library fun.

V.

I came, I saw, I fled. 

Ich kam, ich sah, ich flüchtete. 

well yes, normally the famous quote of julius caesar doesn't go exactly like that, I felt, however, that this altered version would describe my today's experience much better. as the title has already revealed to you- I was in the library. all day. well not all day, 6 hours. but that's gotta be enough, right? that's 6 hours of my life spent in a dark, stinky place where everybody's rude and pissed off that they have to be in here too, even though the sun is covering each and every spot of vienna's roofs! since I study art history and chose a seminar course with the title 'byzantine art' I headed to the byzantine studies library today to prepare my lecture on the topic 'byzantine church architecture in medieval serbia'. yes.. yes. I know what you guys think, please don't say it out loud. well, so after searching for a serbo-croat book (and no, I can't speak serbo-croat) which was my only hope since I found out, that in this book there was a french translation of the text (and no, I can't speak french that well, but at least better than serbo-croat) and only 2 other books out of the 30 on my list were written in german and english. so a french version would have saved my day! I looked for it, and looked and fought my way through the moth-eaten reams of byzantine art when finally I found the book I needed! with tears in my eyes and a swollen nose (due to my apparently allergic reaction to the smell of old and dusty books from the 14th century) I pulled the seemingly 400 pound catalogue out of the shelf (after of course having fallen off this little, fragile wooden ladder that was standing in front of it). and suddenly I realized: that book's written in russian. to paint you a picture: I was now sitting on the floor, crying heavily, babbling swear words while I was talking to myself and freaking the other library guests out, who felt disturbed by my pathetic attempt to gain attention. I then thought to myself.. I could get up, pack my stuff, leave this sunless place OR stay here, on the floor, feeling miserable and alone. well. I chose wisely. :)

so now, let me present to you: my escape route from the library to the streets of vienna.

after sitting in the park for an hour I had a dinner-date with a friend of mine and actually betrayed esther, since we went to esther's and my favourite restaurant here in vienna. it's called LEVANTE and it serves greek and levantine food. for starters, I ordered tzatziki - mmhm delish! (and again esther, sorry for cheating on you..)

after dinner my friend had an appointment somewhere else, so I decided to take a nice evening stroll through the streets of vienna.

 as you can see, I ended up watching the live stream of richard wagner's 'die walküre' outside the vienna opera building. even though it wasn't an original esthoria adventure tour, it was still nice. :)