The Udvar-Hazy Center

Last weekend we were back in the DC metro area for a family visit and a side trip out to Dulles, VA, to the Smithsonian's Air & Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center. This hangar-like building houses many of the large planes, helicopters, and spacecraft that the Smithsonian can't fit in the main museum on the National Mall. In particular I was excited to see the Space Shuttle Discovery, as I've been an astronomy and space exploration geek since I was a kid.

What struck me about the Shuttle is that it's big, but not that big. It looks enormous on TV and in photos. It's about the size of a medium-size passenger jet, like a commuter plane. It dominates the room in which it's housed, but it's small enough that I wondered at how NASA had crammed all of the electronics and mission equipment into the spacecraft. Even without seeing the interior, I could tell that astronauts really didn't have much room to maneuver inside it.

The other remarkable thing about the orbiter was its exterior. While the underside was covered with ceramic heat shield tiles, the upper parts of the shuttle looked like a patchwork of white quilts. For some reason I'd assumed that the ship was metallic. I hadn't realized that its upper surfaces are covered with heat-resistant fabric instead of metal. Of course, a spaceship doesn't have to be completely metallic. As long as it's airtight, you can cover the outside with fabric. Space is a vacuum.

As I walked through the museum and looked at the history of human flight, I marveled at the engineering feats it took to get us from the Wright brothers' plane to spaceflight in less than 60 years. There's a display of different aircraft engines from before WWI through the end of WWII. I hadn't considered what early mechanics and engineers had accomplished with what were little more than automobile engines adapted for airplanes.

In addition to the many photos I took of Discovery, I took far too many photos of some of my favorite planes, like the SR-71, the F-105 Thunderchief, the Concorde, and the "Enola Gay." They didn't have a Messerschmitt Me-262, one of my favorite early jet fighters, but they did have the Me-163 Komet, as well as the F-86 and MiG-15, two planes I remember well from days spent playing "Chuck Yeager's Air Combat Simulator." And I couldn't help thinking about the pointlessness of the inclusion of the X-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a plane that has yet to enter service. It's been in development for 20 years and if drone technology continues to evolve, it might never be finished. It's already a museum piece.

We missed the whole thing

I keep missing the big storms in New York.  I was out of town at Christmas when a massive blizzard swamped the city in 2-3 feet of snow for a week.  And last weekend I had the good fortune to be out of town for Hurricane Irene's visit to my adopted hometown.

My girlfriend and I had already planned to be out of town this past weekend for a couple of family events in Ohio.  By the time we were ready to leave on Thursday morning, the NWS had just updated Irene's projected path for New York.  As we were packing Mayor Bloomberg was on TV telling people to prepare to evacuate low-lying areas.  While we live in Zone C and we're well up a hill from the Gowanus Canal, I went to my basement storage room anyway and moved a few valuable boxes off the floor.  And I moved my viola onto the bed, just in case potential floodwaters came up into the apartment itself.  We left the cats with plenty of food and water (and I'd arranged for a friend to check on them on Saturday) and we got on the road.

By Friday afternoon the predictions of doom and destruction had gotten so bad that we went to Wal-Mart in Boardman, OH, to pick up some emergency provisions in case we returned to a Brooklyn devoid of power and rife with anarchy.  They had bottled water for sale at $4 a case, and I insisted we get three cases.  At that price, it would have been irresponsible not to buy it.  We also bought two heavy-duty LED flashlights, candles, granola bars, peanut butter, and jelly.  I thought we'd get bread on Sunday on our way back to the city.  As the weather predictions grew worse, on Friday night we decided we'd try to go back to New York on Monday instead.  I wasn't able to fully relax until Saturday afternoon and evening, no doubt helped by the samples of homemade wine my girlfriend's uncle served at a family picnic/tasting that night.  We got home late and I found myself watching a Times Square webcam, comforted by the bright lights and the knowledge that the city was still standing, at least at that hour.

As soon as I was awake on Sunday morning I was back online, checking Twitter and news sites for updates on the storm.  By 10 AM it was clear that the hurricane had spared the city the worst of its fury.  I relaxed and hoped that I wouldn't see a photo of a tree branch through my living room window.  I worried a little when I saw photos of the Gowanus Canal close to cresting its banks, but I never heard anything about the canal actually overflowing.   We drove to Johnstown to see my mother, secure in the knowledge that our apartment was OK.  Late on Sunday night, a friend tweeted that he'd gone to a bar on 4th Avenue and confirmed everything down there was clear.

The return trip to New York was the least eventful drive I've had in the past few months.  It was busy but there were no long delays or backups.  As we drove through Park Slope, we marveled at the lack of evidence of a hurricane.  The damage we saw looked like it was from a strong microburst, not a sustained storm.  The cats were fine when we got back.  Based on the mess they left us, they must have had quite a hurricane party.

The battlefield at Gettysburg

We spent the weekend in Gettysburg, PA, at a friend's wedding.  We arrived late on Friday night and left Sunday afternoon, so we didn't have time to spend a full day at the museum and battlefield.  So we opted to drive around the site and see as many landmarks as we could before driving back to Brooklyn on Sunday evening.

The battlefield is a national park surrounding the town of Gettysburg.  (I highly recommend looking at that link for details on the places in my photos.)  You can't walk five feet without stumbling into a memorial or monument or plaque that commemorates a regiment or a civilian hero of the battle.  But many of the key events of the battle took place on the hills and fields outside the town itself, and most of the open spaces are preserved much as they were in July 1863 when the battle occurred.  For example, when you stand on Little Round Top and look across the field at Devil's Den and the tree lines, it's not impossible to imagine what the scene must have looked like on those three days.

I want to return to the battlefield after virtual reality technology has advanced to the point where I could see an overlay of the scene in 1863 on the current landscape.  No matter how much I read about the Civil War, I'll never know what it would have felt like to be present on the field that day.  I suspect I don't really want to know.

Another crazy ride on Amtrak

I don't have a great record with Amtrak and the regional trains to Maryland over the past few years.  In October 2009 I had a long delay for "police activity" and a sick passenger in Wilmington, DE.  Then in December 2009 Penn Station lost power to the tracks for several hours, turning a three-hour trip into an all-day ordeal.  These problems are unusual, but what's not unusual is that the regional trains are routinely late or delayed for reasons unknown.  And I had another such experience this past Friday night.

I was supposed to take a 6:20 PM train from Penn Station to New Carrollton, MD, arriving at 9:20 PM.  When I got to Penn Station at 5:45 my train was already 30 minutes delayed.  Five minutes later the delay increased to 50 minutes.  The PA announcer said that our train would be in the station and ready for boarding by 7:10 PM.  I called my dad and told him that I'd be at least an hour late.  We boarded the train a few minutes after 7, but we did not leave on time.  As we sat on the platform at Penn Station the train conductor read what sounded like the entire information sheet for the train, covering oft-unmentioned items such as "there are bathrooms in each train car,""don't ride in the vestibules," "a wide variety of snacks are available in the cafe car," and "we hope you are having a lovely evening in New York and we apologize for the delay."  A woman across the aisle from me asked to no one in particular "when are we leaving?"

We finally departed around 7:30 PM.  Arriving at Newark, NJ a few minutes later, we sat at the platform there for at least five minutes, which was about four minutes longer than usual.  Around 9 PM, outside of Trenton, the lights went out in the train and we ground to a halt.  The train conductor said we'd lost power and that the engineers were trying to fix the problems but until they could do so, we were "dead in the water."  I started to get a bad feeling about the whole trip as I remembered another Amtrak train stuck on the tracks between Philadelphia and Baltimore during the December blizzard.  Another conductor came into our car to apologize for the delay and to tell us that we had a "helper engine" on the way to rescue us.  The power came back on a few times, only to go off again a few minutes later.  I tried to read my book by flashlight and not think about how bad things could get.  I'd had dinner, I had used the bathroom before the power went off, and I had several warm layers in my bag.

My fellow passengers were not as outwardly calm as I was.  The woman across from me continued her running commentary, possibly on her phone, though I think she was just talking to herself.  When the conductor apologized again and suggested that we call 1-800-USA-RAIL with any complaints, a man a few rows up called them.  He demanded action on this stalled train issue and wanted a full refund.  Apparently, they told him to call back once he reached his destination.  I don't think that was the answer he wanted.

The aforementioned helper engine appeared around 9:45 PM and towed us to Philadelphia.  The conductor told us that they would change engines in Philadelphia, requiring another delay.  Or we had the option of changing to the next Washington, DC-bound train when it arrived on the opposite platform.  But Amtrak didn't say how long the engine change would take.  The chatty woman said "I ride these trains every day.  An engine change takes a half hour or 45 minutes.  I'm leaving."  Everyone in my car began packing their belongings, except for the young couple behind me.  She and I had been discussing Infinite Jest and I considered staying where I was, since I was comfortable, already late and whoever was going to pick me up in New Carrollton would have to stay up anyway.  But when the next train appeared, the car emptied out except for this couple.  She said to her boyfriend "we'll have the car to ourselves.  We can make out."  I smiled at them and said "Now I'm switching trains.  Have a good night."  I found a seat on the other train and a few minutes later we were on our way.   I wonder how long it was before that train moved.

I arrived in New Carrollton at about 12:30 AM, over three hours late.  My girlfriend (who had driven all the way from Ohio for the weekend) met me at the station, and after the ordeal I'd been through she was a most welcome sight.  In retrospect, it wasn't the worst time I'd ever had on a train, but it wasn't any fun at all.  I don't think it's too much to ask that for my $150 I get to my destination as close to on-time as possible.  Three hours is definitely not close to on time.

Some of my friends suggested that I take the Acela next time, saying that the regional trains are always unreliable.  While the Acela doesn't seem to stop at New Carrollton, I might be able to manage going to Baltimore or BWI or even Union Station instead if I could work out the schedules.  So rather than abandon Amtrak entirely, I'll give that a try next time.  Otherwise I might take advantage of one of those rental car deals that keep popping up in my e-mail.  Or one of those DC buses that are ridiculously cheap.  But I think I'm done with the regional trains for a while.

The Pro Football Hall of Fame

One of the good things about dating someone who lives in a state that I haven't visited extensively is the opportunity for me to be a tourist.  On New Year's Eve, my girlfriend and I went to Canton, OH to visit the one and only Pro Football Hall of Fame.  The pilgrimage was her idea, as she'd never been there either.  We're both Steelers fans, and yet we both neglected to wear anything remotely football-related (unlike most of the other people at the Hall that day, many of whom wore football jerseys or shirts).

The first stop on the tour is the history of the pro game.  There are exhibits of old uniforms and protective equipment and features on early professional teams.  Other panels and displays trace the development of the NFL and its merger with the AFL in the late 1960s.  Next, there's a section dedicated to the NFL's 32 teams, with helmets and team records and facts.  Famous Detroit product Jerome Bettis gets the honor of representing the Steelers.

The next room is the heart of the Hall, with the well-known bronze busts of all the honorees.  I couldn't resist taking pictures of all of my favorite players and coaches (the Hall has a liberal photo policy).  Touchscreen computer displays help you find your favorite Hall members and show highlights and interview clips.  Terry Bradshaw's interview, which must have been filmed for his induction in 1989, shows him wishing for one more chance to run a two-minute drill in a Super Bowl with all of his players.  He says "I could still play two minutes."  I love Bradshaw more than any other former NFL great, but even in 1989 he'd have had a hard time running a few plays.  Other exhibits in the Hall show highlights from past Super Bowls and feature memorabilia from current NFL players.  I liked the exhibit panels for other leagues, like the now-defunct WLAF.  (Scottish Claymores forever!)

The final stop on the tour is the Hall's theater, playing "The Road To The Super Bowl."  I hoped the film would be a retrospective on past Super Bowls, or show how tough it is to get through an entire season and win a championship.  While we waited for the theater to open, video screens on the ramp showed training camp footage from past seasons.  It was fun to see now-fired coaches hollering at their players.  The movie started with playoff highlights from last year, then the theater rotated 180 degrees to show a larger screen on which we saw the NFL Films' reel from Super Bowl XLIV.  We watched as New Orleans beat the Indianapolis Colts, with all the miked-up hits and cheers reverberating around us at top volume.  It wasn't bad at all, but the film made me wish I'd visited the Hall last year so I could have seen the Steelers' victory over the Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII.

The Hall has plans to expand further, and some of the displays (especially the history of pro football) are low-tech and antiquated and could use some modernization.  I'd like to go back in five or ten years and see how the Hall has updated their exhibits.  And I'm sure that a decade from now they'll have busts of more former Steelers for me to fawn over.  I like this idea.

Stradiwho-vius?

On my visit to the Smithsonian's American History museum last Friday, I saw their small (compared to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art) collection of musical instruments.  What the collection lacked in size it made up in content.  They had an entire Stradivarius quartet of instrument, including the only Stradivarius viola that I can recall seeing in person.  In fact, I wasn't entirely aware that Stradivari made any violas.  It seemed a shame to have the instruments locked away in display cases, but from the audio clips playing in the gallery I assume they see an occasional performance.

I also got to see the World War II memorial for the first time.  I was against the construction of this memorial when it was proposed back when I still lived in Washington, DC.  I'm still not convinced that the veterans of WWII deserve a more majestic memorial than the veterans of the Korean or Vietnam wars.  But the WWII memorial pays tribute to our country's role in that war while fitting into the expanse of the National Mall.  Walking around the fountains and reading the names of the major battles of the Atlantic and Pacific theaters, I remembered the scope of that conflict and the sheer effort the entire country devoted to it.  If we're going to have a monument to our role in that war, I think that memorial was the best we could do.

I'm breaking my own law tomorrow

It's been ten wonderful years since I last went home for Thanksgiving.  For Thanksgiving 2000, my then-wife and I rented a car (which turned out to be a minivan when it was the last car they had) and drove from Greenwich Village to Johnstown after work on the night before the holiday.  The drive home only took six hours, even with a long wait to get through the Holland Tunnel, and we arrived at my mom's house around 1 AM.  I don't remember much of the holiday itself, though I think we ate well, watched football, saw a movie, and I occasionally dialed into my office network to check e-mail as there was a massive rollout going on in Brussels that weekend.

The return trip was another story.  We left Johnstown around noon on Sunday, expecting to be back in New York for dinner.  We got stuck in traffic on the Pennsylvania turnpike, and then in a long traffic jam of post-game traffic near the Meadowlands.  I think we returned the car around 9 or 10 PM, just before the office closed.  After that experience, we vowed never to travel for a four-day holiday weekend again.  Over the next decade, we had Thanksgiving dinner at home or at restaurants with friends or by ourselves, then after my divorce, I had dinner with friends at various locations.  It's been a delicious run.

This year, I'm going home again.  I'm putting my faith in Amtrak and taking a train to Maryland at 9 AM tomorrow morning, which will hopefully get me to my dad's house in time for an early-afternoon feast.  May God have mercy on the rail system if there's another Penn Station power outage or other mishap tomorrow morning.  I'm coming back to the city on Saturday afternoon to avoid the crush of people returning on Sunday.  It all feels a bit like a fool's errand, but it will be great to be home for dinner.  I'll miss the Macy's parade, but I think I'll live.  There's only so much inane banter I can take from my morning show hosts.

Happy Thanksgiving!  Safe travels to everyone.

Taking my music on the road

I was in Baltimore and Bowie last weekend visiting my family, of whom I see far too little.  My brother had an extra ticket for Friday night's concert by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra so I left work early to meet him.  The BSO performs at Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, a modern orchestra hall with curved surfaces for exceptional acoustics.  The concert consisted of Gustav Mahler's arrangements of Bach's orchestral suites and Mahler's Symphony No. 7.  The orchestra was amazing in their own right, but the sound inside the hall was amazing.  During the Bach piece, the harpsichord was crystal-clear from our seats in the balcony.  Mahler's 7th was just as impressive.  The fourth movement features a mandolin and guitar, and these players sat at the furthest point from us, behind the first violins.  But their notes came out as clearly as if they were sitting next to me.  And of course the other instrument groups like the horns and woodwinds sounded incredible.  While I prefer the NY Philharmonic, I'm a little envious of the concert hall in Baltimore.

Before the concert I looked at the photos of the musicians in the lobby.  I recognized the name of the assistant principal cellist but didn't place it until I saw it in the program.  He used to moonlight with the Georgetown University Orchestra when I was there.  Our music director studied at Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore and she would bring several students with her as "ringers" to fill out the string sections for our concerts.  Dariusz Skoraczewski was one of the two "Dariuses" that she would bring in, the other being a violinist.  The girls in the orchestra used to swoon over these two, but they didn't seem to notice or care.  It's also possible that they didn't speak much English and therefore didn't understand what was going on.  I hadn't thought about either of them since college but as soon as I saw the name Skoraczewski   I remembered the swooning.  It's good to see he's had such a successful career since those days.

I brought my viola with me on the trip so my brother (a violinist) could give me a few pointers about my playing.  I haven't had a lesson in many years and I know my technique has suffered.  He showed me a few things I was doing wrong with my bow and readjusted my viola's bridge, both of which resulted in some odd sounds coming from my instrument.  We were going to play duets on Saturday evening but the hair on his bow broke before he could play a note, so we had to share my bow (he had a spare but we were at my father's house and his spare bow was in Baltimore).  We did get to sight-read one of Mozart's violin and viola duets on Sunday afternoon, to great applause from my stepmother.  I gave him the music so he could look it over for a future sight-reading session.  It was much easier than I thought to haul my viola on the train, so I will do it again in the future.

I was in Pittsburgh over Labor Day weekend on a semi-secret mission.  We ate ribs, toured the Warhol Museum, avoided a Bret Michaels concert, had some delicious Indian food in Oakland, and walked all over the city.  I flew JetBlue again and this time there were no incidents whatsoever.  Both flights were as unremarkable as possible, which is just what I want out of a trip.

I'm still thinking about the NYRO preview and other ways I can promote the orchestra's upcoming season.  Rehearsals begin Thursday night and I can't wait to get back to playing every week.

Vacation report, part 9: One last day in Vienna and Prague

Before all of the mishegoss with the JetBlue flight, I was in the middle of posting photos and telling stories from my vacation in Europe.  When I left off, I was wrapping up my last full day in Vienna with a giant schnitzel.

I had only a few hours in Vienna on Sunday morning, so after breakfast I went in search of the city's Holocaust memorial.  On the way I passed one of Mozart's former residences, the house in which he lived while composing his opera Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail (The Abduction from the Seraglio).




The Holocaust Memorial is in Judenplatz, an open plaza near the Jewish Museum.




This inscription appears at the memorial's base in German, English, and Hebrew.




I took a train from Vienna to Prague on Sunday afternoon for my flight back to New York Monday morning.  That alone was a bit of adventure, as I'd never taken a European intercity train before.  I shared a compartment with a rotating assortment of strangers, most of them older couples or families.  I was one of the lucky ones who got a seat.  Younger kids with backpacks filled the hallway outside my compartment, sitting on their bags or on the floor.  That's a hell of a way to travel.

I had one destination when I returned to Prague: Novomestsky Pivovar (New Town Brew Pub), a restaurant just off Wenceslas Square.  One of my friends from NYRO had told me of this place in March when I first announced I was going on the trip.  He said "find the place that serves the hunk of pork with a knife in it."  His description became more specific as the date of the trip approached, and when I was in Prague the previous weekend I'd found the restaurant.  Since it was around the corner from the hotel where I was staying on my last night there, I waited until my return trip to go there.  And it was worth the wait.  I had two beers, one light and one dark (the light was better) and this beauty, the pork knuckle:



It's not quite as big as it looks.  Most of it was bone, and I could have used a side dish of potatoes or pretzels.  But it was delicious.

Since the night was young, I took one more stroll over to the Charles Bridge and took photos of the bridge and Prague Castle.  There was a cello trio playing Metallica songs for a large, enthusiastic crowd. I think I tipped them in euros, since I didn't have any use for them at that point (the Czech Republic has its own currency).














The next morning I flew back to New York, my vacation at an end.  I had more fun than I ever anticipated and I can't wait to go on another bike tour or another trip to Europe.  I'm already thinking of my next Backroads vacation.  Some people recommended Provence, others Italy, and one friend suggested Poland, Slovakia and Hungary for another taste of Central Europe.  There's a Slovenia trip that includes a Tour de France-like mountain climb that sounds amazing.  I just need to save some money first.

One last stop on the media tour

If you want to hear the audio version of my media circus story, I'm on Dan Levy's On The DL podcast this morning.  I've been listening to Dan's show for a long time and he thought the media side of the story was just as interesting, if not more so, than the incident itself.  I hope you enjoy the show, and I apologize in advance for the occasional poor sound and cats meowing on my end.

If you missed me this morning...

I am exhausted and worn out from almost 24 hours of phone calls, texts, e-mails, and tweets.  It's been a unique experience but I'm really looking forward to putting this whole story behind me.

If you didn't see one or more of these shows today, here are the links I could find:

The TODAY Show


CBS Early Show

CNN American Morning

I can't find the FOX News segment on their website so if anyone else finds it please let me know.

Thank you to everyone who e-mailed, commented, or tweeted to me or about me today.  I really appreciate all the support of family and friends.

To anyone who's new here, I usually write about classical music, Pittsburgh sports teams, and life in New York.  I hope you'll stick around.

Thanks again!

Just a little excitement on my flight today

I was in Pittsburgh this weekend for Walkoff Walk's annual HEIST meetup -- more on that later -- and I flew back this morning.  JetBlue flight 1052 was really uneventful, barely more than an hour.  I'm glad I had time to watch all of "The Price is Right" before we landed.  I was afraid I'd miss the end of the Showcase Showdown.

As we were taxiing to the gate, we stopped and several passengers got up to get their bags.  One of the flight attendants announced that we were not quite at the gate yet and asked everyone to sit down.  I hadn't moved since I was in row 15.  We pulled up to the gate and people started to get off the plane.  As I got up to get my bags, the flight attendant made this announcement:

"To the passenger who just called me a motherfucker: fuck you.  I've been in this business 28 years and I've had it."

I looked at everyone around me, all of us surprised to have just heard that over an airplane intercom.  As I got off the plane, I noticed that it looked like the door opposite the one with the jetway was open.  I didn't look, but there was light coming in where normally there's no light.  The other flight attendants were talking about someone who was having a really bad day.

I got to the AirTrain terminal and the JetBlue flight attendant who'd made the announcement was there.  I recognized him from the flight; it looked like he had a cut on his forehead.  I recognized his voice when he started talking to another passenger from our flight about how he'd just had enough and quit his job.  Then he said something about someone using the emergency slide to get off the plane.  I still wasn't sure what had happened.  I thought a passenger had taken the fun way out.

As we rode the AirTrain to Jamaica Station, he talked about how he'd been a flight attendant for 28 years and he was fed up with this passenger who had a bag problem.  He said something like "your bag's right here!" and mimed pulling the emergency slide.  He also said that the plane would be out of service the rest of the day to have its emergency slide replaced.  I didn't talk to him myself.  I stood there listening to his conversation with the other guy, phone in hand, ready to tweet.  When we got off at Jamaica, the flight attendant went one way (to the parking lot) and the other passenger walked with me toward the Long Island Rail Road.  I asked him if I'd heard correctly that this flight attendant had used the emergency slide to get off the plane, and he confirmed it.  That's when I put this on Twitter:

JetBlue story: pissed-off lady demanded her bag, swore at FA. The FA swore back on intercom, quit job, left plane via emergency slide.

And now the story is all over the news.

To be clear about a few things:

The flight was never in danger.  We were on the ground, at the gate.  None of the passengers on my flight were delayed or detained as far as I know.

The attendant didn't drive away from the tarmac.  Somehow he got back into the terminal and got to the AirTrain.  He had his bags with him too, so I wonder if he took those down the slide with him.

I feel bad for everyone waiting for the next flight to Pittsburgh.  I assume JetBlue turns the same plane around for JFK-PIT, so those people had to wait while JetBlue found another plane for the afternoon flights.

I'm mostly concerned that a flight attendant would lose their cool that way over a bag in the overhead.  But I'm sure he's served his last bag of in-flight cookies.

Vacation report, part 8: Vienna!

I set out as early as I could on Saturday, determined to see as much of Vienna as I could.  My first stop was Peterskirche (St. Peter's Church).



I had to wait until Mass ended before I could take photos of the interior.  There was a guy sitting at the desk just inside the door who gave me the "stink eye" as I stood in the back waiting for the service to wrap up.













Next up was Karlskirche (St. Charles' Church).

Karlskirche (St. Charles' Church)

The nave and altar of Karlskirche

The frescoes on the ceiling were unbelievable.

The church was undergoing renovations but they had an elevator in the middle of the nave that took visitors up to the top of the dome for close-ups of the frescoes and the view from the top of the dome.  One unique feature of the dome was the "whisper" effect of the acoustics.  I could hear two men talking on the other side of the dome, 40 feet away, as if they were standing next to me.  It reminded me of the dome at St. Paul's Cathedral in London, which had a similar sound effect.

I wandered through the Naschmarkt for lunch, then hopped on Vienna's subway system for a visit to Schonnbrunn Palace, the former summer residence of the Habsburg dynasty.







I'd skipped the Imperial Apartments at the Hofburg on Friday, but I was not about to miss the apartments at Schonnbrunn, including the famous Mirror Room where a six-year-old Mozart gave his first performance for Empress Maria Theresia.  I admit that I got chills standing in the same room where Mozart once stood.  Yes, I'm that geeky.  I lingered in the gardens and "backyard" of the palace, marveling at how royalty used to live.  Who needs that much house?  According to the audio guide, the palace used to require over a thousand servants to maintain it.  It's good to be the emperor.









My legs were starting to give out on me, but it was only 6 PM and I hadn't heard a concert in Vienna yet.  I took the subway back to central Vienna and meandered back to my hotel past several more churches, most of them closing for the day.  I was able to see Minoritenkirche inside and out, and as I passed Michaelerkirche I saw that they offered a free organ recital at 8 PM that night.  Score!  The organ in the church was built in 1714 and it is the oldest working Baroque organ in Austria.   How could I pass up a chance to hear it?



The recital consisted of music from before 1700 and included a soprano soloist.  The organ sound was sublime, almost ethereal.  The bass notes didn't shake the floor like the organs I've heard in the United States do, but they're all of Victorian or later vintage and I suspect that the massive organ sound I'm accustomed to is a product of that era.  I imagined that this was the sort of organ Bach would have played for all those cantatas he wrote in Leipzig.  There was a church employee (the "MC") who introduced the soloist and the music and told us a few "fun facts" about the organ and the church.  He said that Michaelerkirche was the site of the first performance of Mozart's Requiem in December 1791, and that they think that Haydn himself used to play the organ at the church as he lived nearby.

After the recital the organist invited the audience up to the organ loft for a tour and a demonstration of the workings of the organ.  He only spoke German so the "MC" provided near-simultaneous English translation.  I had the feeling these two had done this routine before.  The organ console had a speaker on it so that the orchestra and choir (which would sit up in the organ loft as well) could hear the organ, much as monitors work for a rock band in concert.  The soloist played a few measures of one of the pieces from the recital with all of us standing up there, so we could hear and feel the organ up close.  The whole event was fascinating.

The largest pipes on the organ

I had dinner at Figlmuller's, the best restaurant for schnitzel in Vienna.  I looked at the menu but didn't need it.  A minute after I sat down the waiter brought the gentlemen next to me their food, and I said "I'll have what they're having."

Schnitzel, potato salad and wine at Figlmuller's

The schnitzel was so large it overflowed the plate it was on.  And I ate every bit of it.  The potato salad wasn't bad, and I liked the bits of watercress that served as my vegetable for the day.  I wandered around for a while, soaking up the environment and letting my dinner settle, before stopping at a cafe for a beer and dessert.  Surprisingly, the sugary Sacher torte didn't keep me awake late that night.  I slept well after all that walking around.

Vacation report, part 7: Durnstein and on to Vienna

The ruins of the castle above Durnstein

Friday was the last day of the Backroads part of my vacation.  We had the option of a short loop ride along the Danube or a hike up to the castle ruins above Durnstein.  I chose the ruins, as I love old castles and King Richard the Lionheart had been imprisoned there.  





There isn't much of the castle left, but the view of the town, the river, and the surrounding countryside was spectacular.  













We also got to tour the church in Durnstein, which served as a preview of the kind of ornate decoration I would see in the churches in Vienna.















We said farewell to our guides and boarded a bus for Vienna.  I got to my hotel around 1 PM, dropped off my bags, and went out sightseeing.  


My first stop was St. Stephen's Cathedral, the most prominent building
in the city.


















I took the elevator to the top of the spire and had a panoramic view of half of Vienna.  (The roof of the cathedral blocked my view of the other half of the city.)














Next up was the Hofburg, the residence of the Habsburgs, once the ruling family of the Austrian Empire.  On the way I stopped at Michaelerkirche (St. Michael's Church) and saw the incredible decorations on the altar and columns.  

Michaelerkirche (St. Michael's Church)

The altar at Michaelerkirche

The entrance to Hofburg

My guidebook recommended that I skip the Imperial Apartments at the Hofburg and see something else, so I skipped them in favor of the Kunsthistoriches  (Art History) Museum.  

Kunsthistoriches (Art History) Museum

The museum reminded me of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, with the Greek and Roman exhibits, the Egyptian mummies, and room after room of portraits and landscapes.  Although the Met doesn't have a room full of art by Rubens, or this portrait of a young Franz Josef II (note the resemblance to Jeffrey Jones) and his brother, the Grand Duke.







I left the Kunsthistoriches Museum just before closing and wandered past the Staatsoper on my way to the Haus der Musik, Vienna's homage to its musical heritage.  The museum dedicated its first floor to the Vienna Philharmonic, with artifacts from the orchestra's 180-year history and a theater showing their most recent New Year's Eve concert.  The second floor had exhibits on how sound works and I can see the appeal for children.  The third floor was the big payoff for me - rooms devoted to Vienna's musical masters: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Johann Strauss, and Mahler.  

The Mahler Room at the Haus der Musik

Finally, the fourth floor had more interactive exhibits and a game system that let you put together your own sonic composition.  I ended my day with dinner at Greichenbeisl, a restaurant once frequented by Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms, though presumably not all at the same time.  

Greichenbeisl

Sitting there drinking wine, eating strudel, and people-watching was a satisfying way to finish my first evening in Vienna.