Days 9 & 10: Vienna and home

 Sunday (Day 9) was a full day for me in Vienna. I woke up in my comfy bed at 5.30 (the Hoxton Hotel is deliciously awesome btw) and lazed for a bit, hoping that I’d snooze again.  When that didn’t work, I got cleaned up, checked out of the hotel, stowed my bags, and hit the city on foot.  I had a few destinations in mind, but mostly I wanted to wander.

First stop was breakfast.  I was hoping to find a nice casual café, but after too long wandering with no luck, I stumbled upon the Sacher Café.  They’re a super-touristy venue with a hotel, a restaurant, and a very famous chocolate cake that my dad still goes on about.  I had a very expensive (and surprisingly bland) breakfast of pastries, egg, smoked salmon, and cappuccino.  Thus fortified, I set out for the National Library.

Monument to the end of fascism. Maybe it's a little premature? 

H has an Atlas Obscura book about a bunch of cool places to see, and The National Library piqued her interest with its secret doors and passages.  I wandered the great hall, examining illuminated texts, reading about how Austria views its own history, and seeking out the passages.  I didn’t see any secret passages, but I saw lots of bookcases that doubled as secret doors to hidden rooms for storage and scholarship.  And a couple of amazing globes!

After the library, I spent too much time trying to find some interesting shopping.  Vienna is full of shops, but they were all closed for Sunday.  The city’s deep catholic roots and trade union workers’ rights efforts continue to keep most retail closed on Sundays.  The only exceptions I saw were the schlocky souvenir shops.

Lunch was Wienner Schnitzel.  My waiter asked me if I wanted fries or a salad as my side.  I thought the potatoes would be too heavy with my fried veal, so I ordered the salad.  It was a potato salad.

After lunch, I took an English-language The Third Man tour.  The Third Man is one of my favorite movies, and this tour takes us underground through the very sewer stairs that Orson Welles used and into the sewer tunnels where the movie was shot.  It wasn’t too stinky!  The tour was really only about the intersection of The Third Man and the sewer system (the guide glossed over all the superterranean bits, but it was still pretty rad.  And, we got to see the spot in the tunnels where Harry Lime was shot!

After the tour, I had a realization about shopping – perhaps the museum gift shops would be an exception to the closed-on-Sundays rule.  And I was right!  My first stop was to the Albetina, a modern art museum.  The had a few great exhibits going on.  The first was one about the New Gothic movement of the turn of the 20th century.  It featured a bunch of artists that I was unfamiliar with, but also one that I know deeply – Katthe Kollwitz.  It was really interesting to see her work situated among her contemporaries, and I was fascinated to see how the Albertina’s interpretation of her work differed from MOMA last summer.

From there I checked out a few other museums before landing at Mozart House. This building houses Mozart’s last apartment in Vienna, but the whole building has been turned into a museum.  It was pretty neat to walk through his rooms and look at his scores.

Then it was time for dinner.  I had Viennese for lunch, so I thought I’d end my time in Europe with a nice Italian meal.  I found a solid restaurant and had a delicious mushroom ravioli with bresaola.  And a green salad.  And a glass of wine.  And a negroni.  And lots of water. After walking over 25,000 steps, I needed to rehydrate.

Dinner complete, it was time to get myself to the airport hotel for my last night in Vienna.  I talked with H and S on the way to the hotel, and I was in bed with the lights off by 9:30 pm.

Days 7 & 8: Brno & Vienna

Yesterday morning half of the company woke with headaches.  Between the grey and the exhaustion, we were spent.  We had planned on a full day of seeing Brno, but we ended up chilling out longer in the apartment.  I was a little nauseous, but after a few hours, it dissipated.

L and I went looking for breakfast and wound up at an asian noodle shop.  Afterwards, we wandered Brno.

Many of these old Czech towns have astronomical clocks.  Brno's is very modern, and while it's definitely functional as a clock, it also looks like it might be functional for some other things too.  In fact, while we were looking at it, a woman came up to us and wanted to know what we thought of Brno's big black cock.

There is a 500-year old vegetable market that is open just outside our apartment. The produce there is beautiful, and we took a tour through the labyrinth of cellars deep underground where the merchants historically stored their wares.

Flowers at the market.

Artifacts from the labyrinth.

Winemaking artifacts.

Torture helmets.

More market goodness.

F cancer.

The town is beautiful, with all sorts of eras of art & architecture bumping up against one another.

How many architectural styles are in this photo?

After our walkabout, we returned for a brief siesta. I facetimed with S&H, and then we headed to the theatre for our last performance of this tour.  This one was our strongest.  Everything came together, and we had a great run and talkback!

After the performance and quick strike, the company went out to an Italian dinner to celebrate the end of the tour!

On Saturday morning, I went out early to pick up breakfast for the folks.  Then, E and I took a short train from Brno to Vienna

In Vienna, we said goodbye to each other and headed our separate ways.  I checked in at the hotel and then headed over to the offices of Amadeus Audio, an immersive audio firm that I've been wanting to learn more about.  Fabio, one of their leaders, spent the afternoon with me, demoing their system and showing me some stuff they've been working on.

Then, back to the flat for a short siesta before wandering town.

Roman ruins in the foreground!

This church is sooooo biiiig!

Love is love.

I visited a bunch of Atlas Obscura sights just to find reasons to move around the area.  The main drag is full of the typical high-end stuff - Prada, Coach, Tiffany, but the side streets are full of cool discoveries!  I found two iron bars that were used centuries ago to measure cloth, a 400-year old tree studded with nails, and a baroque monument to the plague.  

Tired now.  Bed soon. More exploring tomorrow!

Days 5 & 6: Krakow and Brno

Yesterday morning we got up early after the performance in Olomouc and hit the road by 8am.  The morning was cool and breezy as we zipped through the countryside from Czechia to Poland.  We rolled into Krakow around noon and headed straight for the theatre.  Teatr Bez is in a 400-year old building that hosts a wide range of plays (the ropes tied to the rafters are from a play based on a Jules Verne text).  It’s a lovely cozy space that feels more like an experimental college space than a community or professional theatre.  It was definitely the least-equipped of our venues, but the folks at the venue were generous and helpful.  I sat on a bench at the back of the venue, with my script on the floor in front of me, the mixing console (an old Behringer) on my left, and my laptop running QLab on my right.

After I finished the load-in, I got a chance to wander town a bit before we did a short spacing rehearsal. 

After spacing, we went to the lodging for to move in and short siesta.  Then, back to the venue for the show.  The show was good; we had a small audience, but they definitely enjoyed the show!

After, we loaded-out and then met up with a few friends at a Polish restaurant in Krakow. After we ate pierogi, one of our audience friends took us to visit a local music hall in the basement of an old building.  So beautiful!

The next morning we had to make a 9pm taillights, so I grabbed a quick bite at the local Massolit (shout-out to my Bulgakov fans what what).  We headed out of Krakow, past Olomouc, and along to Brno, where Studio Marta is our next presenter.  

It was raining by the time we got to Brno, but the load-in was quick and we were soon on our way!  We have a strong team of crew and a nice venue, and we spent the day loading in and getting ready for a staging rehearsal.  Before the staging, L and I got a chance to wander town a bit.

Staging was fine, and we ended in time for L and I to get back to the lodging to teach our classes.  Tomorrow we have a bit more free time and will explore the city!

 

Day 4 - performance #1 in Olomouc

 B, L, and I all got up this morning and were at the theatre by 8am ish.  After walking over ten miles yesterday, I was feeling lots of pain (still not over my back injury), so I was in rough shape.  Weird hurts in my hips and back, slow walking.

We got to the theatre, which is on the top floor of one of the university buildings here in Olomouc.  Two local guys (not sure if they were students or not) helped us out with setting up for the theatre.  No lights were hung, there was no projector, etc.  There were speakers that were biamped, but only had amp channels run to one of their drivers. It took us a while to get everything worked out, but we finally did it successfully. 

The other three showed up at around 2 to get into mics and rehearse.  We did a stumble through at around 3, and then took time to have a siesta and do notes.  L and I both needed to rest.

The show went off very well!  No major hiccups, and the audience (around 70 students, faculty, and guest artists) seemed to appreciate it.  There were lots of questions from the audience afterwards, including a bunch for music.

Once the house cleared after the talkback, we struck our stuff and headed back to the hotel.  Some of us may have been inclined to stay out, but with an early morning tomorrow, we all needed to get our rest. Tomorrow we drive 3 hours to Krakow and load-in/perform at a theatre about which we know almost nothing!

Not a lot of time in public today, so fewer photos.  

A side note - the food in the past few days has to be some of the most consistently excellent food I've ever eaten.  Small cafes, teeny sandwich shops, etc.  Really excellent.  Who knew!

A still from tonight's performance.

Who will have the last slice of Pear-Cardamom Galette?

No idea what this is, but it looks amazing!

Eastern Europe: Days 1-3: getting to Olomouc

Day 1

It's time to start another trip, this one to Eastern Europe to bring an experimental theatre I helped create to a small tour through the Czech Republic!

Today is a Saturday.  Last Sunday I threw my back out and wasn't sure that I'd be able to make the trip.  As recently as Tuesday I was using a walker to get around the house.  I've seen three different doctors who have helped me try to get ready to make this trip.  I'm still not feeling 100%, but I feel well enough to give it a shot.  So, I packed my bags, a back brace, a lumbar support bracket, and headed to LA to begin my flight.  

My flight from LAX to Amsterdam was uneventful.  Bringing a bunch of wireless microphone equipment through checked security definitely triggered the additional screening, but it wasn't a hardship and by the time I got on the plane, everything was fine.  The lumbar support bracket worked like a dream, and because I had booked an aisle seat, I was able to stand up on occasion to move around.

Day 2

We landed in Amsterdam on time, and I had a few hours to kill before my flight to Prague.  I used the KLM lounge, which let me sit down, stretch out, and not have to worry so much about my bags.  The flight to Prague was easy, and once I got to Prague, I met up with B, G, and K for the 3 hour drive to Olomouc.  L was supposed to have met us, but he got caught in some travel snafus and wasn't able to come in until much later.

The drive through the Czech countryside was lovely.  Rolling hills, bits of creativity along the way (a sculpture of cars and shipping containers, a trio of silos painted to resemble  wooden soldiers).  The most exciting moment was when we saw that an ambulance helicopter had landed on the other side of the road to transport someone who was in a traffic accident.

We got to Olomouc in the early evening, and met E (who had taken a bus from Vienna).  B, G, and K turned in for the night while E and I grabbed Czech food at a traditional restaurant. 

Day 3

I woke at 4.30, jet-lagged.  I rolled over to check my phone and learned that H had broken her wrist while I was sleeping.  I quickly facetimed them and got to chat before H turned out the light.  

I was up, so I read, got cleaned up, build the RF rack (which I had to disassemble for transport), and got some work done.  At 11, everyone but B (who was recovering from injury and also had to prepare a talk) met to walk into town.  We spent the afternoon wandering through the city center, poking our heads in churches, looking at public art, and grabbing refreshments.  In the shade it was cool, but the sun was pretty intense.

Late in the afternoon, we met B for his talk.  K, E, & G listened to the talk, while L and I snoozed in the hallway.  After the talk, we went to check out the venue, and I passed a poster for our show!

Then, D (our faculty host at the U) took us for another Czech dinner, where we ordered WAY too much delicious food. I had duck with purple sauerkraut, potato dumpling, and a fresh tomato and cucumber salad (and a homebrew beer). No one ate all their food, but it was delicious!

Fed and tired, we took cars back to the hotel and settled in for a quiet night before we head to the theatre tomorrow morning!