2 posts tagged “old things”

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.

But wouldn't fate have it (the Holt luck??) that our plans to mimic the fish were once again thwarted, as we found out with a phone call from Kati that the pool was shut down for renovations "until further notice." :((((( <--- many-chinned frownie So what we ended up doing instead is simply heading over to Kati and Rafael's for coffee and cake and then a walk through the mountain vineyard just above their neighborhood -- typical Austrian fare, I suppose. It was raining, or drizzling, so at least we were still able to get ourselves a little wet. Of course, we set that off by wearing long ugly raincoats. Fridolin and Julian tried to forge ahead in the mud and were constantly being yanked back by their mothers, and I brought up the rear taking pictures of a nondescript Jana and Kati in their raingear. Our joyful moments ended abruptly however when Fridolin picked up a piece of dog doo, sending Jana into a rage of motherly care.
Tuesday I started out the day looking for a birthday present for Max. I had in mind to buy him a good book, as he likes to read good books, and I was pretty set on finding a cool copy of Augustine's Confessions. That book has really been shaping and shredding me while I've been in Austria. It's not a long or hard read, but I've been taking it extra slow as just about every short chapter gives me a lot to chew on, pray about, and work somehow into my psyche of faith. Since much of his account is written from the point of his not yet becoming a Christian, but as a continual seeker, I thought it might suit Max, also a continue seeker, very well. I ended up finding him a nice version that was in both German and Latin. Max can't read Latin (nor can I), but since the binding of this edition was so much better than all the others I found, I went for it. Coming out of one of the bookstores, I caught a terrific glimpse of the Stephansdom, Vienna's primary church, and where the Pope had given mass a couple weeks before. Somehow I had never glimpsed it from this angle, so I snapped a few sweet pics.

Later I got to go to my first international soccer match (for free!) between Austria and Chile. Apparently, Noah my occasional employer gets free tickets from one of the beer companies he goes through for his beer, etc. Austria seemed lazy on the field and in turn had their romps stomped by the short, dark, and handsome Chileans. The Austrian public was so displeased with Austria's performance that by the end of the game they were actually cheering for Chile whenever they'd make a good play or even score a goal! The only thing that disappointed me about the Chileans was their halftime show, which was allegedly a performance of typical Chilean music, but which seemed to me to be much more a performance of professional Chilean lipsyncing. Not only were there no cymbals being played on the field, though we heard cymbals being struck in the music, but also the performers weren't standing anywhere close to the mics they were supposed to be playing into, and I doubt those little flutes they were tooting on could carry sound the entire meter to where the mic stood. All the same I had a great time. I was sort of bummed that Austria played so poorly, as generally I'm less concerned about who wins provided both teams play hard and well, but that's by no means a complaint. It was fun to watch the small band of Chileans all sitting in their own section the gigantic stadium, which was otherwise filled with only rabid Austrians (and a few rabid Americans like Noah) all rooting for the home team. This must've been a great moment for the Chilean nationals, to watch their very own team cross the ocean to beat the butts of a country which probably doesn't always welcome them wholeheartedly as the foreigners (or "strangers", as you could translate the German) in a foreign land they are. At the end of the game when the last whistle was blown the Chilean players all walked the length of the field over to where the Chileans were still cheering hard and loud. They had all stayed up until the very last minute, unlike a lot of Austrians who were certain their team would lose.
After the match Noah and I walked back toward the underground through the Prater park, a sort of old-fashioned amusement park and home to the one of the world's oldest ferris wheel, called Riesenrad, or "Humongous wheel", because of how big it used to be in comparison to all the world's other ferris wheels. On the way toward the wheel we saw about 50 prostitutes all lined up asking us lewd questions. Few things get me down like prostitution. But we passed up all the grand opportunities they were suggesting and headed on into the amusement park, where we were greeted by strangely lit and creepy wooden statues and another ferris wheel, which could very well be bigger than even the Humongoid wheel. We found out that despite the late hour (nearly 11 PM) the Riesenrad was still running, so we decided to pay the sum of 8 euros and go up in the wheel. Beforehand we looked around in the old museum of models, which housed several models of old Vienna, including Vienna after WWII, all bombed to pieces. It was dark in the room so I was able to get good photos of only a few of the models, some of which really had nothing to do with Vienna as far as I could tell, and reminded me more of a Mark Twain novel set in the Antebellum South. The wheel ride itself was pretty sweet. The giant hunk of metal spun veeeery slowly, taking about 25 minutes to get all the way around. I imagined myself to be Joseph Cotten and Noah Harry Lime as he fidgeted with the door to try and open it like they do in The Third Man, which has to be one of the most tense scenes in film. Noah's wife Lydia seemed actually kind of peeved that Noah and I went up in the wheel together when he had never yet taken her up in it.
Wednesday I woke up later than usual and knew I'd have to go to Chris and Jana's soon to babysit the lausbub. When I got there it turned out Chris wasn't working that evening so there was really no need for my babysitting skills. Jana, Chris and I all made tentative plans to have a Spieleabend or "games night" playing very non-competitive but fun German board games. As I had nothing else ahead for the evening I went along with the planning. But soon after Jana was off to work until later that evening, I got a text from a newer friend asking if I wanted to go to see Gorilla Biscuits live in Arena. The tickets to see this ancient, recently reformed NYC hardcore band were honestly pretty steep, and my pockets have felt a'mighty empty these last weeks esp., but since it actually isn't that often that people call me up inviting me to go out on the town, I didn't want to pass up the opportunity. Chris and Jana seemed to understand my reasoning, so I headed home and then to Arena (where I recently saw Sonic Youth) to meet Kate.
I really have never listened to Gorilla Biscuits save a song here or there, but during my teen years I did listen to a lot of music they influenced, i.e. the genre of "hardcore music". But really I haven't listened much to that for nearly a decade. One cornerstone after getting smashed in the nose and thinking for about five minutes it was broken, I decided to stop dancing in "the pit". And my enthusiasm for the music that fueled "the pit" gradually tapered off as well. After hanging with Kate a while and listening to some of the opening acts, I saw Noah and Thomas coming into the Arena courtyard already pretty drunk. What was to follow was definitely one of the stranger experiences I've had in Europe. Noah's passion for hardcore music has never tapered off, and given his common home state with Gorilla Biscuits, and his penchant to nearly worship anything that's "original", he was pretty stoked about the show. He kept telling me about how he was gonna go wild in "the pit" and how he expected to get kicked out for being too rough. Well, what happened in the end wasn't his getting kicked out but his getting pummeled in "the pit" by a couple other bigger guys who thought he was playing too rough. Noah, however, isn't one to back down from anything. He stood behind me for about five minutes through the music with blood streaming down his face, his shirt now ripped and bloody, and the whole time a rage burned in his eyes. One of the girls I was with told me I'd have to hold him back from "killing that guy", but I knew that wasn't gonna happen. Instead I just tried to clean his eye and speak soothingly into his ear. By the end of the night there hadn't been any more fighting, thank God. Somehow He worked it that everyone came to terms with what happened and apologies were spoken. See below pics of Gorilla Biscuits live and Noah in "the pit" again with his ripped shirt.
Thursday I began a quest to see the most beautiful libraries in the world. I came upon a site recently documenting in pictures a many great looking libraries, and I realized that several of those documented actually belonged to Austria, and one in Vienna. So I headed to the National Library to see what I could see. Unfortunately my quest was held up right at the beginning, as for some reason not just anyone can enter the National Library. You have to be a student or have some particular business there. So I was bummed. But I pay a little cash to enter the museum that is connected to the library, which was more like three museums in one, hosting hundreds of artifacts from ancient Ephesus, a wide range of musical instruments from history and the world, and a large collection of medieval armor and weaponry. Be sure to check out the pics up close to see some of the fantastic facial expressions molded into the suits of armor.
Friday was an absolutely beautiful day, the first in a while. I took the opportunity to go walking through the city in areas I've wanted to familiarize myself with. I took the tram down to Neubaugasse and started strolling through the streets, taking photos of old doors and graffiti. I had lunch in a tiny courtyard cafe before striking out to see more of old Vienna.
Saturday Chris and Jana had in mind to visit the little town of Kleinneusiegel in order to photograph an abandoned paper factory -- the first in Austria -- and they took me along. We packed together a picnic and hit the road to the outskirts of Vienna where we found soon enough the tiny town. It wasn't hard to determine which building was our factory, but it looked pretty shady from the beginning. We got out of the car and snuck past the "no trespassing" sign and looked around the boarded up old factory. Chris was able to work the chain off from around one of the door handles, and we peered inside to see a collapsed roof and a mess of stashed worthless belongings. Chris was pretty sure at that point that the factory had little to offer. While the inside of the factory offered us little of interest, the grounds themselves were pretty nice. There was a bridge guarded by two eroded lions and two half-broken sphinxes. We found a path back to a horse stable and a riding course, where I caught some beautiful photos of light through the trees. We headed back toward the car but first wanted to check out the other side of the factory, where we found right next door an abandoned house full of dilapidated apartments. This wasn't locked and offered us a lot more fodder for photography, so we paced through the house and took some pretty good photos. Then we sneaked back to the road and sat down next to the town's only church to dine on our beef jerky and buttered bread.
Sunday I went again with Chris and Jana and this time Frodo to a beeaaaautiful place in Austria called the Wachau, to a small town within that area called Dürnstein. In Dürnstein there rest atop a knoll the ruins of a 1000 year old fortress, in which it's said King Richard the Lionheart was held for a time, having been captured by the Austrians during his passage through the land. The town itself was one of the quaintest and sweetest towns I've yet been to in Austria. I mean, it never gets old here. Every little community has its own spark. Dürnstein was a place I seriously thought to myself a points "I could retire here" or "I want to honeymoon here." I mean it was that impressive. The pictures I've taken really don't do it justice, mainly because after our trip to Kleinneusiegel Saturday my camera's battery was kaputt, so I had to borrow Chris's far inferior point-n-shoot digital to photograph the location. We arrived and found what one usually doesn't find in small Austrian cities -- that is, people! There were people and cars everywhere. I guess it's a place a lot of people like to travel to on the weekends. We had driven through the beautiful low flatlands of Niederösterreich, past Tulln and eventually through Krems to reach Dürnstein. We sought a parking place for a while before finally taking a gamble on an unmarked spot in front of a bread and breakfast joint. We started up through the town and that's when I fell in love, so to speak. We started the climb up the hill to the fortress; Fridolin was being particularly uncooperative, wanting to throw rocks off the side of the cliffs even when his mama and papa have told him expressively a million times not to throw rocks. By the time we got to the top, Fridolin had thrown a few fits and Jana had said at least once, "Ich kriege die Krise!" or "I'm going to have a breakdown!" She took some time off to the side for herself while Chris and I kept Frodo busy, trapping him behind the bars allegedly used to contain the Lionheart. He and I played prisoners for a while before romping around the rest of the ruins. We came back down by another path, which led directly into the town and we sought a place to eat but everything was already closed at 6 PM on Sunday. Strange with all the people that were still streaming through the streets. Finally we found a Gasthaus on the outskirts of the town, unpopulated by visitors, and I ate my first Schnitzel in probably a month. It was delectable. Note: the last twelve photos below were taken by Chris with his far superior SLR, hence the great difference in quality.