I started off the trip in the best way possible, I bought a new pair of shoes. I wanted a classy pair of black Oxford heels I could wear with my dress to the classical concert in Vienna and I had seen some in a window earlier that week. The morning before the train ride I tried to retrace my steps back to the store I had seen, I finally found it with one of my friends, Jordan, but the store was closed. So we grabbed some waffles at the stand in marktplatz and waited til ten for the store to open. Once we got back I stated looking around trying to find the pair I had seen. Jordan finally found a pair....but their was only one size left and it was my size! So I took this as a sign that this trip was going to be unforgettable.
I even got lucky on the plane, there wasn't anyone sitting in the middle so I had more room :)
Once we arrived in the Vienna international airport we grabbed our bags and headed for the hotel. We quickly learned that the underground metro was the way to travel. So easy to understand and the trains came frequently. The entire week I never waited more than 7 minutes. We stayed in a nice hotel on roßauer lände street, very close to city center. After we dropped off our bags we made our way to the city center to visit St. Stephens cathedral and have a city tour. We have a thing with going up on the top of cathedrals....because their was an elevator on this one too. When we got to the top of the cathedral I was able to appreciate the beautiful roof, the colored tiles reminded me of the Jamaican flag. After making our way to the top of the cathedral we descended into catacombs. The lower foundations of the cathedral were filled with the ashes and preserved organs of ex-cardinals and ministers of the church. Then we walked even deeper into the ground and found the catacombs where there were thousands of skeletons from the bubonic plague. As we walked through the dark passageways we saw bones upon bones, stacked or just thrown in tall stone rooms. Once I had seen all the bones the effect of the plague was really put into perspective. I can't imagine living through anything like that. After both of the tours concluded we made our way to a traditional Viennese dinner! It was delicious but also very heavy. We had a massive slab of Wiener Schnitzel (which I learned was veil...and looked like chicken fried steak haha), potato salad, a white wine from the region, and then dessert. We had three giant sampler platters of traditional desserts. It was amazing. By the end of dinner (around 10:30) I was sooo ready for bed.
Day 2
We woke up at what felt like the crack of dawn (it was only 7:00..) to meet in the hotel lobby for our medical history tour of Vienna, headed by Dr. Wasser. We all traveled to the beginning of our tour only to find that Dr. Wasser was not traveling with us. We waited outside the train station for about 10 minutes and then we saw him, walking up the stairs in a plague doctor costume complete with mask. Everyone started laughing and he introduced himself as Dr. Schnabel (Dr. Beak) and began to speak in German with Kristin (our program coordinator) translating. It was so perfect and we spent the rest of the tour being guided around by both Dr. Schnabel (when the mask was on) and Dr. Wasser (when the mask was off). Great way to start the day. Later that day, after lunch, we headed to the Josefinum, a building used to house the collections of the the medical school. It's also referred to as the Medical School Academy. It houses 1,192 life-like wax figures the medical school students used to understand the anatomy and physiology of the human. The figures ranged from only the veins in a leg to an entire persons musculature. Afterwards we had some free time so a couple friends and I headed to the Albertina (an art museum with Picasso, Monet, and a special exhibit on Max Ernst). It was a beautiful building and the art was wonderful. My favorite part was the Max Ernst exhibit, there was a considerable amount of his work on display. It was organized chronologically so as you walked through the exhibit the information on the walls seemed to tell a story of his life. Never before in a museum have I felt like I knew the artist afterwards. It was very well done. Once we were done in the museum it we had a little bit of time to kill before dinner with Lena (a foreign exchanged student who attended my high school in 2009) We decided to spend some time in Cafe Ritters. ( Side-note: There is something called a Cafe Culture in Vienna. There are cafes EVERYWHERE filled with coffees, teas, ice creams, cakes, cookies, truffles, chocolates, anything sweet you can think of. It was probably good we were only there for a week....) So after about an hour of coffee we met Lena and had dinner at Muschu Muschu ( The best falafel in town!!). It was so good to hear from her, she's doing very well, and we might plan a trip to New Zealand later! Afterwards we went to Wein Co. ( a wine bar: A bar on one side and a wine store on the other. You pick a bottle and then they serve it to you in the bar, really cool concept). We spent another several hours there talking and I even got to meet her boyfriend, Wolfgang. Really cool guy who knew lots about wine :)
Around 12:30 we went home for a much needed rest!
Day 3
The third day started a little later than the rest, we got to sleep until 9:00!! After breakfast we walked to the 440 year old, world famous Spanish Riding School where the Lipizzaner horses are trained. The objective of the school is to study the way the horse naturally moves and to cultivate the highest levels of haute ecole elegance the horse is capable of through systematic training ( I got that from the pamphlet.. ). We didn't get to watch a show but we did get to watch the riders practice with their horses for about an hour. Before we had to meet again at 1:00 three girls and I headed to another cafe for hot chocolate! (surprised?) This cafe is a little more special than some of the others though. The cafe's name is Cafe Demel and was the cafe of choice for the royals living in Austria. The cakes, tarts and little truffles were gorgeous, there was even a viewing area where you could watch the chefs do their thing! The hot chocolate was aaaamazing, I think it was even better than the hot chocolate at the Lindt Museum... After relaxing in the cafe we had lunch at the medical school and then a lecture on homeopathy by Prof. Dr. Frass. I'd heard of homeopathy before but never quite knew what it was or how it worked. Basically, it involves the dilution of an herb of some kind to the point that if you did a mass spec on the pills you would only find water and sugar... hmmmm, strange... After the lecture we went to The Museum of Natural History. 39 exhibition halls filled with 30 million specimens representing the diversity of nature. There we saw huge dinosaurs, rocks from mars, and the famous Venus of Willendorf (24,000 thousand year old statue of a woman). Once we were done paroosing the museum we went back to the hotel to get ready for a classical concert/opera at the Schonbrunn castle! There were two violins, a clarinet, a bass, a cello, and a piano. Not the type of concert I was expecting but once they started playing the acoustics of the castle room made them sound like a complete orchestra. Along with the music there were also two ballet dancers and two opera singers who told a sweet love story as the concert progressed. Definitely a good way to spend the evening. Afterwards another trip to the wine bar with a different group of people and karaoke and then finally bed!
Day 4
In the morning we visited the Narrenturm (the madhouse tower). It was built in 1784, next to the old Vienna General Hospital, now used as the medical school. The Narrenturm was used to accommodate mentally ill patients until 1866, when it was then used to house nurses working at the hospital (super convenient housing but not worth it to me...). In 1971 it was closed and is now the Federal Pathologic-Anatomical Museum. Several levels of this cylindrical building are filled with patholigic specimens, including skulls with bone cancer, preserved arteries affected by tuberculosis, lungs of coal miners, hundreds of paraffine models showing the effects of different diseases, amputation kits, skeletons of conjoined twins, an anencephalus, and a harlequin doll portraying a young girl who had Ichthyosis....I could go on forever. The museum was filled with disturbing models but it was so unique. I definitely enjoyed myself and even learned some things!! Afterwards we went to the Austrian Red Cross Headquarters...but I got sick and had to go back to the hotel so I'm not quite sure how that went. And then I missed dinner at the Goulasch Museum because I slept for two hours. But after my awesome nap I had dinner with Lena at a little french restaurant in the city center so the evening wasn't completely lost. Then early night for me so I could completely heal.
Day 5 ( last day!! )
That morning we met in the lobby with all our bags packed and stored them in the hotel backroom so we could do a couple more things before our flight home. We started the day with a lecture by Dr. Wasser on Sigmund Freud in his house :O haha it was pretty cool. Lena even joined for the lecture but then she had to catch a train home for the weekend. After the lecture we toured the museum and learned about Freud's obsession with letter writing, collecting knick-knacks, and smoking cigars. After the museum we didn't have much time for lunch before we had to meet to go to the airport but since I was getting lunch with Laurenz (another foreign exchanged student from my high school I played tennis with. Why are they all from Vienna??) I was allowed to find the airport an hour later by myself :) So I had a lot of time to catch up with another friend which was wonderful. After exchanging good byes I made my way for the train to the ariport and I'd say I navigated the airport and the train very well! I even met a very interesting Dutch philosophy/history professor on the train. We were able to talk the entire way to the airport and I learned he was in Vienna for a conference on the economics and politics of the EU. It was refershing to have an intellectual conversation with a stranger and then just part ways. Then back to Bonn!! Sleeping in my own bed was the best thing ever :)
Looking back at the trip I can honestly say Vienna is one of the best cities in the world. It's filled with history, the people are friendly (except the wait staff haha) and the architecture is to die for. I'll be back one day :)
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