Sunday 19 May 2013

Musical Souvenirs from Vienna.

Although a) I was nearly the only non-native Czech speaker participating in the trip, b) I have already been in Vienna and c) my best friend wasn’t that excited about the trip as me and stayed in Prague, despite all these “buts,” last weekend was absolutely amazing!

What comes to your mind when mentioning the capital of Austria? Here are some of my ideas. Firstly, the ice-cream. Delicious and rather expensive pleasure, I might say. Secondly, the graffiti – those amazing drawings, painted on the walls located astride the Danube. Thanks to them now I’m aware of the fact that “One frog a day keeps a doctor away.” And thirdly - Beyoncé. Seriously, those bikini commercials were everywhere!

Well, in earnest I must mention one of the city’s symbols, which is St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Stephansplatz - one of the central metro stations - and from now I should probably add here the place we visited - the museum of sound and music opened in 2000. It’s a great place, indeed for anyone who studies or is simply interested in phonetics and phonology.

There is an endless list of things you can do in the Haus der Musik. You can imagine yourself as a conductor, define the limits of your hearing, see how the whole process of it works and even listen to the modern techno covers of classical works and enjoy it – of course, it depends on your personal tastes for music. As for me, I wish I could stay at the “techno-room” all day.

Since I always can’t help buying anything at the souvenir shops, there was no exception this time. My purchase is a little “music-box” with an image of St. Stephen’s Cathedral. A few turns and a nice melody is produced. That little thing would remind me of these sunny days at the beginning of May, when I learned many interesting things (unfortunately, most of them I already managed to forget) and had a fun time

 Photo credit: Eliška Černá