we stepped out of a U-bahn station into central Vienna today to the sound of bells from Stephansdom. the cathedral itself is under construction of some variety, so it's covered in scaffolding and hung with tarps illustrated to look like the building underneath, but that didn't really matter at that moment.

things we learned today, in no particular order:

1. Corpus Christi is a national holiday in Austria, so many businesses open late or do not open at all. also, today is Corpus Christi.
2. Viennese public transit operates on an honour system for payment.
3. no matter how randomly we think we are wandering, we will somehow always end up back at the opera house.
4. it is very difficult to make it through the entirety of Wagner's Götterdämerung with standing-room tickets. it is in fact something of an accomplishment to make it to the end of the first act.

It's not entirely legitimate to consume three scoops of ice cream just because you stood for two hours in a sweaty mass of people at the Staatsoper. It just happens sometimes, perhaps as a reward for so enjoying a city even as it rains on you. We went to the "touristy" Leopold Museum. Rudolf Leopold's favourite artist is/was Egon Schiele, who was a student of Klimt. Actually, the ink sketch of Klimt's portrait that is maybe the most well-known was drawn by Schiele. He died in 1918 of the Spanish flu at the age of 28 and somehow managed to be rather prolific. He painted a lot of nudes, many of which are posed in revealing ways, making their expression more poignant. My favourites, however, were the paintings of houses and streets. They all involve laundry of some sort. For some reason, this makes me believe in Schiele's vision of the world. Now that we're still wired on sugar, more stargazing is needed.

(I think we'll stop mentioning who wrote what. Alyssa doesn't capitalize the beginnings of sentences - some English B.A. tradition, no doubt. I do.)