October 17, 2004
Chess at the Hofgarten
Last Wednesday, we meandered through the Hofgarten, which is where the aristocracy used to walk their dogs, but it's now enjoyed by the common people and foreigners, like me. We came upon this great building that was completely empty. I like to imagine that it's strung with Chinese lanterns and used for dances in the summer. Here's a picture:
You can use your own imagination to supply the Chinese lanterns and people - (I hope the girls all have parasols, 'cause they do in my version.)
We also discovered the large chess boards and played a game. I won, but only with the help of some kind Austrian men who were smoking cigarettes. They looked on and gave suggestions and made comments in broken English when either of us made the wrong move. I thought they were truly interested in how our game was progressing and hoped that they saw some moves they might like to use in the future. However, turns out they were just waiting to play their own game and they knew ours would last too long.
Here are some men on the other side of the square building playing chess, too (it's a popular activity, apparenlty):
Then we saw a lady feeding some ducks from a plastic bag. I'm assuming she was feeding them bread crumbs, but I guess it could've been poison in an attempt to control the abundant duck population.
Earlier that day, we were at the Hofburg palace, which has now been turned into all sorts of offices, but it's still beautiful inside. Our coordinator, Claudia, took us into a secret room where we could go out on the balcony.
There were Japanese tourists in the courtyard who were quite jealous and wondering how they could stand on the same balcony and wave to the public below. Suckers! It's all about who you know in this crazy world.
We plan on returning to the Hofgarten again to play some more chess, if the weather holds up, that is.
Posted by kea at October 17, 2004 07:25 PM