I'm gonna briefly talk about my visit to the birthplace of the currently most famous Austrian - or as the locals tend to call him - Arnie.
After having lived here for almost three years, I decided it was time to visit the only existing museum about Arnold Schwarzenegger, located in his birthplace. I guess there will be more museums created, once he will be dead. But let's not think about that. Arnie comes from a tiny village called Thal in Thal valley near Graz. The whole area of Thal is full of symbols and signs related to Arnie. The local lake has a boat standing next to it, where he supposedly proposed to his wife. There is also a hiking trail with his name around the local lake (called Thalersee).
The locals in Graz asked me, after I had mentioned I want to go see the place, why I would do such a thing? They don't seem to be proud of their own Mr. Universe. They also say that there is nothing to see. I was gonna check it out myself.
So on a nice and sunny day I took my bike and cycled up to his museum (it's about 30min cycle with average speed to his museum from where I live). Right in the end, I had to cycle up a small mountain (to an Estonian it was actually a mountain). I got up and to my surprise, I was there. His birthplace is a not a spectacular-looking house with big signs on it. It was actually just a house with his statue in front. Alright, the locals were right, it seemed indeed to be a small museum. Still, as I didn't have to pay the entrance of 6 Euros, because of the Steiermark Card I have, I went inside.
As soon as I opened the door, some Christmas song started to play. It turned out to be some sort of a movement sensor to tell about the visitors arriving. Merry Christmas then! Later on, every time someone walked past the sensor, it played the damn song. The workers must have good nerves there - already I heard that tune at least 10 times. The person setting off the sensor, was mostly me, though, as I was almost the only visitor. And I almost went mad with that. Anyway, as soon as I got in (and the workers got notified of my presence with a lovely Christmas tune), I was greeted by a very happy woman, in my opinion even by a too cheerful woman considering that she works in a museum. She spoke a lot, offered me a soda to freshen up and allowed me to start my tour of the museum.
There were about 5 rooms to see- it is still a house museum. There was a room full of photographs of Arnie, just every photograph they couldn't fit into any other room. The room also had couple of pieces of furniture, which had belonged to the Family Schwarzenegger. The next room was dedicated to Arnie's time as a governor. Some medals, American money with his picture on it, more photos etc. The most interesting thing for me in this room was the wax figure of the man himself. After taking couple of photos, I moved to the first floor, where I could see the toilet, which Arnold's family used (yeah, an old-fashioned toilet, but still different as you could sense that Arnold, like any other normal person, needs to use such facilities), the kitchen, the room full of body-building machines he used to train with. In that room was also a figure of half-naked Arnie showing off every muscle in his body (well almost every muscle). All the walls of that room were covered with similar-styled images. Pornography for body builders, I guess. The last room was dedicated to his acting career and had some original costumes from the sets (about 2 costumes altogether- he was such a generous guy after all) and also another wax figure of the Terminator-Arnie and the robot (that one was only made out of metal). I took some pictures, and, after having been in the museum for about 30 minutes, I was done with it. Glad I didn't pay for the ticket, there was really not so much to see. Maybe we should still wait another 20 years or so, and then visit again. You know, when it would be a memorial musem. I guess they might have more stuff to show then.
In the end I wanted to buy a postcard from the museum to send it to my mum (I mean, how cool would it be to receive an Arnold Schwarzenegger museum postcard?). On every postcard there were only pictures of the house. I wanted the man himself on the picture, of course. Turns out, that Arnie hasn't allowed anyone to use any photographs of him to be put onto a postcard. Not even his own museum is allowed to do that. This is just ridiculous- we all know how he looks like anyway, we can print a picture out ourselves- what is the problem? The lady in the museum was also not happy about that rule. I also got a fridge magnet from there (to my surprise, they were allowed to put a picture of Arnie as a Terminator on it) for my mum. The most amusing things they sold in that musem were: wait for it- condoms! With Arnie's face and the the museum logo on the packaging. I guess when someone uses them, they might be protected by Arnie's special power. I couldn't think of a friend, who would need such a special condom, so I decided not to buy it. If I still want to get one and frame it, I can always go back and get it.
I also spoke to the lady in the museum a bit before leaving. She loved to talk, you could see that she doesn't have exactly a lot of interaction with other people during her work (with maybe ten visitors she gets per day?). I told her I might be helping the Estonian Special-Olympic delegation next year (because Arnie had come to the opening ceremony of the last games that were held in Austria and I hope he will come there next year) and she was so exited about it - telling me, that I will be visiting her again next year as all the delegations will visit the museum! It turns out I had made a new best friend in that museum for about 10 minutes. When I left the museum, she wished me all the best and told "See you soon!". Probably going for the second time into that museum would make me a regular customer.
After a strangely amusing trim to see the birthplace of Terminator himself, I cycled back home, feeling way too satisfied, taking into account what I had just seen. One thing for sure, the locals were right about the museum.
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