Valpo Voyager

Student Stories from Around the World

Tag: Vienna

Make Memories, Go Abroad!

Hello all! I hope everyone is having a great begining to their year and to my college friends, I hope you all are having a great semester! This post will be on the adventures of Vienna, Austria and Prague, Czech Republic, with a break at the local SSV Reutlingen soccer team! First off, if you want an extremely beautiful city with a diverse group of friendly citizens, then Vienna should be on your list of places to visit. Vienna was beautiful, and not just the outside of the buildings, but also  the inside. Myself along with Morgan, Raechel, and Shelby from our group made the voyage and we were able to visit the Kunsthistoriches Museum along with a trip to Schonbrunn Palace and St. Stephans Cathedral. Our first thoughts upon arrival was how good the water tasted. This may sound a little strange at first because how can water have a taste other that how water tastes, but let me tell you, whatever it is, you can taste it. The water comes straight from the Alps right to your tap faucet. Moral of the story is, feel free to just take a glass and drink the water straight from the tap and it will be some of the best water there is to taste. We did not just sit in our hostel bathroom drinking the water while we were there however, we did make a trip to the Kunsthistoriches Museum. This is basically an art museum featuring collections of art from the Habsburg’s own collection.

Kunsthistoriches Museum

Kunsthistoriches Museum

First Steps Inside

First Steps Inside

The Building Itself Should Be in a Glass Case

The Building Itself Should Be in a Glass Case

The decorative style of the inside of the building alone was incredible. The inside looked so intoxicating to the eye that I almost forgot there are art expibitions here. The art was fantastic and I would highly recomend giving it a visit. We also had the opportunity to visit Schonbrunn palace which was once the official palace of the Habsburg family. We did not go into the main palace building because of time, but we were able to walk around and outside the palace. We wondered through the palace garden located in the back of the palace and it was breathtaking.

The Main Entrance

The Main Entrance

I wouldn't mind having this in my back yard

I wouldn’t mind having this in my back yard

Roman Sculpture's in the Garden

Roman Sculpture’s in the Garden

After a morning stroll through the garden we decided to give St. Stephan’s cathedral a go. Unfortunately by the time we got there, there was a service being held so we could not make our way up to the altar.

Inside of the Cathedral with a purple backlight

Inside of the Cathedral with a purple backlight

"We can't see the cathedral" (Turns left) "Oh there it is"

“We can’t find the cathedral” (Turns left) “Oh there it is”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This marked the end of our journey around Vienna so we started our way back when…we discovered how beautiful the city is at night.

Hofburg Palace

Hofburg Palace

National Library

National Library

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All in all, Vienna was hard to beat when it comes to beautiful scenery and decadent desserts.

After we came back to Reutlingen we decided to stay back and rest because on Saturday March 7 we attended a SSV Reutlingen Soccer game! The game was a lot of fun (although there were probably a grand total of 250 people at the game) but the atmosphere was still fun (plus this was payed by the program so that is a huge plus) and the SSV were victorious over Revensburg!

Our next excursion took us along the Vltava river to the wonderful city of Prague! Going to a country that doesn’t speak German as its primary language was a little nerve racking at first, but everything worked out and we learned a little Czech! A little overview of our trip was taking a trip to the famous and biggest attraction in Prague, the Charles bridge! And also a trip to the Prague castle where we were able to see the changing of the gaurd!

Castle Enterance

Castle Enterance

Howdy Sailor

Howdy Sailor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St Vitus Cathedral Inside the Castle

St Vitus Cathedral Inside the Castle

The view of the city from the castle was incredible as well! Also the view from the Vltava river wasn’t to bad.

Lets go swimming!

Lets go swimming!

If only it were a sunny day

If only it were a sunny day

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We also took a stop in old town and saw the astronomical clock!

So its 3pm right?

So its 3pm right?

Tyn Church in old town square!

Tyn Church in old town square!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After having unbelievable amounts of fun, we called it a trip and made our way back to Reutlingen. Prague was a great city with excellent traditional bohemian cuisine. Czech was a little scary at first, but we got by no problem with German and English. We did not experience any feelings of being unsafe throughout Prague, but tourist season can be a little different so just make sure to be safe with your money and belongings and you will be fine. I would love to go back to Prague but alas, there is still more to be seen! Speaking of that, this Friday marks the start of our spring break! My roomate and I will be attempting to travel for 17 days straight with just a backpack full of clothes! But hey, this is how memories are made! I hope all of you have a great rest of your day and I want to thank you all again for giving this a read! Until April, this is Austin P signing off!

The Best Things I Ate: The European Tour

 It’s time for the last installment of “The best things I ate.”  Check out parts 1 and 2 if you haven’t yet. This time, instead of dishes from Germany, I’ve collected all of my favorite meals from various countries I visited over spring break. Since this post required extensive research, it will be rather long, but I have to share these things because they are such an important part of why I love travel, and they are what inspire me to create new recipes of my own. Whether I’m at home or halfway around the world, I try to branch out and try new things, as well as authentic classics, and here, you’ll see a good mix of both, organized by city.

Prague:

This was the first dinner I had in the first city of break, and it was a great way to kick it all off! It was roast pork with horseradish mashed potatoes and a gorgeous gravy. It was classic Czech food with a little added elegance. Another reason to love Prague is that even fancy restaurants are ridiculously cheap because of the exchange rate!

This little treat is something I grew up eating at home. Kolacky are little Bohemian cookies filled with jelly or cream cheese that come in all shapes and sizes. I saw these at a bakery stand at a local festival and just had to have a real one!

Budapest:

For even cheaper fancy food, this is the place for you! This was my birthday dinner, chicken with beetroot risotto. I’m not really a fan of beets, but I am a huge fan of risotto, so I decided to take a risk and order it. And not only does it look beautiful, it tasted perfect too!

Vienna:

A long time ago, I did an entire post about my favorite foods in Vienna, but one thing I regretted missing out on the first time was some real Wiener Schnitzel. So this time, I found a restaurant that was really popular with the locals and finally had some. Some of my friends got the giant version that was bigger than the plate, but I opted for this one to get the sides. That way, it didn’t look entirely like a heart attack on a plate. At least there was some lettuce.
Venice:
 

Unlike Prague and Budapest, food in Venice can get pretty expensive. But one thing that’s always a deal is pizza. Honestly, my favorite pizza in the world is still Chicago style deep-dish, but for authenticity’s sake, this one was pretty good too. But it was a struggle to eat with a knife and fork.

Rome:

It was here that I first learned how to eat like an Italian. Apparently, the giant bowl of pasta is only the first course, and you’re supposed to have room for a meat course after that. I usually just picked one or the other, but this pesto was my favorite pasta course, mostly because I believe you can never have too much basil.

Cinque Terre: 

As a general rule, whenever I’m lucky enough to go to a restaurant where I can see the ocean from my table, I order fish. And that’s almost the only time I order fish. This was the first time that I ever got one with the head still attached, but after respectfully laying a piece of lettuce over the face, I thoroughly enjoyed this meal.
So far, I haven’t mentioned any restaurants by name, but I feel compelled to for this next one. Based on rave reviews from Rick Steves and Tripadvisor, I had to try Il Pirata in the tiny town of Vernazza. I’m sure all their food is great, but I specifically wanted to go for breakfast.

First, there’s this little cup of wonderful. The owner gave us a little free sample, describing the mix of fresh strawberry slush and whipped cream as “the Italian yoghurt.” That little taste was not enough. And just the fact that this is considered just like yoghurt here is just another reason why I love this country.

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Finally, yes, I did order a cannoli for breakfast. I had to do it, and it was the best one I’ve ever had. And now I know better than to order a pre-filled one. These are filled only after you order them so that they stay delightfully fresh and crunchy.

So that’s how I ate my way across Europe. Next week, I’ll write my last post as I prepare to go home for the summer. I’m sure it’ll be bittersweet and super cliché, but hopefully it’s a good final chapter.

Spring Break Part 1: Exploring Eastern Europe

It’s been a while since my last travel post. Where have I been all April? Well, it feels to me, like almost everywhere. I just returned from two and a half weeks traveling around Europe. It was an Odyssey. It was like the Amazing Race, only without the actual race and the million dollars at the end. I feel like I just walked across half of this continent. But it was unforgettable, a true once-in-a-lifetime experience that I’ll cherish forever. Since there’s no way to cover the entire trip in one post, I’m going to split it into three. First, there were the eastern cities of Prague, Budapest, and Vienna. Then, there was Italy. Finally, I’m going to have one more installment of “The Best Things I Ate,” a spring break edition.

Prague:
     We kicked off our break in Prague, a place I’ve wanted to visit for years. It was one of the cities on our itinerary that I was most excited for, and in the end, it still was one of my favorites. Everyone says it’s ridiculously beautiful, and everyone is right. It’s more similar to Germany than even I had expected, and that made me feel at home, despite the language barrier and confusing currency. My favorite things we did there were the very thorough free walking tour, seeing the castle (and the whole city) light up at night, and most of all, learning about my Bohemian heritage. All weekend, I just kept eating everything I could find that my grandma and mom make at home.

Budapest:
     The language barrier I had experienced in Prague was even worse in Hungary. Still, it helps that in these smaller countries, no one expects you to speak the language, and it’s not too difficult to get by. This was definitely the city that felt most foreign to me. It’s the farthest east, it’s not super touristy, but the good side of that is that it’s even cheaper than prague. Despite the challenges, I found the history of this city really fascinating, and found a bunch of fun things to do. Here, we went to the third best bar in the world, and we spent our entire second day in one of the famous bath houses, which I highly recommend.
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Vienna:
     This was my second time in Vienna, so I had mixed feeling about coming back. It is one of my favorite cities in the world because of its imperial elegance and long list of cultural attractions. I did really enjoy coming back because I got to do all different things than the first time. Last time, I really wanted to have Wiener Schnitzel in Wien, but I ran out of time, so I always told myself I’d come back someday just for that. Besides the Schnitzel, my favorite things were the grand tour of the Hapsburg’s Schönbrunn Palace and the view at night from the oldest Ferris wheel.
     These three cities made up the first week of my break. Each has its own distinct character, and I love them all almost equally for different reasons. For the second week of break, we went south to explore some of Italy’s greatest cities, but that’s another story for another post.

 

The Land of Sounds of Music

A taste of Salzburg

To finally finish up my blogs about fall break (which was actually more of a winter break, since we didn’t get back to Reutlingen until mid-November), I’ll talk about my time in Austria! In short, I love this country. I mean, The Sound of Music is my favorite movie, so of course that doesn’t hurt my fascination with it. But also, it’s just beautiful. The cities themselves are picturesque, and of course then there’s the Alps in the background in parts of the country. Just absolutely fabulous. And it’s a cheap country, even with the exchange rate. Just another enticement for someone on a student budget.

So first stop was Salzburg, THE land of the Sound of Music. Literally the only downsides to this place were the fact that we didn’t get to our hostel until 2 a.m. and the fact that it was so foggy the whole time we were there that we couldn’t see the Alps. Not that it wasn’t still beautiful. We walked around the city for a good bit, and went inside a few of the gorgeous churches and hiked to the top of one of the hills with a gigantic fortress on top. And after wandering around for a good long while, we got to take the super-touristy Sound of Music tour!!!

The Gazebo

Oh my gosh the marriage church.

Not that I cared how touristy it was. Because we got to sit in a van with other Americans and sing the soundtrack as we drove through beautiful countryside and see all the places that were included in the film. Like the wedding church where Maria and the Captain got married, the row of trees the children climbed, the Von Trapp house, the pond and gardens behind the house, the gazebo, most of the sights in the “Do a Deer” musical section, and so much more. It was some of the most exciting few hours of my life. And since I can’t put all the pictures up here, just look at the ones on Picasa.(https://picasaweb.google.com/100454144518688283131/SoundOfMusic) So doing all that, plus more walking around since it was a beautiful city, took up a good day and a half, and then we headed to Vienna!

Inside the colorful cathedral

Vienna was also amazing. There is so much history and culture in that city, it’s ridiculous. You can also see Zach’s and Jake’s posts about their time in Vienna. I didn’t have quite as much time there, just about two days, but it was still fantastic. We got in a bit before dinnertime, so decided to wander the city for a bit and get food. The absolute highlight of the night was going into the huge church downtown on a whim. Turns out they turn on tons of colorful lights inside at night, and it was just dazzling. I can’t describe it. So beautiful seeing a huge cathedral burst with color.

The next day we started at Schoenbrunn Palace, which is basically Versailles #2. It was absolutely gorgeous inside (and it was nice not to have to take a tour for once.. they just give out audioguides with the tickets and let you wander yourself). And the gardens also were fantastic. If it wasn’t so cold I could’ve spent an entire day there just sitting outside. After that, Molly and I went to the famous art museum while Matt went to go find Bach stuff, and other music-related stuff. It is famous for a reason, it had so many famous paintings by famous artists that even I knew, as artistically retarded as I am.

Molly in front of Schloss Schoenbrunn

After lunch at Nordsee (cheap fish!) Molly and I wandered around the city for a good bit. Since Christmas decorations were starting to go up, it was even more beautiful. After a bit of shopping and hot chocolate and cake, we made it over to the Belvedere Palace, which had a bunch of Klimt art, which Molly went crazy over while I relaxed in the garden instead. And then for the rest of the night we just relaxed in the city over drinks and at the hostel.

The next morning we decided to see if we could catch the end of the Vienna Boy’s Choir, since they sing every Sunday during the chapel service at the Hofburg Palace. We figured there’d be no way to see them, since they supposedly sing from the balcony and nobody can see. BUT turns out they came downstairs for a final song after the procession out! And we got there at just the right moment, right before they started singing. So we just so happened to see and hear the most famous choir in the world in a palace, without paying anything and without planning it. It was absolutely fabulous. And I mean, they’re pretty good, but the main attraction is that they’re so famous. There’s fabulous music all over Europe in the churches.

Vienna Boy’s Choir

Vienna’s Rathaus, or city hall

After that, we had a few hours to wander around before our train back to Reutlingen. So we found the beautiful Austrian Parliament building, and the city hall of Vienna. Both absolutely stunning. And the Christmas market in Vienna had just started, so we were able to get our first taste of Christmas in Europe! More posts about Christmas markets coming later, of course, but this one was beautiful with the gigantic city hall in the back ground. But then we had to leave.. And thus concluded my fabulous two-week adventure all over western Europe. Five countries, plus an island, and many more cities than that, not bad for two weeks. Bis zum nächsten Mal!

Living large in Vienna! (Part III)

And the Vienna saga continues with Part III! If you missed Part II or Part I, you can find them at these links!

After our failed visit to the United Nations building, we decided to head to the Hofburg, the largest palace in Vienna. It was home to the royal Habsburg family, who ruled the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Perhaps you all might recognize it better as the seat of the Holy Roman Empire until Napoleon? In any case, it was an important place – and still is! It currently is home to many museums and serves as the official residence of the Austrian President.

The Hofburg, Vienna

The Hofburg is less of a palace and more of a compound. It’s huge! The palace and surrounding buildings underwent many, many renovations and additions! It’s a maze just finding the entrance!

We all decided that we wanted to tour the inside, and chose the tour that featured the National Silver Collection, The “Sisi” Museum, as well as the Royal Apartments.

Hofburg Museums, Vienna

The National Silver Collection was, umm… interesting? I didn’t know they needed so many dishes. It was like room, after room, after room, after room of dishes. These Habsburgs had all the plates, silverware, centerpieces, cups and mugs anyone could ever want. I’d imagine during the time of the empire it went something like, “Hey honey, do you want to eat off the china from the Queen of England or the plates made for the emperor of Mexico?”  “Oh! Why don’t we dine off the solid gold plates?”  “Great idea! We can have the 30 foot long centerpiece polished for dinner as well!”

So that was fun for about 10 minutes, but after 45 minutes of looking at dishes, we all lost our patience with that. Luckily, we were on to something a little more exciting. Now, to explain the rest of the tour I might have to go a little “history teacher on you guys,” so bear with me.

The Hofburg has a pretty decently sized museum called the “Sisi” museum. The museum is dedicated to Elisabeth (nicknamed Sisi), who was the Empress of Austria from 1854 until 1898. She married her cousin, Emperor Franz Joseph, when she was quite young (15, I think?) and was then forced into the royal spotlight. She was always kind of a “royal-rebel,” and towards the end of her life refused to partake in events and official ceremonies. Sisi also struggled with depression and (some believe) anorexia; her dresses were always measured to have a waist size between 18 and 19 inches!

It was fascinating seeing all the memorabilia from the time of Empress Elisabeth as well as learn about the history. This part of the Hofburg took another 50 minutes to get through, but it was definitely more interesting than the dishes.  😉  Perhaps my favorite quote from her was one she said after she heard that the emperor wanted to marry her. She said something along the lines of, “I do really like Franz Joseph, I only wish he weren’t the emperor.”

Franz Joseph's entrance to the royal apartments

The last part of the tour was the royal apartments, and royal they were. Done up to the finest of Viennese standards, it was quite amazing. Those of you who have seen Schönbrunn will find it very similar (Schönbrunn was mainly used as their summer home, whereas The Hofburg was their main residence).

After this we were all pretty burnt out. Half of us decided to take a little break and head back to the hostel for an hour or two before dinner, while the others headed off to the Esperanto Museum. (Esperanto was a language that was constructed using elements of many languages and is very easy to learn. It was developed in Vienna to be the new international language, but never really caught on.)

We met up again for dinner at our favorite little Viennese restaurant and enjoyed our last “Wiener Schnitzel!” – which was fantastic, by the way!

The next day our flight didn’t leave until 4 p.m. or so, and because of that we had sort of an awkward amount of time where we had to be out of the hostel, but couldn’t go right to the airport, we bummed around in Starbucks. Quite literally.

Starbucks, Vienna

We were all pretty exhausted from the long days of tourism, and (most of us) ended up falling asleep! Rachel even somehow ended up horizontal! The Starbucks workers in Vienna must of thought we were homeless or something.

All in all, it was quite the trip. We got to see lots of exciting things, much of which we’d only learned about in class or read in books!

In my next update, you all can look forward to hearing all about my classes here in Tübingen! Bis dann! Tschüß!

 

Living large in Vienna! (Part II)

So you are all probably saying to yourselves right now, “Long time no post! What in the world have you been up to, Jake? We’re all waiting on the edge of our seats to read the next saga in your crazy European adventures!”

I know, I know. It’s been another one of those crazy weeks here in Tübingen with a spontaneous trip to Vienna and the first week of classes! So I’ll try my best to catch you all up during the next few days!

Because we had a little bit of free time between the end of my “Deutsch-Kompakt-Kurs” and the start of the semester, Zach, Hannah, Rachel, Emily, Helena (our Canadian friend) and I decided to do something called “Blind Booking” through the German discount airline Germanwings. We paid only 60 Euros for a two-way ticket, but we could have ended up in London, Lisbon, Rome, Barcelona, Berlin, or Vienna. Because we all simply want to see as much of Europe as we can, it wasn’t important to us that we choose exactly where we ended up!

Since Zach and I both went on the trip, we decided that he would blog about the first half, and I’d write a little about the second half! Before you read the rest of this post, you might be interested in reading Zach’s latest post first!

On Saturday we packed as much into one day as humanly possible (you think I’m joking). We woke up in the morning and had our usual hostel breakfast, and then made our way to Schönbrunn, which is conveniently right on the subway line that runs between the hostel we stayed in and downtown.

Schönbrunn

Schönbrunn (Vienna, Austria)

We spent an hour or two wandering the never-ending gardens, but decided not to take a tour of the inside. There are many palaces in Vienna, and rather than touring all of them, we decided that later on Saturday we’d go and tour the Hofburg. (The Hofburg is in the middle of the city and was the emperor’s normal residence; Schönbrunn was mainly used as a summer home.)

After Schönbrunn, we made our way to the Naschmarkt, the largest and most famous street market in Vienna. The market seemed to stretch on forever! We’d walk for a little bit, think we’d reached the end, but it would just keep going! Because we went on Saturday, it was particularly busy; at some points I was getting a little claustrophobic because there were so many people.

The Naschmarkt had so many interesting offerings. Vendors bring fresh meats, cheeses, olives, baked goods, deserts and everything else you can think of! We ended up finding a cheap Döner stand for lunch – Döner is German gyros-type meat that’s served with veggies like a sandwich. It’s often sold in Turkish snack stands, so people assume it’s Turkish, but many Germans are quick to correct you that it the Döner Sandwich actually came from Berlin.

Secession House, Vienna

After lunch we headed to the Secession House, the home of the rebellious art movement “The Vienna Secession,” founded by Gustav Klimt and other artists in 1897. The artists broke off from the primary “Wien Künstlerhaus” because they found the group too conservative and thought the group tended to copy earlier styles of art instead of pioneering innovative ways to present the ideas of the time.

The architecture of the Secession House is, in and of itself, worth seeing and the building also houses Klimt’s famous Beethoven frieze. Seeing the giant frieze in person was incredible, especially after reading about its history and the meaning behind all the panels. However, the rest of the exhibits in the Secession House left much to be desired.

The House presumably wants to keep with the “mold-breaking” nature that it’s founders intended, but some of the modern art presented there has gone a little too far. For example, the exhibits were simply random words on walls, or even air conditioning. You read that right, air conditioning. One exhibit was air conditioning a room to an uncomfortable temperature. To them that is “art.” It’s a little much, in my opinion.

We then quickly made our way the United Nations building in Vienna, because someone had told us there were daily tours. But it turned out that those daily tours were only Monday-Friday. So we saw the outside! That counts for something, right?

United Nations, Vienna

I’ve got to finish up some homework and things before I meet up with my friends later in the Altstadt, so I’ve got to leave you all hanging! In the next post (Vienna: Part III), you can look forward to hearing about The Hofburg Palace, our last night in Vienna dinner, as well as our trip back home!

Unfortunately, I had forgot the memory card for my camera in Tuebingen, so I couldn’t take any pictures in Vienna, so I’m stealing Zach’s. You can check out his pictures from the trip on his Picasa account here: https://picasaweb.google.com/117445044945979223598

 

 

 

 

 

Living large in Vienna!

With the end of our five-week intensive German course came a small, one-week break prior to the start of the semester this week Monday. So, we had the last-minute idea to travel somewhere and take advantage of this last opportunity until Christmas break. At first, we decided to go to Berlin, but after some disappointing searches for cheap flights, I uncovered something called “Blind Booking,” through Germanwings, a discount airline that flies out of nearby Stuttgart.

Hostel Hütteldorf

 

For €60 per person, we could get round-trip tickets to one of six cities: London, Lisbon, Rome, Barcelona, Berlin, or Vienna. The only catch is that you don’t find out where you are being sent until after the transaction has been processed. A surprise trip was fine with us! We figured that we had a one out of six chance of getting our original wish (for more than €100 cheaper) and that we would gladly go to any of those cities. For €5, you could pay to exclude a city, which we had originally planned to do with London, as we will all have friends studying in nearby Cambridge next semester who we had planned on visiting anyway. With the five of us plus a Canadian friend named Helina who wanted to come along, this addition put us over the limit of my credit card, so we just had to keep London in the mix and hope for the best! It was a bit of a pain having to pay for all of our tickets together, but it was better than the alternative of everyone paying their own way and being sent to six different cities in Europe.

Emily, Jake, Hannah, Helina, and Rachel at breakfast! Maybe not quite awake yet...

 

As we excitedly clicked through the online purchasing process, we soon learned that we would be flying to Vienna, and the search for a Youth Hostel began shortly after. I used HostelWorld, whom I follow on Twitter, to search for a place to stay and I was very pleased with the result. The website had excellent reviews and information, and the hostel turned out to be perfect. It was a little further out of the city, but within 5 minutes of a subway station, where trains into the city came every 3-8 minutes. It was only a 15 minute ride, and I was extremely impressed with the public transportation system in Vienna. I don’t think we ever waited more than 5 minutes for the subway. It seemed like every time we walked up the stairs to the platform, one was just pulling in to take us wherever we wanted to go. At the hostel, we had the option of purchasing “Vienna Cards,” which allowed us to travel on any tram, bus, or train for 72 hours for €18. It also came with discounts to museums, so it was really an incredible value. Although everything in Vienna was pretty expensive, train travel compared to Germany was very cheap.

Vienna's shopping/commercial district

 

Our housing accommodations for the five-day trip, “Hostel Hütteldorf,” were quite comfortable. We shared a six-person room complete with a table and chairs where we sat every night to plan our next day’s activities. The hostel came with free internet access and free breakfast, which we did out best to fill up on every morning. As an added bonus, there was almost always a big bowl of apples on the front desk, from which I always grabbed a couple for snacks or to pack in my lunch for the next day. When you’re a poor college student traveling through another country, it’s amazing how a bowl of free apples can seem like a luxury… In any case, we had really good luck with the hostel, and would gladly go back or recommend it to anyone.

 

We arrived in Vienna around 8:00 PM on October 12th, and checked into our hostel after an excellent dinner at a Viennese restaurant that Jake knew of, from having been there a few short weeks before.

 

We accomplished so incredibly much over five days that I hope I’ll be able to describe the first half of the trip with enough detail! Jake will be doing a post soon on the second half.

 

The Stephansdom

 

On Thursday, we woke up in time to catch breakfast, which was put away promptly each day at 9:00, and took the subway into the city. We checked out the Karlsplatz train station, built in the Jugendstil style of architecture, (as recommended by Professor DeMaris) before visiting a few churches, and making our way through the shopping district, and the Altstadt (Old City.) We also purchased tickets for a musical that we saw later that night, as well as tickets for an opera that we saw on Friday night. The Musical was called, “Ich war noch niemals in New York” (“I have never been to New York,” or “I have not yet been to New York,”) and it is fairly popular here in Europe right now. It is based on the songs of Austrian composer Udo Jürgens, and although you could tell the plot was written to include the music, it was nonetheless enjoyable. The songs were great and well-performed, and the story was light and funny. The opera for which we bought tickets was Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte” (The Magic Flute) and it was excellent!

Ich war noch niemals in New York!

 

While we were walking through the city, we saw a bunch of police officers near the Opera house. They asked us all to wait on the street, and although we didn’t understand why, we of course complied. A few minutes later, a motorcade of police motorcycles and Mercedes-Benzes bearing Saudi Arabian flags drove by, as we all watched curiously. Later, we learned that they had just come from a ceremony in which a Saudi-backed religious center in Vienna was officially opened. In Saudi Arabia, the only legal religion is Islam. The idea behind the religious center in Vienna is that by funding a council of Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus to engage others in inter-religious dialogue, the Saudis can also learn how to slowly begin to integrate other religions into their country as well. I think it’s an interesting concept.

 

Anyway, we also visited an art museum called “Belvedere,” which took up all of Thursday afternoon. The museum wasn’t obscenely giant like the Chicago art institute, but it was big enough to tire you out after a couple hours of taking it all in. It was great to see so many works of Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, whom we spent a lot of time discussing in German 220. The museum was located inside of an old palace and the grounds as well as the building itself were absolutely stunning.

 

Belvedere

Emily, Jake, Hannah, Rachel and Me in front of Belvedere

Belvedere from the front

 

On Friday, we did a little shopping (I bought a new coat!) and later explored the altstadt a little more, this time going inside of the Stephansdom (a giant church in the city center) as well as visiting Mozart’s house. We decided not to take a tour of Mozart’s house in the interest of time, but we did poke around inside just for a bit. Afterwards, we took the tram down the historic “Ringstraße” (Ring Street) to the Austrian Parliament building. Where the “Ringstraße” currently stands there once stood a wall that surrounded the city of Vienna. As the city expanded, there simply wasn’t enough space inside the wall, so it was torn down, as the need for protection had also grown weaker over the years. At Parliament, we took a fifty-minute tour of the building and the various chambers, and learned a little about how the Austrian government functions. The tour was given in German as well as English, so although we understood nearly everything, it was nice to have the English in case there were technical government terms that we didn’t get the first time around in German. The Austrian Parliament was heavily damaged during World War II, but has since been restored to its original likeness. It’s a beautiful building! While we were touring one of the open reception lobby-type areas, tables were being set up for some sort of a formal state dinner that was to occur the following night.

 

Mozart's house!

Me in front of the Austrian Parliament

Assembly chamber - Austrian Parliament

 

On Saturday, Rachel, I, and our Canadian friend Helina visited the Esperanto Museum at the Austrian National Library. Esperanto is a planned language that was invented during the early 1900’s, and this museum, housed entirely in one room, is the only one of its kind. The idea behind Esperanto was that it could serve as a new international language that was very easy to learn and understand. It is a combination of many European languages (specifically Romance Languages) and it is the most successful planned language ever created. Its founder, Ludwig Zamenhof, grew up in a town in present-day Poland where the languages of Polish, German, Yiddish, Russian, and Belarusian were spoken among the many immigrants living there. His goal was to devise a language to bridge the language barriers among the various ethnic groups in his town. The museum was very interesting, and I’m almost positive it’s the only place in the world where you can choose to read or hear the exhibits in either German, English, or Esperanto.

 

That’s all for now! Check out my pictures at: https://picasaweb.google.com/117445044945979223598

Thanks for reading!

Bis Dann!

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