first bike tour

I moved on from The Leopold and lucked into a vegan counter service restaurant called Venuss. This place was awesome. The prices, portions, and quality were all just right. I got up to the register and learned that they do a 60% discount after 6 pm! What a find. 

After my first round, I ran it back with another serving of Viennese dumplings, goulash, and beer. I enjoyed a nice chat with a German woman who was in Vienna for her work in hospitality. I declined her invitation for dessert at Venuss and instead went back to Veganista for two more scoops of their ice cream: one basil and one chocolate banana. I’m nothing if not a loyal customer.

I walked around Vienna’s neighborhoods as I made my way back to the hostel. On the way, I heard an irresistible sound: a basketball being dribbled. Like a dog on his favorite scent, I walked toward the noise. Things were hopping and bopping. Food vendors, a live Q&A session, and, most importantly, people were playing pickup basketball. 

I stopped and played for a few games. 3-on-3 with one Austrian and three recent American college grads from the UCs and UW. It felt good and terrible to play. Good because I was playing basketball again. Bad because Ireland’s complete lack of basketball has me way out of practice. Anyways, a few wins and many missed layups later and it was time to call it a night. 

Tomorrow it’s on to Bratislava, Slovakia where Abby and I will reunite for the weekend.

Up at 7 am for a full day at Leopold Museum!

I’ve been excited about this day for a while so after delicious baked goods from Omas Backstube, I walked to the museum and waited with anticipation for it to open. The Leopold is ground zero for the legal dispute over the Schiele painting Portrait of Wally, which is housed there. It also has the largest collection of Schiele paintings anywhere in the world.

What a fantastic museum. I saw art by artists I’ve never seen or paid attention to before such as Max Oppenheimer, Albert Birkle, Rudolf Wacker, Oskar Kokoschka, Olga Wisinger-Florian, Edmund Kalb, Peter Altenberg, Richard Englander, Hans Kelsen, Rosa Mayreder, Martin Buber, Käthe Leichter, and Koloman Moser.

I wrote observations in my journal on what I saw but I’ll spare you most them. 

By the time I finished the Edmund Kalb exhibition it was 12:36 pm and time for lunch so I walked up to the museum restaurant on Floor 2. First order of business: espresso. Second? A tofu Japanese curry, what else? 

After lunch, it was back to the art. I’d saved the best for last. I felt trepidatious walking to the Schiele rooms, as though I needed the art’s approval instead of the other way around. I savored every second in these rooms and looked through each at least twice. 

As the meandering looks from the museum staff turned from bored to hostile I sensed that The Leopold was closing. ‘I don’t want this to be over,’ I thought. I felt at once satisfied and melancholic. Until yesterday, I had only seen one-off pieces of Schiele’s work. A couple of paintings at the Neue Galerie in New York and that was about it. Then in just two afternoons, I’d seen almost all of his publicly exhibited work, from years of anticipation to completion in under 48 hours. It was an experience I won’t soon forget. Schiele was 28 years old when he died—my age now—and he painted enough high-quality art to reverberate across generations and bring joy to people like me.

I’ll treasure my day at The Leopold for as long as I remember it.

Today’s Miscellany