Easter Weekend.

Hope everyone had a fine weekend.

Good Friday here is pretty much an ordinary Friday,  so the good news for me was that I didn't spend the day wondering if I'd make it through the day on no food,  but it also meant my travelling companion was working up in Schrems trying to sort out month end.
Now,  you may remember that on the previous Friday I had had the winter tires taken off and the summer rubber put on?
Well....seems it snowed Thursday night in Schrems.  There was a phone call. 
"Just wanted to let you know it's snowing!"

Oops.

There was some nervous laughter on my end.


Fortunately it was all gone by the next day and the drive home was uneventful.   Actually, it seems there was gobs of opposing traffic heading north,  but hardly anyone on the road coming the other way.  So if they go "north" for the weekend,  don't they just end up in another country?  I'm just saying.



Saturday we made a quick trip to the Naschmarkt again to pick up a couple pieces of salmon,  along with a couple other specialities that are not to be found in the regular stores.  This is never an easy outing, but we managed to wade through the crowds,  get our stuff and emerge at the other end.  It's basically one long skinny row of vendors,  so turning around and coming back through the crowd is really just unnecessary punishment.
At least it is for me.  Turns out travelling companion "loves"  the crowds.   Methink she sits in her office by herself way too much.


At some point in time we usually look around on the net for a Church service,  and Saturday was no exception. 
There was some mention of something to do with Mozart at the Jesuit Church ?


That got my attention.

  "We're going there".  "What time?"


Now, for those of you with score cards,  the program was Mozart's Coronation Mass 
Requiem,  and the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah.

This is sort of an Easter "triple header",  if I could put it into baseball parlance.



 
From the outside of the church,   you would never know what lies beyond,  since the inside is absolutely breath taking.
I realise I'm running out of superlatives when it comes to some of these buildings,  and I'm sorry.  

If you go to that first link,  there are a couple more photos online.   We were there for the service,  so picture taking was kinda tough.

I really and truly wanted to get there by about 10:00 for the 11:00 a.m.  service,  and we did manage to get there by about 10:25,  but the place was already mobbed.   There were chairs available in one of the back rooms.


We were kinda stuck off to the side.....

I wish I had a better example of the music,  since it's pretty hard to convey just what an extraordinary experience this is.
I did manage do find something on Youtube,  and you're welcome to follow along.

This is the "Kyrie"  from the Coronation Mass:








I'm afraid I'm going to have to drag you kicking and screaming along for another piece,  which is one of the first parts of the Requiem.
(there are actually 14 sections....we heard just the one)






After communion,  people started to leave,  even though they still hadn't done Handel's Messiah.
This gave me a chance to take out the small camera.

Fortunately the Hallelujah chorus is just under four minutes long,  since my arms were starting to get a little shaky towards the end there.   Not sure if you can tell.


Our original intention was to bolster our courage and head out on the bikes on Monday,  but the weather here was pretty lousy,  with single digit temperatures,  rain and wind.


Hopefully spring decides to return.