As a child in junior school, every week we went for music classes. We would run to the music room for our lessons, hang our hats on the hooks outside and race inside the room. Some days our teacher would ask us to pick a musical instrument from a box, the options were a triangle, a tambourine, there must have been other things, but I would pick either one of those. When we weren’t playing our instruments as she directed us, our teacher would sit at the piano and play a snippet of a something and ask us to guess the title and the composer. I remember her playing ‘The Blue Danube by Johan Strauss’, it sounded so fancy and so elegant. If you asked me to guess any composers of classical music right now, I couldn’t do it for the life of me, but as a child it was the most straightforward thing.
Fast forward, many years later, I had a chance to go to Vienna. The only thing I wanted to do there was to sit along the Danube River, that had inspired the composition of ‘The Blue Danube’. I mentioned wanting to see the river and my tour guide on the one tour I went on didn’t understand my fascination seeing that according to him, there was much more to see and do in the city center. There was no way he would understand why this was so important to me. I got my wish and ventured out alone. It was a little chilly as it was Fall, but I sat on the patio of a cute little restaurant overlooking the Danube River sipping tea and having pancakes. It was perfect, never would I ever have imagined that I’d go to Austria, let alone see the infamous Danube River. I wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self that I would have this experience and it would be perfect.
Despite The Danube River being the highlight of this trip, I also knew that Vienna was the birthplace of many great musicians, such as Beethoven and Mozart (again thanks to those music classes). Another special moment for me was visiting the Haus der Musik which is the first museum of sound and music in Austria. Such a beautiful place with instruments I fell in love with and wished I could play. I was delighted to see that they had sheet music from Johan Strauss on display.
As with most of my trips, I always encounter the unexpected. On this occasion, I stumbled across a Halloween parade at an amusement park called Prater close to my hotel. That was the first time I realized how much of a big deal Halloween was and how so many people took it so seriously. Initially I was a little weary, trying to figure out what was going on, but then settled in and enjoyed the parade and admired the great costumes.
As with any European city, there’s a palace which is always advertised as a ‘must see tourist attraction’ and, in this case, it was the Schönbrunn Palace. The grounds and the palace rooms were breathtaking and it was said to have been home to many emperors. Truly great experience, though some of the marble statues had very questionable poses.
On reflection, as I am listening to ‘The Blue Danube’ playing in the background as I type, I don’t think I will visit Vienna again, but I can most definitely attribute my love for classical music to this very beautiful sonnet.
