Tombstones and Bleeding Hearts for Bratislava

We wish to inform you that since our last post, the weather has taken an extreme turn for the awesome-er. This has exponentially increased our ability to be tourists. So our obvious first tourist stop when the weather started getting cheery - was the cemetery. The Vienna central cemetery boasts some of the most famous (and infamous) corpses of all time. The main reason we were interested in going was to reconnect with our classy roots by paying respect to Beethoven. Obviously the best way to show respect for the dead is to physically embrace their headstone.



This is actually Ludwig's second tomb. His body was moved there in 1888 along with composer Mr Franz Schubert. I'll bet they're really glad that they are homies 4 life, and 4 death. They now share a quiet little corner of the cemetery with other classical cats like Brahms and Falco. But somehow I don't feel like Falco belongs in this group. What do you think?



Other notables in the cemetery include basically every statesman from Austria, as well as the professor who rejected Hitler's art school application thus forcing America to use nuclear weapons against Japan (non sequitur stolen from a Brian Regan joke). All in all it was a fun day thanks to some German friends who invited us along for the afternoon. Ze Germans were especially helpful when a nice Austrian tour guide began pointing out (in his native language) the final resting places of interesting people. Two months in this country really has not done wonders for our German language ability. We were glad to have willing translators.

Our gloomy adventures continued yesterday when we visited the former Soviet land of Slovakia. Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, is a mere 60km from Vienna. Even though we had already visited the former Soviet Union once (Czech Republic), this was the first time we really experienced the remnants of communism. The city is basically divided by the Danube river. On the west side of the river is the beautiful and historic city center as well as the old Bratislava castle. On the east side of the river is this:



It is Soviet bloc housing as far as the eye can see. You can get a better sense of what it looks like by opening the image in a new window and viewing it full size. It is interesting to think that a truly international city like Vienna was a mere 40 miles away from the edge of the iron curtain.

But to say that it was all gloom is inaccurate. It was actually a beautiful day outside and we spent time in the fun little historic district where people sell their crafts and play their accordions. What also made it a good time was the company. We went with a couple that we met here. Luckily one of them speaks fluent German. So between the four of us, nobody still had any idea how to read the Slovak street signs. You can see all the pictures from our Bratislava adventure here. Seeing these kinds of things really makes one glad to have been born into favorable conditions.

This week we are taking off for London! We hope to find out if Bob really is our uncle, and what the heck "bangers and mash" is. We were surprised to learn that, despite the general lack of religiosity in Europe, most countries here have a four-day weekend at Easter (Friday through Monday). So we are doing the American thing and turning that four-day weekend into a six-day one. We leave Wednesday for merry old London, return Easter Sunday, and then we'll obviously use Monday, the last day of our vacation, to blog our experiences and our feelings.

We're also taking suggestions on where to go next (after London), so send us a comment if you think you know what we should be seeing while we're here.

Finally, here is another random picture of Vienna: