We arrived in Vienna by train this afternoon. The past couple days in Budapest we walked and saw more of the sights, including the House of Terror, a museum in the building which was first the headquarters of the Arrow Cross party (Hungarian Nazis) and subsequently the AVH, the secret police under communism. The museum is fairly new (2002) and quite slick, but seemed a bit thin on content at some points, focusing more on presentation. It was quite controversial when it opened, because a substantial sum was put into by the government, which opened it during the 2002 ministerial election campaign. It was seen as a political stunt by the incumbent Nationalist prime minister to discredit the Socialist party, his primary opponents, which includes many former Communist party members. He lost anyway, however.
Tuesday night, we attended an evening of Bartok (the famous Hungarian composer) at the State Opera house, an opera theatre with an incredibly lavish and ornate 19th century interior. Tickets were approximately $3.50 and the programme consisted of two ballets (The Wooden Prince and The Miraculous Mandarin) followed by an operetta (Bluebeard’s Castle). The Wooden Prince was the best performance of the three and was what I’ve always imagined ballet should be; it was excellent. Speaking of ballet, I don’t know if I mentioned it, but for our last night in Bucharest we went to the opera as well, although it turned out to be a ballet performance. It was decent, but the performance wasn’t as classical as The Wooden Prince and didn’t quite work. Additionally, the theatre was entirely booked out — so they sold us tickets to sit on the stairs in the balcony! I think they cost roughly $1, but I couldn’t believe that they actually sold tickets for the stairs. Anyway, it’s been great to be able to see some high quality opera and ballet for dirt cheap. Wednesday night we tried to go see some jazz in Budapest, but the first place we went to was a boat on the Danube and was closed because of the high waters. The second place we had recommended to us we just plain couldn’t find, so that was a washout. Instead we went to a bar and relaxed for a little while, before walking a loooong ways home.
The train today was pretty interesting because we passed by a lot of remnants of the flooding. The Danube was back within its banks to our right, but to our left could be seen fields still covered in water. After finding our hostel and finding lunch this afternoon, Kody and Brian were tired from going to sleep late and getting up early, so we napped until 7 and then went out for dinner. I understand that they’re tired and that this is a vacation, so we should be able to rest, but I’m pretty annoyed that we’ve lost an entire day in Vienna — I have this one opportunity to see as much as I can and I’d rather sleep at night so I can make use of the day. Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing the couple Habsburg palaces in Vienna starting tomorrow, as well as the Freud museum. We’re also hoping to be able to see a classical music concert for about 5 euros and also hopefully the Vienna Boys Choir (who perform once a week on Sunday morning).