I read it shortly before the new year and it as really a lot of fun and tastefully written, precisely a kind of books I like and would like to write myself one day. I picked it up in Vienna because I am fascinated with the sleeping beauty (Dornroeschen) story and kind of try collecting its different interpretations. This book turned out to be a sequel to Prinzessin Rosenbluete, but it does not matter because the previous story was clearly mentioned in this one. In this book Emma, a schoolgirl, it called through the loudspeaker into Swan Kingdom to help the Princess who fell asleep for hundred years. Kristen Boie gives unexpected but funny interpretations of the fairytales we all know since we were little, and I love the modern language, humour and attitude! For example, the Princess is nothing like a sweet girl, in fact she's very wilful and capricious. And Emma likes the lunch her mum gave her for the sport competiotion so much better than the food she and her schoolfriend Ludwig are provided with at the palace in Swan Kingdom. The frog prince does not want to be prince anymore as he hates his wife nagging so much and wants to become a frog again... The funniest probably was when the little man from the tale about a miller's daughter who became queen changes his peculiar name for Eberhard Schulze!
This is Stephansdom - St Stephan's Cathedral - the main cathedral of Vienna. Mozart was married here, here he and his wife Constance Weber christened two of their sons, and the font is still there (well, actually I have pictures from inside and it will be logical to put them up here even if I went inside only several days after).
Here:
The font
The ceiling and windows near the font part of the cathedral
Statue des heiligen Muttergottes. The legend says she is protector of all servants: once a servant girl was accused of stealing some jewellery from her mistress and came here to seek help. She praed hard and Helige maria made it so that the real culprit was found and the girl was free from all accusations.
A bit of stained glass. Not so detailed and fascinating as in Cologne, but also beautiful in a simplier way
This part of decoration goes back to middle ages, but I am not sure to name the date without looking it up.
And the general interior.
Photos taken not on the same day, I came here more than once:
1) just seen the exterior
2) went inside, but it was time of the mass
3) went inside with an audioguide and saw all the details slowly and carefully. Had a little incident: I asked the guy at the entrance for a ticket and audioguide in German, speaking German of ourse, and the reply was: "Wir haben Fuerungen in 20 verschiedenen Sprachen. Wollen Sie es vielleicht in einer anderen Sprache?" - "We have tours in 20 different languages. Maybe, you need some other language? "Nein", said I. And got my German audioguide which I understood perfectly. When I related this story to Isabella, my Austrian friend she said: "Das ist gemein - du sprichst super Deutsch" - "That's mean - you speak super German!". But still that hurt a little that time in the Cathedral- I have an accent after all. However, spending a succesful holiday there proves I was a competent user of German after all (and a happy one - the more I read and speak it, the more I love it, so eine shcoene Sprache! - it's a beautiful language whatever other people may think!)
The cathedral tiled roof in the evening sun
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I hate to be doing text-editing right now. The song is by Nena, the picture is from a Chinese moonday site linked to me by my Chinese friend Yan and yesterday there was a beautiful fool moon indeed, tenderly yellow, looking out of richly-blue clouds - and the sunset on the other side of the sky, with crimson stripes of small clouds across the yellow-lit western sky
