Maribor and Koper, Slovenia: May 21-22, 2018 - Mountains and Coast

In the afternoon, we crossed the Slovenian border to a town called Maribor, which I suspect is a hub of skiing and other mountains sports in the winter.  In late May, though, it was much quieter - with one exception:

Crazy, rickety mountain coaster!  This view was right outside our hotel, which I'm assuming is a ski resort:

Hi friends!

While I think many people's intentions were to unpack and get some dinner first, when we realized the mountain ride closed at 7:00, and it was currently 6:30, we rushed out to make sure we had a turn.  On the ski lift up, we got a spectacular view of the town:

At the top, we loaded up into the scooty little cars and descended one by one:

They may look rickety, but let me just say: that is absolutely the case.  They do have a seatbelt, and one single godforsaken lever that allows for both going and stopping, but other than that, the only possible safety precaution you can utilize is called "hold onto your butts".  I wanted to just drop the lever and fly down, but on the first couple of turns it really felt like I might be ejected from the car, so I employed the brakes just a tad.

Almost everyone in the group took part, including...

...who was just about the fastest one of us all.

After all that thrill and excitement, it was time to eat.  With the bus drivers off for the night and no real public transportation in this sleepy mountain town, it was on us to trek down from the resort to see what there was to see.  Not far down, we found an Italian restaurant, which was good enough for a group of us who chose to eat there with a few bottles of wine for the table.  And another after, found at a convenience store.  That night was spent on the balcony of the room, in dialogue with other pockets of Cardinals on their own balconies, hanging out of their windows, or in the patio area down below.

The next morning we were on the bus again, to finish our trek to the true destination of this leg of the journey, Koper.  Koper is where we had a concert scheduled, but the drive would have been too long of a haul for one day, so we'd split it in half with the stop in Maribor.  Koper is one of the few towns on the Slovenian coast, which, if you look at a map, is just a tiny little wedge jammed in between the coasts of Italy and Croatia, who really seem to have taken far more than their fair share.  So all that to say, being on the Slovenian coast is a rare thing indeed.

But the reason we had a concert in Koper is because of Ambrož Čopi, a Slovenian composer and conductor who had either commissioned or premiered a number of works by Slovenian composers that we were doing on our tour.  Dr. Hatteberg had gotten in touch with him and the two of them had arranged a joint concert together while we were in Europe.

We had only a partial check-in upon our arrival in Koper, as not all the rooms were ready.  We put our stuff down and made our way to a pub for lunch, which was for some reason extremely cheap.

Upon returning to the hotel, we sorted ourselves out into our actual rooms, then went as a group to the church for a sound check.  

As well as to meet Ambrož himself.  He didn't stay long, which was good actually - we needed to rehearse a surprise we had for him.  One of the grad students had found one of his pieces and we had quickly learned it in order to perform it as an encore at this concert.  The look of realization that spread over his face later that night as we jumped into it was worth the work - that and, it's a pretty nice piece.

After the rehearsal, we had a bit of time to eat and walk around the town.  First, we took a look around the square where the church resided:

Then the streets of Koper

Then the seaside at last:

We walked out onto the pier to get a better look at the surrounding city:

The view gave us a Naples-esque vibe.  Didn't know there was something like that in Slovenia.

We continued exploring:

Before heading back into town to find food.  The Slovenians had planned a dinner for us after the concert, but we all decided to get something small beforehand to tide us over.  We found this place:

With a bizarre menu:

It was pizza, by the way.  And it was delicious.

Then, the concert.  Ambrož's choir went first, then us:

Then we joined together to sing one of the Slovenian pieces in our rep, which they also knew, and of course, the surprise piece for Ambrož.  It was also a surprise for them.  They may or may not have been sight reading.  ANYWAY...

We then journeyed to the afterparty where they served us, you guessed it, pizza.  And also wine!  It's like they know us.  While that setup may sound like the makings of a raucous evening, it ended relatively early, and we all returned to the hotel in preparation for an early busride the next morning to our next destination, where the meat of the trip was to take place.

Salzburg and Vienna, Austria: May 17-21, 2018 - The Last Cardinal Trip Begins

So this is it for me.  I've had a great run in the Cardinal Singers here at U of L, and of course, one always wishes that the party could last past dawn, but at the same time, I am happy that my tenure with this group sits where it does.  I had a good three years.  It's time for it to be done.  And this trip, this last big Cardinal summer trip, was quite a way to go out.

While we technically started the trip on the 16th, we weren't in Europe until the 17th, so that's where this post will be branded.  The 16th, however, was quite a day, what with staying up until 3:30 AM from the day before in order to get on a bus to drive to Chicago to fly to Philly to fly to Munich to drive to Salzburg.  That's how this group travels.  Exhaustingly.

Once in Salzburg, we got off the bus, toured around on our own and with the group, and ate:

Our first meal in Austria?  Italian.

We stole in and out of a number of churches, several of which we returned to after reuniting with the group to sing in, as is our custom:

The singing was a bit strained as we were all still tried from the trip over.  I particularly wasn't in the best shape; I seemed to have some or another type of ailment at all points during this trip.  First it was a scratchy throat that began the night I stayed up to catch the bus to Chicago, then once that subsided I ached especially in my feet from walking way more than usual, then there was the bad sunburn in Zadar, then back to a quasi-sickness that lasted through the plane ride home.  BUT ANYWAY.  ENOUGH COMPLAINING.

After the churches, we climbed partway up the hill to the Burg itself:

But due to time, price, and rainy weather, we decided to put off the full walk up until the following morning.

Last we visited a graveyard that I think they said was in the Sound of Music?  It's been awhile since I've seen that film, so

With that, we walked back to the bus, passing Mozart's birth house, like ya do.

We got ourselves checked in to the hostel, then mapped out our excursion for the night: the Augustiner Bräu, a Biergarten in Salzburg.  Here is a picture of what most all of us got there:

Big ol' ceramic mugs that they'll refill for 6 Euro a pop.  So all in all, a good night.  Until we left, that is - the trains getting back were confounded by the fact that one leg stopped running earlier than we anticipated.  We figured it out eventually, though.

The next morning, unfortunately, was an early one to get back to the Burg and get the tour in:

Went through with our audio guides that told us of the Archbishop who used a turnip as his official seal.  And other things.  But the really impressive part was when we reached the top at last and got a 360-degree view of Salzburg and the distant Alps:

I did not even realize such a view would part of the tour.  I thought it'd be all castle.  Glad I made the choice to walk that steep incline up that morning.

After the topside view, we made our way back down, seeing the organ, which was used as a castle-wide alarm clock back in the day:

This chapel, where we treated our fellow tourgoers with a rendition of Mandelssohn's Herr nun lässest du, much to their delight:

And I say that with all sincerity.  People usually seem to love when we spontaneously break out into song in these places.  I expect it to annoy, but that rarely seems to be the case.  Maybe it's the thwarting of expectations: what you thought was just a loud, abrasive American tour group turns out to be a top-level choir with some memorized rep they can bust out whenever they please.  It must be quite a surprise for people - definitely not something you expect to happen.

Parenthetically, I think it must be all the stranger when we, prior to singing in public, warm up in public.  All of sudden this group of college-age kids starts humming and doing siren noises in a cacophonous cloud, as though they've all come down with psychosis at the same time.  It's like a group of aliens who don't really get the nuances of human social interaction decided to do a flash mob.

Anyway, while Dr. Hatteberg talked with our new fans, the rest of us continued the exploration of the Burg:

For some reason, right before the exit, they had this display room of marionette puppets that were, I think, meant to be as creepy as possible:

Buh

Made our way down and out of the castle walls to ride a train car down the rest of the way:

Last but not least, right before loading the bus to depart Salzburg, we got some lunch at a sausage stand that wasn't quite open yet, but we convinced him to start serving food early.  Beer and brats at 11:30 in the morning: doesn't get much better than that.

Then it was off to Vienna!

We arrived around dinner time and set off to find some food:

It began to drizzle, so we were quick to dive into any open storefront that looked promising.  Unfortunately, this was not the restaurant area of town.  After many places that turned out to be only bars, or to only have outside seating, we settled on essentially the opposite of traditional Austrian food: a Chinese buffet.

It was actually delicious, and kind of amusing: finally a year we aren't going to China, and what do we end up eating?

We swung by a grocery store on the way back to get some cheap drinks - that night wasn't a night to go out, drink a lot, and stay up late, but a couple drinks in a pleasant atmosphere back at the hostel worked fine.  We actually ended up hanging with one of the front desk employees named Marcel for a bit, since he'd been so kind as to dry off some of the outdoor seating for us.

The next morning, we sang the Saturday Mass service at Stephansdom, or St. Stephen's Cathedral, in central Vienna.

We interjected some of our rep as service music, then once the service was over, sang an additional 30-or-so-minute concert, which interestingly garnered a significantly larger audience than the service itself.  I figured it'd be the opposite.

After quickly changing out of our nice clothes in a doorway, we stood in line for the catacombs tour below the cathedral.  No pictures allowed inside, sadly.  Just picture a lot of dark and skulls and you get the idea.

We then took a brief lunch break before finishing the tour of the cathedral in all three dimensions, by climbing the tower.  This one was not nearly as high as Ulm from last year, but it was still a pretty spectacular view:

Back at the bottom, a couple o' street goons performed some songs.  Things quickly got out of hand:

We then walked to the opera house, and watched Dr. Hatteberg attempt to haggle a good deal on group tickets for that night's show.  No success, sadly:

He then apparently gave some instruction to the people toward the front of the pack to take us to a garden of some kind where we were supposed to meet him, since he was going to check on ticket prices for a museum for the next day.  Thus began a very long journey that made most of us suspect we had no real idea of where we were going:

At last, we got to this park:

Only to have Dr. Hatteberg call Dong Kyu and tell him to turn us around and bring us back after about two minutes.  Why we were led on this wild goose chase, I do not know.

We got back to the hostel, washed up, changed, and reconvened back downstairs for the night.  I went along with a group who was planning to go to the amusement park, which several others had hyped up from the night before.  After a nice dinner along the way, we arrived:

The setup here was different than an American amusement park, as admission was free but each go on a ride cost money.  We first rode the ferris wheel, seeing all there was to see:

Then go-carts:

Where I bruised up my legs considerably.

Then finally this roller coaster:

You know I've never ridden a roller coaster drunk before, but lemme tell you, it is really somethin.

Made our way back via train:

And went to bed.

The next morning the group went to Schönbrunn palace:

This was the home of the Hapsburg family for some hundreds of years.  The palace itself was very nice, as one might expect, but what really took my breath away was after the tour, when we were able to explore the gardens out back:

I then ran up the back staircase to view the garden in full:

That was a sight.  Quite the view.

The remainder of our somewhat truncated time was spent seeing as much of this section of the garden as I could:

Wish we'd had more time there, but hey!  There were other grand royal gardens to get to.  Not kidding: the very next place we went was the Belvedere, where we eschewed the tour inside for an hour or so to wander the grounds:

After this, we had our own choice for what to do the rest of the day.  I went with a group to see the Leopold Museum: 

They were featuring a few special collections: one of Egon Schiele, one of Zoran Mušic, and a varied collection that had been owned by some benefactor who had donated it.  For the purposes of this blog, it's always felt a little pointless to just have a bunch of pictures of individual paintings, but I took some that give more of a general sense of what the museum was like:

And the courtyard outside:

There were some sections of the exhibits that I decidedly disliked, which made me glad in a way - it meant I had tastes of my own and could discern quality, at least to my own standard.

After that, we ate lunch at a cafe in the courtyard, then strolled over to that park we'd spent like two minutes at the day before to relax and sit in the sun:

Took a brief walk around the park itself:

As we were sitting, we noticed some troupes of people carrying colored sashes being conspicuously weird in the park around us:

They would stand silently in a spot, then maybe walk slowly in sync to another spot like 50 feet away, then strike a pose, then wave their sashes, then walk again, and at the end all met up at the railing and applauded one another for about 10 minutes.  It was some stupid performance art thing and I didn't like it.

By late afternoon, we departed the park and, with a stop along the way for gelato, ended our day by the river before returning to the hostel and heading to bed:

The next morning we were given one last spit of free time in old town Vienna, where the group I was with, at least, went back yet again to that park, but this time to - in part - take a stroll through the Butterfly House:

Where we were successful at making a few friends:

Then a bit of frisbee in the park:

Before seeing one last museum, the Albertina, which I enjoyed immensely more than the Leopold.  I know I said I don't usually take pictures of the paintings, but...well, I make the rules, so I can break 'em too:

Part of this museum was also just featuring the building itself, which had formerly been a palace:

And of course, there were some exhibits I once again did not like:

But overall it was a joy.  We stepped out of the Albertina:

And headed back to Stephansdom, where we ate a quick lunch of brats and beer before loading up the bus toward points south.