Sweating like a pig

-A was worried that I had disappeared from the face of the earth, but I'm still alive and kickin', albeit with little gusto as it is so hot. My plants are squeeing happily on the balcony - well, they would if they knew how - and growing so nicely now that they once again have enough sun and are receiving loving care on my part. I prefer indoors because trying to read about American film genres in the hothouse I call balcony would be just impossible.

I was pretty much willing to content myself with the heat we experienced last week when we visited Vienna and the temperature was about 25 degrees for the whole four days we stayed there. But no. The weather followed us here and gained momentum on the way. This 30 degrees is just ridiculous - it's not even summer proper, yet.

But back to Vienna, the city of horsies and horsie statues. (Legend has it that last time my mother was there she had arranged to rendezvous with a friend at the Hofburg horse statue. Little did they realise that the place is infested with them, so they ended up being at completely different sides of the Hofburg area. Take heed, my dear readers. When in Vienna, no rendezvous at horse statues). The aroma of the clippity-cloppers linger in the old city. Rather charming, although one might think otherwise.

We had a great stay and enough time to marvel at the beautiful city. On Friday, we visited the Staatsoper and had our own box where we could enjoy the most perfect performance of Don Giovanni. It was so perfect, in fact, that it verged on annoying. Why did Don Giovanni have to change his attire for every single scene? It came across rather show-offy. Why were all the singers world-class talents, including Isokoski as donna Elvira? Shouldn't one or two be enough? Why was the conductor so authentic with his conducting that he didn't use a baton but only his bare hands? (Add syphilis and a wig à la Salonen?) Why did they have a pianoforte instead of a harpsichord for the recitatives? I'll tell you: because they have the resources, the snotty Austrian bastards. Of course they do, since about half of the audience of the sold-out performance seemed to comprise tourists, judging by the number of cameras flashing before the overture started.

We had walks in the city, saw the Stephans Dom quite a few times, had a great, authentic Wiener Schnitzel (not the ones in the picture) at the oldest restaurant in town, the Gösser Bierklinik, dating back to the 1683, and acquired a taste for Austrian potato salad. And the beers were nice, having a rather distinct, sweet taste. Ottakringer, Gösser, Stiegl. It's all good.

There was Volkspark with lovely roses, Hofgarten with the famous statue of Mozart, and of course the MuseumsQuartier and the Leopold Museum, where I for the first time ever heard of the artist called Egon Schiele. Wow. See here, here and here. We went there to see some Klimt, but there were only a few paintings by him hanging on the walls. Becoming acquainted with Schiele really made up for it, though.

Hokey. Have to get back to the wonderful world of genres. Entrance exams, forestry and hair cut coming up next week. Maybe I'll go and have a look at some glasses, too. Time to get me a new pair, methinks.