Got up at 5:50am…voluntarily.It was so I could catch the 7:15 to Budapest. My folks get up early anyway (don’t know where they get it from), and we had a
little breakfast at McDonald’s before I took the tram to Sudbahnhof. Got to Keleti, walked all the way to Ferenciek tere, stopping at all the antique stores
along the way and then the map stores near the museum, but nothing worth bothering with. Headed out for Esceri, and though it was Saturday morning, was a bit
disappointed in the stuff on offer…the machine gun guy wasn’t even there! Only found a couple of theotokos (which I had promised David I’d get him for
Christmas), none of which were impressive, and all of which were expensive, even after haggling on the one I thought about getting. But I did manage to get
something which I think he’ll like. 🙂
While wandering around, I was approached by a group of women from Vienna who were on a bachelorette trip. They asked me to pick from a list on the back of the
bride-to-be’s t-shirt (which was in Hungarian) and to perform that task, so I said why not. I ended up painting her toenails alternate colors while singing
“Maedchen oder Weibchen” (the songh was my choice). They\re supposed to send pics to me when they get back to Vienna.
Went back into town, but all my other book and map stores closed at 2pm, so I just wandered and ate ice cream. When I passed in front of the Opera House, I
realized that what I thought (when I was working in Buedapest) was Cyrillic writing on the front was actually Greek, and the two plaques were labels naming two
of the Muses, Erato and Terpsichore.
Took the train back to Vienna, and made it back to the hotel just in time to get cleaned up and over to the concert at the Musikverein. Nicholas Harnoncourt is
now my favorite conductor. And I wish I had a twentieth of Thomas Hampson’s ability. Absolutely incredible.
Think I’ll start a dangerous precedent and go to sleep early two nights running.