded up, so I had to trust in technology again by SMSing Jana who was already inside. Chris came down from wherever he was and told me through the cracks in the boards just how to get in. In other words, climb up to the low window and jump through the plastic sheet.
So now I was inside. My heart was racing but I knew I was safe. It was just the thrill of being somewhere I knew we weren't allowed, and somewhere AMAZING at that. Schloß Rotenturm from within was every adventurer's dream. I must've felt like Mikey, Mouth, and Chunk from the Goonies when they finally reached One-eyed Willie's pirate ship. Of course, there was no treasure stashed away with nearby skeletons in Rotenturm, but the history I was wading through was treasure enough. Jana and Andi were no where to be seen, and Chris indulged my first moments of awe as I first just stood in silence and then started in with picture-taking. Have a look with me at the foyer.
Chris expressed concerned that he couldn't find either Jana or Andi, so we started the ascent into the upper levels of Rotenturm, where the wonders of decrepitude didn't cease, and where, by the way, we found Jana and Andi pretty quick. Fallen staircases, empty rooms inscribed with Russian, crumbling stars of David, displaced doors, Russian murals, and descending ladders were all things we saw upstairs. Chris wanted to make a photo session out of it with Jana, so Andi and I began to explore on our own.
It didn't take long for Andi and I to get lost in the massive structure. Luckily everything in these old noble residences is pretty logically laid out, so we were never lost beyond hope. In one of the rooms there was still a piece of the old ceiling hanging. There was a lot of crude graffiti drawn on the walls in certain rooms, which let me know that we weren't the only dangerous ones in Austria. Before long we found another staircase going up and down. We went up to find the gigantic cavern of the roof. I'm sure multiple bands could have practice up there at the same time no problem. Even the roof was divided into separate rooms, and in one of them, we found yet another staircase upwards. We took it all the way to the top of the tower, where we caught a great view of the little city we were in. There was even graffiti on the highest of walls here, giving me the impression that someone had to be daring enough to scale out on the wall just to draw a crappy picture of naked woman, but but I hear mankind's passion knows no limits.
Once we had descended from the very top, we found ourselves again in the roof. Andi was heading for the way down we had come, but by a stroke of luck I found another, more secret way down. This stair looked a little rickety, and much more mysterious than the way we had come. I had to chance it. As with the spiral staircase above, most such staircases have something in the middle the steps are attached to. On occasion however you might find a spiral stair that isn't supported by anything but it's binding to the wall around it, leaving the middle open for one to look down or up. That's just what I did and I got a few great pics from it.
About midway down there was a door open up to a hall of sorts, which actually was over the foyer, allowing me get a few good shots from above. By the end of the descent, Andi and I were in near complete darkness, save for the light streaming from the hole in the middle of the stair. We realized eventually that we were again on the first floor, where the foyer was, only behind it somehow, in some back rooms. It was extremely dark here, and I actually tripped over a nail in a piece of wood, ripping one of two pairs of jeans I have. I was thankful afterwards that I was wearing long undies for no apparent reason (I had thought it was going to be cold that, day, but it was rather warm), saving me from getting scratched with a rusty nail (not a problem I need to deal with when I haven't any insurance in a foreign land). We toured the last bit of the ground floor, which didn't offer many photo opps given how dark it was. Plus my trust in our circumstances was wearing thin at this point, so Andi and I caught up with Chris and Jana and we made our escape. We all agreed afterwards that the experience was well worth the risk involved, and I figured that had someone come inside looking for us, I now knew all the right hiding places and I'd probably be able to wait out the danger. ;)
The sky on the way home was absolutely beautiful. I'll include a small video I made of it after these last photos, though of course it doesn't come nearly as beautifully through in the camera lens.
As ridiculous as it may sound, I've been jobless since the beginning of June. I've had to "make do" with all the extra free time over the summer and now as many of my friends (teachers) are starting back to work this fall, it seems I have even more time on my hands, a lot of which is spent alone. So I've had to find ways to occupy myself, and while I'm tempted at times into thinking I've got mostly nothing to do these long months of leisure, leading me to boredom and loneliness, when we consider the facts we see that this is just a big fat lie. A look at last week (actually two weeks ago -- this post has taken a while to ready) is a perfect example of just how full my life actually is at the moment, as everyday I was out of the house keeping busy. So after some thinking, I've realized that what my life currently lacks is not activity but obligation, or at least man-made obligation as to an employer or band mates. Here is a photographic run down of last week's "shiftlessness" to give you an idea of what I've been up to in all this time off.
Monday I was supposed to go swimming with Jana, Frido, Rafael, Kati, and Julian. I headed over to Jana's in the morning with trunks and goggles in tow, stoked about the opportunity to finally go swimming again after such a long pause. Due to circumstances I shan't go into here, I barely got to swim the entire summer, which is on par with fratricide in my book. Summer swimming is to be done no less that once a week, and like hugging, multiple times a day is healthiest and most rewarding if it can be arranged. But it seemed like every attempt I made to stretch my frog legs was gigged by forces beyond my control. In light of this, I was pretty stoked to take a dip, splash with the toddlers, and scope out the swarm of moms that was sure to have brought all their younglings to the pool (I'm a sucker for fertility). Check out these sweet pics and vid of Fridolin buckled down and rearing to go in his car seat: