So I am back - sort of. Listening to all the noise in my head when I exhale. Well, I've always been easily amused and according to the Internet it is not a concern unless you're wheezing on the inhale too. I am not nor does it hurt to breathe so I am eschewing antibiotics at the moment and will bore you no more with the state of my health.
I was incommunicado on Thursday, May 5th when the ship stopped first in Melk, Austria, and most took a morning tour of the Abbey. It is 900 years old and was fortified by the Benedictines after they got the palace from Leopoldo II of Bamburg. It contains 80,000 medieval manuscripts as well as some remaining monks.
In the afternoon we landed at Krems but that was another town I enjoyed from my cabin. Austria has a population of more than 8 million people and is about the size of Maine. It has a checkered past since it threw in its lot with Germany in WWII and we know how that turned out.
Friday I bucked up for the walking excursion in old town Vienna. How could I not? Not at my liveliest but after the tour there was down time during which I sat on a stone bench outside St. Stephen's Cathedral. Several German ladies spoke to me and I nodded and smiled. I would catch a word or two but they seemed to lose interest when they found out no conversation would be forthcoming. Then a young Asian man sat down with a guide book in English and I ended up talking with him for 20 minutes. He was traveling alone - from the Philippines but working as a graphic artist in Dubai - and was going to several countries in Europe. He was traveling by bus and if the trip was later in the day, he slept on the bus, saving himself the price of a hotel. Ah youth.
Vienna is a lovely city despite being almost destroyed during WWII (80percent.) The Viennese have much pride in the fact that Mozart lived here the last 10 years of his life and created some of his most famous operas during that time. And there is Strauss, the Waltz King. When our tour director, Petra, asked the group who could waltz, Ron and I were pleased to be able to say, of course! Those well-rounded educations of yesteryear when we learned to read music and sing and were taught the basic ball room dances and even square dancing.
After the morning tour I made my way to the cabin, wondering how I would feel later that evening when we were to leave for The Vienna Residence Orchestra and our much-anticipated evening concert. I took a long nap and by skipping dinner I reserved enough strength to attend the concert and to enjoy it thoroughly. The first half was devoted to Mozart and included ballet performances and arias. After a brief intermission, we heard Johann Strauss marches and of course the incomparable waltzes. It was wonderful. That afternoon, Jackie and Larry had seen the Vienna Boys Choir which they could not say enough about. A very good day for music lovers.
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