The rest of Easter Break

So here's an update on how the rest of my wintery Easter Break went:

The egg shaped brownies were OK, they didn't end up tasting like vinegar, but since they were box brownies they also didn't really taste like brownies.

A half pealed brownie egg.

On Wednesday last week I went to Schloss Schönbrunn- a castle on the south side of the city. When it was built it wasn't in the city at all, it was a hunting lodge (If I had a hunting lodge like Schönbrunn I would actually consider hunting...).  They had an Easter Market on there, much like the typical Christmas Market, except everything was egg shaped.  Another big difference was that the Easter market was actually snow covered! I've never been at a snow covered Christmas Market because the last two winters started late (and this one just won't end!).

Snow covered Easter Market decorations outside Schönbrunn

I had never been inside Schönbrunn, I've been all over the grounds numerous times, but this was my first time going inside the castle.  It was really beautiful! There's some great architecture and artwork, plus you can see/hear a lot about the daily life of the Habsburgs.  Unfortunately you can't take pictures inside the castle, and two of the most famous/expensive rooms were being restored.  I would really recommend the Schönbrunn Imperial tour to anyone, whether visiting or living in/near Vienna.  That holds especially true for anyone who's interested in Maria Theresa, Kaiser Franz Josef I and his wife Elizabeth.

On the audio guide they talked about quite a few members of the Imperial family besides the big three, but Maria Theresa is the most interesting to me.  She had 16 children with a husband whom she loved very much, and she ran the Austrian Empire like a tight ship.  Of course Franz Josef and Elizabeth (Sisi) are the most romanticized of the Habsburgs, and they were the last significant ruling couple.  Maximilian gets a few mentions- he was Franz Josef's brother, and he was Emperor of Mexico for a few years before he was executed.  Bet most of you didn't know that Mexico had an Austrian Emperor!  Kaiser Karl I and his wife Zita also get a few mentions, as he was the last Kaiser and he refused to give up his title after WWI so they had to go into exile. He was only the Kaiser for 2 years though, so he didn't leave much of a mark on the palace like M.T. and her children.  Anyway, the Habsburgs were a pretty interesting lot, and they had some great houses!

The next day after coffee with a friend I went wandering about Vienna snapping pictures in the melting snow.  Anytime I wander around Vienna I always end up at the Naschmarkt for scarves, chocolate and a good variety of food!  I couldn't decide what I wanted to eat, because I always get falafel, but I also wanted a spinach and cheese Börek.  I decided I'd get both- one to eat while I walked, and the other to bring home and have for dinner (and then some meals of leftovers).

My Falafel, humus and cheese filled sweet/spicy peppers from the Naschmarkt- I got quite a few tasty meals out of them! 

For Easter weekend I stuck around Baden.  When the snow melted I went walking through the grey vineyards and I had a nice relaxing weekend.  I did some more Easter crafts- dyed/decorated hard boiled eggs, and then I made deviled eggs (which are called Russische Eier- russian eggs in German). It snowed/rained off and on all weekend, but it never really stuck or lasted long.

Walking through the Vineyards while it was snowing

 On Tuesday I went to see the Spanish Riding School Morning Exercise, which turned out to not really be worth it...  It was two hours long, and apparently they weren't practicing the 'School Above the Ground' which are the horses that do the jumps and things.  They didn't even really do many of the on-the-ground tricks that they show you on TV screens in the lobby.  It was just two hours sitting in a cold stone room watching people ride around on horses.  Occasionally they would do one of their special walks/steps.  However, the tour was worth while! We learned about the different kinds of training they do, the horses lives, we got to go into the stables and into the Winter Riding School (the room where they do their exercising and performances pictured below).

Since the fall of the Austrian Empire the horses no longer come from Lipica, Slovenia, which is how they got the name of Lipizzaners, but from Piber in Steiermark, Austria.  They're born rather dark in color from dark grey to red/brown, and as they age they get lighter in color, although some of them actually never do turn white.  It's been said that the Spanish Riding School will fall if they don't have a horse who never changed color (and they've always had at least 1 dark grey or brown horse).  They begin training at 3 or 4 years old, and they start performing at the age of 10.  Most of them perform until they're 21 or so, and then they go into retirement either back at Piber or at the training farm north of Vienna.  Every year the horses go on vacation to the training farm so they get to spend some time riding/running/living outside.  The stables in Vienna don't have many windows/ways of getting fresh air and natural light, so they now use special lights that simulate sunlight to help keep the horses happy and healthy.  They also have a bunch of horses who are allergic to dust, so there are now special stalls built in the stable courtyard for those horses and they have all sorts of special things in their stalls to keep down the dust.

Each rider at the school has between 5 and 8 horses (each horse only has 1 rider), and if I remember rightly they train for 6-8 years before they begin performing.  They only opened the school to women in 2008, so right now there are 3 women there training, none of them perform yet.

I stole this picture from Google, since we couldn't take pictures during the morning exercise. 

Between the exercise and the tour I had 3 hours to kill, so I went to the Sisi museum in the Hofburg.  Really it's like 3 museums in 1: The Sisi Museum, the Imperial Silver Collection, and The Imperial Apartments.  It wasn't nearly as good as Schönbrunn.  The silver collection was interesting to look at as I walked through, but the audio guide was really long, and I couldn't take standing looking at the same room of dishes for as long as my ear was being talked off.  The Sisi part was a bit too dramatic, plus they had covered up most of the walls and the original architecture of the palace with this dark blue wall cover, and it was pretty dimly lit, so there was a pretty oppressive air to the place.  By the time I got to the Imperial Apartments I'd had enough of hearing about how depressed Sisi was, and how her depression effected Franz Josef and their children.  I mean the poor guy was head over heals in love with her from the moment they met until he died (20 years after her), and she could hardly stand to be in Vienna!  And he worked like crazy for the empire, so he was almost always in Vienna.  Their first daughter died at the age of 2, their only son killed his lover and then himself, they had two other daughters who outlived them, but not by much.  All in all, a rather tragic Imperial family who's story has been rather romanticized by literature, theater and film.  (That being said I do love the Romi Schneider Sissi films, they're so sweet).

On Wednesday when I woke up to go back to school there was an inch or two of slushy snow on the ground again! It snowed off and on all day, and it seemed like no one was out clearing the streets or the sidewalks at all.  I'm so over this snow/winter thing, it's time for spring!

Besides the snow, and the 3 day school week it's been a pretty normal week.  Last night I went to a very small theater in Vienna with one of my colleagues from the HAK.  We saw a two person play that was a bit of a thriller (a man kidnaps a woman and locks her in his basement out in the country- what could possibly go wrong?).  The actors were really good, the guy did an especially good job conveying his insanity/outsider/loner tendencies through the way he talked, his facial expressions and his body language.  It's called 'The Collector' apparently it's based on a book that's worth reading (according to another English teacher that was there).