make sure there was a room for us there. That wasn't a problem either. That out of the way, we moved into more POST-GUFF serious museum-going mood. 13 January 1982 Our major stop in the morning was the Stadt Wien Historiches Museum. This reminded me Now it was time for serious tourism. of the part of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam Several important things happened this day. which had dealt with the history of the Dutch, The first was that we decided, finally, that we but was far more firmly focused on the life and were not going to Florence from Vienna, and evolution of a city. What worked particularly that instead we would go back to Paris, to which well here and wasn't really tried in Amsterdam I had now become addicted. Whatever the was the integration of ‘formal’ art into the attractions of Paris itself might have been, they historical panorama. Another difference was were magnified by just how comfortable we felt that the exhibitions here worked steadily together in Vienna. We had now felt through to the twentieth century, not stopping comfortably at home in two very different cities, arbitrarily some hundreds of years ago. and perhaps it was time to explore this feeling This was really the place we should have further, rather than going on to Florence, which visited first, to give us the long view of the though we knew and loved it well, had not had history of the city, but it really was a case of the same effect on us as Paris and Vienna. better late than never. (Besides, we were planning to go to Milan and Then we walked back towards the Danube Rome as well on this trip...) and towards the Prater gardens, not so much As we hadn't yet booked anywhere to stay in for what we might experience in there but Florence there was no need for any action there, rather just to walk through that part of Vienna. but Jennifer did have to ring the Hotel du Lys to That's the sort of thing tourists can really ‘afford’ to do. Stranger in Stranger Lands Chapter 7 2 Walking back through narrow streets I carefully and then pointed out that I had not noticed a post office and decided to mail some completed one section on one form. Trying to of our collected goodies back to Australia; they read upside-down, I thought I had worked out had been piling up steadily as we travelled what I had omitted, but no, I was wrong. What around, and now was the time to reduce the did he want me to fill in? I was puzzled. The load. clerk became insistent: ‘städt? städt!’ he said. Unthinkingly, I had picked the post office in What a pity it is that ‘städt’ in German sounds Vienna, if not in the world, Otto Wagner's like ‘state’ in English! Eventually I cottoned Postal Savings Bank. My excuse for not onto what was needed, and blurted out ‘St. recognising it was that it was undergoing a Kilda’ and wrote it down. The mail got to St major facelift, both externally and internally, Kilda, despite my efforts to send it somewhere and that we approached it from one side. else, and we stumbled outside, walked a I bought a posting package and sat down to hundred metres or so and then looked back: fill out the associated forms, surrounded by ‘Wait a minute’ I said ‘that's the Post Office’, scaffolding. Filling out the three forms which of course it was, except that you couldn't necessary for posting large parcels to Australia really appreciate anything other than the bulk gave me no cause for alarm, because I had been and weight of Wagner's conception because of trained by an expert; back in Langen Horst the scaffolding. It was Alexander's Victory all Grimm had worked with me as I filled in the over again. four forms necessary for sending large parcels In the afternoon, inspired by this ‘discovery’, from West Germany, and I figured this had to we thought we would look in on the Sezession be a little easier, even without Horst to oversee building, back near the Stadt Wien Historiches my work. Museum. But no, it was closed. This seemed I proudly presented the completed forms very much like a plot to lure us back to Vienna and parcel to a clerk, who studied them at some later time. Stranger in Stranger Lands Chapter 7 3 You can spend a long time doing this emphasising zwei. He came back with one walking- around stuff, and it was late afternoon volume. by the time we were getting back towards the I went over my request, again, having to Pension Nossek. Having unloaded book make clear that no, there was nothing wrong purchases from several countries on an with the book he had brought and, no, don't put unsuspecting Post Office, we were now free to it back but there's another book I want as well do some more buying, which is exactly what with the same title (but a subtle II on the cover happened, even if it wasn't exactly intended. as well), and I really want both books, not one It was becoming dark as we walked past this rather than the other. particular bookshop and, since there was no Eventually everything went okay. The man great hurry, we window-shopped quite at the cash register explained that it was the carefully. And that's where I found what I attendant's first day on the job. I guess that hadn't exactly been looking for, but which I was between us we didn't do too bad a job, in that very pleased to see far up in the left-hand case. corner of one window: the two volumes of That night it was back to the Städtbeisel for Stanislaw Lem's Fantasie und Futurologie in dinner, where I managed to evoke another splendid German hardcovers. And the price negative reaction from a Viennese citizen. wasn't too bad either. I didn't think my request was at all Into the shop. An attendant comes to help. extraordinary, but the waiter certainly did: ‘mit Now here's how things can start to go spinat?!’ he almost shouted, and I, thinking wrong. You can always buy things in a shop in there was nothing wrong with having a side dish any country if you can pick them up and give of spinach with goulash emphatically replied, them to an attendant. but this I couldn't do. So I ‘ja, mit spinat’. At least I got what I wanted, explained in pidgin German what I wanted, again, even though there was a lot of headshaking. Stranger in Stranger Lands Chapter 7 4 14 January 1982 That got us talking about art, and led quite The next day was decidedly peculiar, at least in naturally to the Alte Pinakothek and how the sense that some of it was unexpected. wonderful that was. By the end of the afternoon This was the day we decided to visit a less I was ready to plan an expedition to take Hanna well-known gallery; at the Palais Liechtenstein to Munich to see the galleries there. there was an exhibition of modern American But we had other matters to attend to. Franz Art, and we felt like being a bit adventurous. We had correctly sensed that we had enjoyed our went there by subway mid-morning, and spent night out with him on our previous journey, and a pleasant two hours roving over a two-storey so had arranged for us all to go out to the building of some antiquity which was housing a Antiquitätskeller again, with Hanna's mother very well-laid out collection of American doing the baby-sitting. paintings. There wasn't any individual work This evening was more relaxed than the which was outstandingly exciting, but looking at meal in 1979. We had plenty to talk about based Andy Warhol's work in Vienna is quaint — or on what had happened in the few years since we perhaps odd. Anyway, it was a couple of hours had last seen one another and had extensive well spent. opportunities to talk. The food was just as we That afternoon was our return visit to the had remembered it, and the pancakes just as Rottensteiners’. Whereas previously I had spent excessively rich. Even now I worry about how my time talking to Franz, the visit to the Palais many calories were consumed that night. Lichtenstein had got me going and I spent the Fortunately for all of us we were able to late afternoon talking to Hanna; completely make it an early evening; the Rottensteiners ignoring the fact that she had a new-born child because of their child and Jennifer and I as a main interest, I raved about how exciting because, although we didn't know it at the time, the exhibition at the Palais Lichtenstein was. we had a very full day ahead of us. Stranger in Stranger Lands Chapter 7 5 15 January 1982 when we had not hurried, some of the This was our last full day in Vienna. afternoons we had rested rather than get on We had found the Pension Nossek to be a with the business of being tourists. It was all wonderful base to work from. In the heart of rather frustrating. But it did mean we planned carefully, even if we had to leave out some places we would have liked to visit.