After our visit to the opera and days of walking on the grand streets of Vienna, we were physically a little spent to say the least.\u00a0 But, aside from the tiredness, I noticed a lull in little Corzoo\u2019s spirits.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat seems to be the trouble, Corzoo?\u00a0 Are you feeling ein bi\u00dfchen blau?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe I\u2019m feeling a little blue,\u201d he said.\u00a0 The fact that he repeated the phrase in English and not German was a clue to me that he was indeed feeling blau.\u00a0 \u201cI am not at all sure what is wrong,\u201d he continued. \u201cI have seen so many beautiful and extraordinary things here.\u00a0 I should be absolutely overjoyed.\u00a0 I mean, I AM so happy to be seeing all these things, but\u2026\u201d he trailed off, seeming sadder than ever.<\/p>\n
I had a pretty good idea of just what might be ailing him.<\/p>\n
This type of thing is common among travelers who are artistic and absorbent, but who have limited time.\u00a0 I have a friend who calls it \u201cbeauty fatigue.\u201d There is simply only so much one can take in.\u00a0 When \u201cbeauty fatigue\u201d occurs, the thing that can come next is feeling disconnected from every extraordinary thing you see.\u00a0 Suddenly nothing makes sense.<\/p>\n
I made a plan for Corzoo since he did not seem to have the energy to come up with his own solution.<\/p>\n
Step one: take a rest and slow down.<\/p>\n
Step two: the next couple meals must be small, ordinary, and familiar if possible.<\/p>\n
Step three: go to the hotel gym and get in a good exercise session.<\/p>\n
Step four: when you go out again, look for the ordinary behind the extraordinary!<\/p>\n
Corzoo agreed to try my tactics.<\/p>\n
The following morning and early afternoon was spent moving slowly, going to the gym, eating simple meals.\u00a0 Aaaahhhhh!!!!<\/p>\n
\u201cUnd jetzt?\u00a0 Wie geht\u2019s, Corzoo?\u201d\u00a0 my husband asked Corzoo before he took off with the orchestra.<\/p>\n
\u201cShall I translate that for you?\u201d he asked me.\u00a0 This is when I knew he was feeling better.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease, do!\u00a0 I cannot keep up with you two.\u201d<\/p>\n
He proceeded to translate with his usual glee.\u00a0 \u201cHerr Bilger said, \u2018and now? How are you feeling?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Corzoo was definitely back to his normal self and ready to see more.\u00a0 I had a specific plan as to exactly what we were going to see though.\u00a0 We would see nothing too grand – something that showed us the very ordinary processes behind the extraordinary.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.angelashornstudio.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/BernsteinTux2-150x150.jpg\" "\\"Bernstein's")
After Dave left for his rehearsal\u00a0and concert, we\u00a0ventured out to two places very close to our\u00a0hotel.\u00a0 The first one was the Haus der Musik.\u00a0 We decided to focus on just one floor \u2013 the part that was the\u00a0museum\u00a0for the Vienna Philharmonic.\u00a0 We found three displays of very ordinary objects that especially delighted us: Mahler\u2019s\u00a0hat,\u00a0items belonging to Brahms (glasses, pen, and calling card), and\u00a0Leonard Bernstein\u2019s tux!<\/p>\n
The next place we went was the Vienna Museum.\u00a0 It is a museum that goes through the history of the city, showing how and why it developed the way it did.\u00a0 There are several large models of the city at various points throughout time so we could see how Vienna developed and what forces shaped it.<\/p>\n
We started in Roman times when Vienna was still known as Vindobona \u2013 the time of the Roman ruins that we had been in awe of a few days earlier in Michaelsplatz.\u00a0 We then moved through Early History and into the Middle Ages and into the more familiar Modern Period, all the while, marveling at what changed about the city and what stayed the same.<\/p>\n
Corzoo delighted in ancient coins and old shop signs made out of iron and wood, and a very large \u201cspeaking trumpet\u201d used from the tower of St. Stephen\u2019s during the Siege of 1683 by the Ottomans.\u00a0 The church steeple would have been the highest point, so the watchman could call out warnings to the city from the top.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt looks like the biggest megaphone I\u2019ve ever seen!\u201d said Corzoo.\u00a0 Also from this period, we saw brutal weapons and\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cPolitics on playing cards!\u201d Corzoo cried.<\/p>\n
He was right.\u00a0 We had in front of us a deck of playing cards from the 1600\u2019s.\u00a0 The suits were leaves, grapes, pomegranates, and hearts.\u00a0 And can you guess who the King of Hearts was?\u00a0 Yes, the leader of the Holy Roman Empire, of which Vienna was currently the capital \u2013 Leopold I.<\/p>\n
We also saw collections of paintings of ordinary scenes from the city in the 1800\u2019s: a postman, a girl selling honey and fruit, a copper engraver, an ink vendor.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.angelashornstudio.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/PretzelBoy-225x300.jpg\" "\\"Pretzel")
We saw a painting of a cold, poor boy selling pretzels on the street, accompanied by his dog.\u00a0 The placard beside the painting explained that there were many poor and vulnerable children alone in Vienna at that time, and there was a movement of painting whose goal was to bring to them and other social issues to the public eye.<\/p>\n
We saw a painting of a quite better off boy, also with his dog, but in his own world.\u00a0 The adults around him were small and like statues, without life or motion.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.angelashornstudio.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/BoysWorld2-300x225.jpg\" "\\"Boy's")
\u201cCorzoo, is that how you see us adults?\u00a0 No spunk whatsoever?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI plead the fifth,\u201d he said.\u00a0 Then, \u201cshall I define what I mean by pleading the fifth?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, Corzoo, thank you very much.\u00a0 I understand that you would rather say nothing than to put yourself in a less-than-generous light.\u201d<\/p>\n
We then approached one of the huge models of the city of Vienna that were on display throughout the museum.\u00a0 This one was from the era JUST before the Ringstrasse was built.<\/p>\n
\u201cShall I tell you about the building of the Ringstrasse?\u201d asked Corzoo.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat, my young friend, you may explain to me,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is quite interesting because it all has to do with the old city walls.\u00a0 Do you see this flat ring of land that goes all the way around the city?\u201d<\/p>\n
I nodded as we walked around the large model.\u00a0 It looked like a planned park to me with little pathways crisscrossing it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, that is what is known as a glacis<\/em>.\u00a0 By the 1800\u2019s it had turned more into a park, but before that, it was the last area before the city walls.\u00a0 It was cleared so that those in the city could see who was approaching or attacking and get them<\/em>, because they\u2019d have no place to hide in that cleared bit of land!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIndeed!\u201d I exclaimed.\u00a0 \u201cGo on\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWell, Emperor Franz Joseph \u2013 the one who ended up having his own tea room in the Staatsoper, remember,\u201d he teased, \u201cdeclared that he wanted those old city walls and moats to come down, for the suburbs to be incorporated into the city, and for the glacis to be turned into a beautiful grand street!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAha!\u201d I said.\u00a0 \u201cAnd that is why all of those buildings have the same feel to them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou mean to say homogenous<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, yes, Corzoo.\u00a0 My goodness, you know big words for your age!\u00a0 Yes, you could say homogenous<\/em>.\u00a0 Not exactly the same, of course, but all of the same grand spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n We walked around the enormous model looking for buildings in the Innere Stadt, or Center City, that we could recognize and the streets we had walked on during the past few days.\u00a0 As we approached the southern part of what would be the Ringstrasse, on the railing were explanations and old photographs of what would be the first building to be built on the Ringstrasse \u2013 none other than the Wiener Staatsoper!<\/p>\n It was the foundations being dug for the opera house.\u00a0 So large was the hole in the ground that the people working inside the hole looked like bugs.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery grand building must start somewhere, and the grander the building, the larger the foundation!\u201d<\/p>\n We marveled at the undertaking for a while.<\/p>\n We then noticed a small placard explaining about the architects Eduard van der Null and August Sicard Sicardsburg.\u00a0 It said there that public response to the building was very negative and spoken about in very derogatory ways in the press.\u00a0 Eduard van der Null was so distressed that he killed himself.\u00a0 Later, his architectural partner Sicardsburg died \u2013 the placard said he died of a broken heart.\u00a0 Other sources say he died of a heart attack or tuberculosis.\u00a0 In any case, neither architect lived to see opening night.<\/p>\n \u201cHow is it possible?\u201d cried Corzoo.\u00a0 \u201cIf he only could have seen the future.\u00a0 If he only could have seen that there were tours in five different languages each hour yesterday \u2013 just to see his beautiful building.\u201d<\/p>\n It was truly an awful and very sad thing to contemplate. The whole situation seemed unthinkable.\u00a0 We stood by the railing and looked at the picture of the foundations for a while.<\/p>\n Then Corzoo said, \u201cI think what this means is that we must never despair, no matter what people say.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI believe you have something there, Corzoo.\u00a0 All we can ever do is give the best of ourselves.\u00a0 What others say and think means nothing in the grand scheme of things.\u00a0 What is seemingly a failure right now may lead you somewhere else important, or may turn into something you could never imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n Though our visit to the museum came to an end on this melancholy note, we had learned so much about what made this city tick, and that, indeed, in every era of the city, there were little boys like Corzoo, and grown women like me.\u00a0 They had tea pots, they had chocolate servers, store signs, calling cards, eye glasses, and hats.\u00a0 They had ways of communicating \u2013 maybe not by computer or text, but they had their ways – \u00a0sometimes by trumpet! They had playing cards and political cartoons.\u00a0 Boys sold pretzels on the street and played with their dogs.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you feel like you have gotten to know Vienna a little bit, Corzoo?\u00a0 What do you think?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWien ist wundersh\u00f6n!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cVienna is indeed wonderful,\u201d I replied.<\/p>\n \u201c…and it is also complicated in all the ways people can be complicated,\u201d he added.\u00a0 \u201cBut there is so much left to get to know next time – so much more to see. \u00a0I can\u2019t wait!\u201d<\/p>\n Auf Wiedersehen, Wien!\u00a0 Till we meet again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After our visit to the opera and days of walking on the grand streets of Vienna, we were physically a little spent to say the least.\u00a0 But, aside from the tiredness, I noticed a lull in little Corzoo\u2019s spirits. \u201cWhat … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.angelashornstudio.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/WienSOFoundations-300x225.jpg\" "\\"Building")
\u201cLook at this photo, Corzoo!\u201d<\/p>\n