14.5.2000 This is Sunday which means mass will be held with the VIENNA BOYS CHOIR. Susan, Lyndee and I get there a half hour early and are wedged into the free standing-room-only aisle between the two rows of church benches.

You have to pay to sit.

If you expect to see the choir, you’re mistaken, because the boys are up above in the balcony, looking towards the front of the church like everyone else. Outside in the foyer, there’s a TV showing the choir, so you’d get the best of both worlds, looking in through the double doors into the church and looking up at the TV. Susan and Lyndee left for Munich after mass. Their whirlwind schedule allowed only one night in Vienna. I spent the rest of the day looking for signs of Klimt.

The SECESSION BUILDING was denounced as being ugly when it was first built. The secessionist movement at the turn of the century was a reaction against the dominance of classicist techniques. Leading the charge was Gustav Klimt who designed the details in the Secession Building. Klimt’s Beethoven’s Frieze, based on Beethoven’s Fifth (?) Symphony, is in the basement of the building. Originally meant as a temporary exhibit, to be destroyed after a year, the frieze was preserved and moved to and from the Secession Building several times.

Can someone explain to me how the frieze relates to Beethoven?

Whoosh. Right over my head.

SCHLOSS BELVEDERE is home to the Osterreichische Galerie which houses Klimt’s most famous works as well as several painting by Schiele. In real life, Klimt’s paintings don’t seem to stand out as you’d imagine them. They are aesthetic and the result of amazing technical skill. Where’s the artistry? This is where The Kiss is on display behind protective glass. Schiele’s work was also a little of a let down, being less nervous and lacking a bit of the energy he is famous for.

I meet Steve from Canada (tons of these Northerners travel) when I return to the Hostel and we decide to find a bar or pub. There’s nothing around Westbahnhof so we take the U into STEPHENSPLATZ and wander around.

The city is dead and it’s 22:00.

Didn’t pass by a single bar. We figure there’s got to be something around there, it’s the center of town.

“How about down this alley? It looks promising… Ah, forgehdaboudit.”

We head back to the Hostel and look in the guidebook. Yup, nightlife is nonexistent in Vienna, except for the BERMUDA TRIANGLE, which is exactly down the alley we passed up. We took the U back there. I still wouldn’t call the Bermuda Triangle a happening place. It’s low key and people start leaving a little past midnight.