My Travel Adventures

V sobotu šla naše rodina na představení Čerta a Káči v Národním divadle. Šlo, jak se zdá, o jakési pravé sváteční představení, neb bylo celé divadlo téměř vyprodáno a mne tudíž hřál pocit, že se tomuto dílu dostává zaslouženého uznání. Z lóže jsem viděl krásně do orchestřiště a mohl jsem se proto soustředit na hudební stavbu díla, v níž jsem si nikdy předtím nevšiml tolik souvislostí s další tvorbou skladatele, než právě v tento den. Třeba pekelné tance z druhého dění by Dvořák býval mohl bez mrknutí oka zařadit mezi Slovanské tance. I půvabná scéna a veselé kostýmy podle návrhů Adolfa Borna ve mne zanechaly dojem, že tohoto představení si může zcela vážit a může jej zcela chápat pouze Čech či člověk, jenž se důkladně až pře-důkladně věnuje studiu české kultury. Na nezasvěceného cizince musela veškerá vizuální výprava působit jako nadpozemský výjev.

Having overstayed my visa in Taiwan, albeit for a paltry total of three days, I am not allowed to return to Taiwan on the terms of Taiwan’s waived visa arrangement with the Schengen. This was not an option for me in the autumn semester, as one’s stay on the basis of this arrangement cannot exceed ninety days, but I thought that I would be able to return without a visa for the winter and spring quarters. Being disallowed from taking advantage of this option threw a bit of a wrench in my plans, as it meant I would have to arrange for a visa not only during Christmas, but also during Easter, which of course is a difficult feat.

On our last day in Vienna, the gang finally acknowledged our disparate interests and split up. My mum and Niky went shopping while my dad, Naty, and I went to see the Gustav Klimt artworks at the Belvedere Palace. We found a lot more than Klimt, however, the major discovery of the day being that perhaps a quarter of the exposition on the second floor is the work of Czech painters. After a terrifying visit to Karlskirche, which included an elevator ride to the ceiling of the dome, we reunited at the  Schönbrunn Palace, once the summer residence of the Habsburg family.  It happens to house the oldest zoo in the world.  Our visit to Vienna ended in utter exhaustion at the palace  café , where we outlasted all other visitors and only left at nightfall.

We started our second day in Vienna with a visit to the Wiener Stadtpark, where we saw the statues of some of Vienna’s greats: Johann Strauss, Franz Schubert, Franz Lehár, and a group of penguins (I am not sure of the history behind this monument). We continued to Karlskirche, after which we ditched my sisters at a café and visited the Secession Building. To our disappointment, the only Klimt there was one single permanent installation and the remaining art was mostly contemporary.

The Wednesday after I arrived in Prague, my family set off again, this time on a somewhat shorter haul. We headed over to the Main Railway Station, where – being the bourgeois airline travellers we are – we got confused by very counterintuitive signage and almost missed our train. Just a minute before its departure, we sprinted on board of the locomotive heading for Vienna.

It is the last week of the semester and I can proudly say, with two hundred TWD in my wallet, that I have survived my credit card expiring. In other news, we were asked this week to submit feedback on the ICLP program. As I have voiced many of my complaints before to all of my teachers, I have no illusions that my responses can truly be considered anonymous, so I feel no compunction in sharing them here (yes, I realise the contradiction of nevertheless Americanising my spelling, which I do as a general rule to keep my responses as anonymous as possible):

Well, exams are finally over now. The great bogeyman with which our teachers scared us for more than two weeks was dispelled in the matter of two hours and fifteen minutes. Yet we have another week to spend at school before returning home for Christmas break. School is dead and we have killed it. What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent?