Vienna: slaughterer of umbrellas

So i went to Vienna this past weekend.
It was sooooo cold. Much colder than Tuscany. I went thru 2 umbrellas in 1 day. This place was so windy it battered and eventually destroyed both 5 euro umbrellas i bought - turned them right inside out and just massacred them to bits. And this situation was not an uncommon one. As i walked the streets that weekend, every public trash can was filled w/ umbrellas, some were just strewn about the nearby ground. So ya. Chicago has nothing on Vienna. I was bloody Mary Poppins.
Soooo much music! especially the "old stuff", which being a Music minor, i LOVED. we went to a performance of a Joseph Haydyn mass in St. Stephan's, Vienna's main church.
We went to mass on Sunday at the Hofburg Palace and saw the Vienna Boys Choir sing! very sweet. They are such little kids! And what amazing voices for 7 year olds.
Austrians are the complete opposite of Italians. They follow all the rules and are very introverted. But they are very kind and helpful, similar to Italians. Our flight to Vienna from Zurich was the quietest flight i have ever been to in my life! they played the Danube Waltz for background music to cut the silence. On an American or Italian flight you would never be able to hear that stuff!
We went Mozart's house. During Hitler's take over, the Nazi took over the house and proclaimed Mozart as a German composer. Even though he was obviously Austrian. We also went to the "Haus der Musik", Vienna's house of music, a sort of interactive museum about sound, music and famous composers. it was fascinating. They had Haydyn's stuffed parrot. yes - his actual pet parrot. it now rests in the museum. There were also sections on Beethoven, Mozart, Strauss and Mahler. I loved the Beethoven section. His brooding face and all his intense love affairs, and his lifestyle...so tumultous and interesting. In the 30 years that he lived in Vienna he lived in 68 different residences! Fickle. Also, because i have a crush on audio tours - especially in foreign countries - i learned he always fell in love w/ women he could never have. they were always above his rank, married, or both. He was very into revolutionary thinking and such and he wrote Erocia for Napoleon. But, when Napoleon declared himself Emperor, it is said that he ripped out the first page dedication he had written for Napoleon and was very pissed to say the least. feisty. Very interesting life.
There was a section on the Vienna Philharmonic symphony. When the Nazis took over, 6 of the Symphony's members were fired and sent off to concentration camps. One of the lead violinists was killed on the Eastern front. The Prater, survived the War. It is the big ferris wheel where u can see the entire city from.
Any city that can rise from ashes is good by me. And obviously, not only was Vienna effected, but all of Europe was. It made me think about what it would be like if my life was ruined by a war. Luckily, i don't live in a place like that and hopefully never will. To go from having everything to nothing - not even a national identity or worse, family. All gone in a split second.
Speaking of Hitler (yes, i know an odd intro for a sentence, but forgive me), i ate at a restauraunt that him and Napoleon ate at back in the day. It was from 1470 something. I had no schnitzel, but i had strudel. At dinner two older italian men sat next to me and megan and i tried my italian out. It was pretty good, so i was happy w/ that. me and megan sorta got lost - in the red light district. which was weird. we passed a sex shop. then, i thought it was weird when i saw a bunch of topless girls chilling in a window of what looked like a "fancy restaurant". But of course, like people, all cities have good and bad parts. and that's what makes them unique.