Vienna was a very beautiful city. It has an atmosphere about it- an effortless cool. Everybody was going about their daily lives with a sense of independence or happiness or something. Something very alluring. But there was no conceit, the people were just cool. effortlessly.
I spent some time down at the museum quarter on the first day, went to see the collection at the MUMOK. It was a well curated collection of early modernist pieces stretching through to the 50's (i think). Most impressive was the large collection of sculptures which integrated into the collection in a way i haven't really seen before. I guess a lot of galleries focus on paintings (particularly with modern works, often there is a bit more going on in the PoMo area). A lot of the experimentation with form and representation of the human form in early modernism was through sculpture as well as painting. It was interesting to see the aesthetic correspond between the two mediums.
The next day i went on a tour called "vienna underground". When i first read the title i was kind of hoping it was going to be a tour of the jewish ghetto punk scene or something "discover Vienna's degenerates". Instead it turned out to be a tour of the vast underground cellar network. because of the limited amount of space in the centre of vienna people started to build underneath their houses. Generally speaking every building has as many storeys under it as it does above ground. A lot of these cellars are connected and so there is a vast underground network of rooms under the city. Of course, since the war a lot of them have been filled with rubble and for security reasons many pathways have ben blocked up. back in the day it was sometimes easier to get around underground than it was to deal with traffic up on the road. Also, it was an excellent way for crims to get around! apparently some film was made about it.
We also went into the crypt beneath St Michels church. In the crypt there were over 1000 bodies. At one point people had been burried in shallow, caskettless graves in the square between the church and the royal palace but when it rained their remains becan sticking out of the ground. the church decided to relocate the remains under the church at which point rich people decided that they too wanted to R.I.P. in the church that was so close to the palace and the royal family. The church built crypts for families accessible Indiana Jones style through stone covered trapdoors in the floor of the church. Later when the church was taken over by new dudes they decided to neaten things up downstairs. Now when you go down there there are several hundred caskets and the remaining bones that had been removed from the square have been stacked. A couple of people that were laid to rest near the air vents have become mummified naturally by the airflow and the church has left their caskets open so that the public can have a chance to see. Their idea for opening the crypt to the public is to make people more aware of death and to get them to think about it rather than putting it out of their minds.
This isn't a mummy hand. But it is made of real human hand bones joined together with wire and covered in leather. The tour guide thought that someone made it for a prank or halloween. 
I met up with LC and she took me to the open air markets. It was a wonderful market with heaps of fresh yummy food. We bought some yummy stuff and went down to a park to have a picnic feast.
Later we walked through the centre of Vienna and the Jewish quater and found a little bar to have a beer (its bigger than my head!).
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