This past week we had a program excursion to Vienna! On
Tuesday at around 4:45 in the morning, Blake, Ryan, and I got a ride from my
host parents to the Cologne airport for our flight to Vienna. After boarding our plane and waiting for
an hour on “repairs” we had to disembark our plane because it was really really
broken. The good news though was that we got a food voucher, so alles gut! We unfortunately missed our appointment
for the city tour, but we got to check out Vienna for a little while before our
next scheduled tour—the catacombs, which were honestly a little bit
creepy/weird. I thought it was crazy that some of the bones were just chilling
on the ground, looking out of place.
We had a group dinner that night at a cool restaurant. I could not decide between the chicken
and the beef, so I split my meal with Shawn and we got half chicken and half
beef. The food and desserts were
on point.
Wednesday morning we went to the Spanish Horse Riding
School to watch the horse riders practice. The building, arena, outfits, and
horses were all sharp looking, but the practice was not that exciting. I was trying so hard to sneak a video of
the horses doing the “tip toeing in my Jordans” vine, but the dang security
dude was watching me like a hawk…so that was upsetting. After that we had our medical history
tour of Vienna and even got to try some medieval drugs with Dr. Wasser in a
plague mask. Then we had some free time, which a group of us used to go
ice-skating, and it was incredible! The ice-skating area had a main rink with a
bunch of trails that lead to smaller rinks. It was easily the best ice-skating place I have ever been
to.
On Thursday, we went to the Josephinum and looked at the anatomical
wax models that medical students used in the olden days. The amount of detail
on the models was pretty awesome. That night everyone dressed up real spiffy
like and went to a string concert in a really pretty church. They played three
songs by Mozart and three songs by Beethoven. After this we went to a fancy
restaurant, ordered some tasty wine and salmon, and walked along the river a
bit.
Friday was our last day in Vienna and we visited the
Narrenturm, or Fool's Tower. This was the first psychiatric hospital, and there
were some pretty nasty things in there.
We learned a lot about various disturbing disorders. After that we split
off for lunch and then went to the museum of natural history, which was
awesome. They had a ton of cool rocks, dinosaurs, etc… All in all, Vienna was a
fantastic trip. My favorite excursion by far.
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