Week 14

    When morning came, I didn’t feel rested at all. I had spent the entire night trying to adjust my body without moving my leg since every movement resulted in a sharp pain. Moving around was also awkward because I had never used crutches before and I couldn’t put any weight on my bad leg. My jeans didn’t fit over the cast so I put on my paper thin hospital pants, a sweater, and my left shoe but thankfully, at breakfast, Nathan brought a pair of his sweatpants and let me borrow them. Our first stop of the day was the Medical History Museum in the Josephinum. Instead of traveling with the group, Kristin and I took a taxi to the building to make things easier for me. The Josephinum contains a large collection of anatomical wax models which were incredibly detailed. Our guide also told us how the medical museum came to be and some stories behind the wax models. After touring the rooms, it was time for our group lunch at a restaurant called Universitätsbräuhaus. It was fairly close by but because I was so bad on the crutches, Kristin and I took a taxi to it. It wasn’t easily accessible to cars so when the taxi dropped us off, the restaurant was still about 150 meters away. It should’ve been easy to crutch there but I had to keep stopping to wipe my hands and adjust my grip as well as give my sore body a break. I was doing so bad that Kristin ran ahead to get some boys to come out and help. While she was gone I continued trying to crutch towards the door and had made a little bit of progress before Kenneth and Nathan met up with me. Kenneth once again threw me over his shoulders and carried me to the restaurant while Nathan brought up the rear with my crutches. Lunch was fantastic, it was the first time I had ever had schnitzel and the company was great. After lunch, we were scheduled to have a lecture, given by Dr. Wasser, at the Freud House. It was also fairly close by so we all set off, including me. They saw how slow I was going so Dr. Wasser suggested the boys in the group take turns carrying me. I was really embarrassed and guilty for causing this much trouble within the group and felt like the boys were essentially being forced to carry me. But they all did it with grace and not one complaint. Nathan, James, Michael, Kyle, Dr. Wasser, Kenneth, and Madeleine all took turns carrying me, either by piggyback ride or two people teaming up to form a basket with their arms and me in the middle. We must have been such an odd sight to the people of Vienna, a large group of people walking but in the midst of that group a girl being carried with a gigantic white cast on her right leg. I also crutched for short intervals of time and after what seemed like a long time, we arrived at the Freud House. I made it up a short flight of stairs and into the room where the lecture was going to take place. I sank into a very comfortable couch towards the back and Madeleine and Michael sat on either side of me. The rest of the group sat towards the front and the lecture commenced. It was a superb lecture about Freud and his life and what made it even better was that we were learning about Freud in the actual building that was his former office and apartment. After the lecture the group went upstairs to take a tour of Freud’s office and apartment but I stayed downstairs because I didn’t want to make anyone feel obligated to help and/or carry me up the stairs. I told Clare to take pictures for me and tell me all about it. And I vowed to myself I’d make it back there one day to see everything and not just the room downstairs. Afterwards, another taxi was called and I went back to the hotel to rest a bit since we had scheduled free time. I sat downstairs in the lobby waiting for my roommates to arrive since they had the key to get into the room. A few minutes later, Clare, Chelsea, Cerci, and Stephenie entered and they surprised me with a massive water bottle, flowers, chocolate, and these really good hazelnut wafers! I almost cried because I was overwhelmed at how sweet everyone was being to me. We had to be ready by 18:30 for a quartet concert at St. Anne’s Church so there was only about 2 hours to get ready. The next daunting task I had to face was taking a shower. My cast wasn’t supposed to get wet and since I couldn’t put weight on it I had to find a hotel room with a tub instead of a walk-in shower. Thankfully Cerci, Chelsea, and Michelle were across the hall from our room and they had a tub. It was a very slow process removing clothes and getting into the tub while making sure my leg stayed outside of it. The shower itself was interesting to say the least and once I was done I started looking around the room and trying to see what I could use as leverage to lift myself out of the tub. It wasn’t possible without help so I had to call Clare, Stephenie, Cerci, and Chelsea to help me.  They were all complete angels about it and I will forever be indebted to them for helping me out. After getting dressed, Stephenie did my hair and we all went downstairs to the lobby where everyone was gathered. A taxi dropped me, Madeleine, and Cerci off about a street away from the church since that area wasn’t accessible to cars either and we began the slow trek towards the door. Madeleine and Cerci were amazingly patient with how slow I was going and kept me distracted with conversation which was nice. Once inside the church, I got a front row seat and the concert began. The quartet played a mixture of Bach and Mozart and it was beautifully done. After the concert, Clare and I went back to the hotel in a cab while the others went out to dinner. We watched CNN in our room until the others arrived bearing the gift of pizza for us. We all sat around and talked for a couple hours before we all went to bed.