So this blog is coming a little late because after I got home yesterday, I was too lazy to open up my laptop and do work.
But this last week was fun (and also very busy)! Having to wake up at 3:30 am wasn't fantastic, but it was worth it. Seeing the sun rise in the plane was beautiful and it was interesting to see the vast difference in the sky above the clouds and below the clouds. Above the clouds, everything was bright and there were so many colors, but once we descended beneath the clouds it was very gray and rainy. The first excursion around Vienna was a brutal one mainly because I was woken up from my nap in the hotel room. However, it turned out to be fun and interesting thanks to Dr. Schnabel. My favorite part was watching people do double takes when they walked by him on the street, their faces were hilarious. I have to say of the "medications" he gave us, only one was a kick in the face: the child urine or whatever it was. Basically it was just straight vinegar. R.I.P. my taste buds.
The catacombs were pretty nifty, equally spooky and intriguing. I had a chance to look at the male mummy before the tour guide said anything about him, so I tried to figure out what century he was from before he told us. The clothes to me looked like things George Washington or someone from the 18th century would wear so that's what I assumed, and it was right! Small victories. The catacomb tour was going great for me up to a point. I had avoided being in the dark, isolated from the group, lingering in the back of the group, and just being anywhere too dark in general (I am still afraid of the dark guys please don't leave me alone in the dark I will be an unhappy bug) so I thought I was set. Until our tour guy said that all the little bumps on the floor, that I assumed was just some bad attempt at laying concrete, were in fact like 4-5 feet of bones. I was fine with the bones on the walls and coffins but walking on them just made me feel super weird. Glad we left shortly after that.
The asylum was heckin rad. The wax models were kind of freaky but they really helped me visualize what the diseases back then actually looked like, imagination and old timey paintings can only take you so far. The circle aspect was kind of disorienting, but I understand the point. I just didn't like that I got dizzy zooming around looking for things. One thing that did kind of confuse me and slightly freak me out was that I kept seeing this lady during our tour. We'd be walking around I would see this lady just standing looking out the window, we would move on and boom she'd be there again, looking out another window. This happened the entire tour and I just kept wondering is she a ghost? Nah surely not clothes too modern psh. Is she a patient? Nooo they don't have patients anymore and if they did I highly doubt they'd let her wander around up here. Can other people see her? Okay yes awesome I am not crazy but who they heck is she and why is she being creepy. Turns out she was just a tourist like the rest of us (I guess) but she couldn't handle all the models and had to take sugar water creepy stare out the window to freak Brynn out breaks.
I turned out to be very artsy this trip. A few of us went to the Albertina and saw some Picasso and Monet paintings. Turns out I'm not much of a fan of Picasso's works (still appreciate though) but I really like Monet's. I couldn't really hang out long in modern art section though, it just made me mad. Some dude literally just panted a canvas yellow and cut slashes through it and was like ART. Yeah okay buddy I could do that too the difference is I just wouldn't get paid thousands of dollars for it. After the Albertina we went to the fancy mansion garden place with the zoo. I never actually bothered to look up the name of it ok now I have it's the Schönbrunn Palace. I just copied and pasted that from google now I can't find how to make the font smaller so I guess this is my blog now. It was really fun trekking around the palace and especially the gardens. The gardens were ginormous. Now I know when I read books and it says "rich person so and so when for a walk in his gardens" they did not go for a walk, they went on a freaking hike. We were there for two hours and we still hadn't walked everywhere. Just trying to leave the place took like 30 minutes it was wild but on the plus side at the exit there was a Lindt store so I treated myself and got some chocolate. I am hoping I can go back in the spring when everything in the garden has bloomed and when the maze is open.
Okay yeah so I got tired of the large font thing so I actually took five minutes to find the size changer thingy. Also I wanted a fancier font so BOOM TA DA. Anywho, other things happened in Vienna like the worst pickpocket in the world. After the fancy gardens, we went to go ride the ferris wheel in the park. By this time, it's dark outside and basically the whole park was closed except for this ferris wheel, so it was already pretty sketchy and kinda eerie. So I am walking along and out of the corner of my eye I see this kid (like 12 or 13?) walking up kinda quickly behind me, just over my right shoulder. So naturally I whip around like "yo what are you doing why are you so close to me why are you walking so fast where are your parents??" and this kid just flattens himself on the wall. The wall I am walking beside. ??? It didn't even occur to me he was a pickpocket at this point I just thought this kid had problems and wanted to be a chameleon or he was hiding from someone I don't even know I was just weirded out by this kid. I kept walking and throwing looks at him over my shoulder and that was the last I saw of him. I didn't know he was a pickpocket until I asked Shannon if she had seen the kid and she said oh yeah he was a pickpocket that's why I made you walk closer to me. So basically I am going to be ready to fight in Paris: zippers on my bag hooked, phone in hand, and bag held in front of me because I know pickpocketers in Paris aren't going to be as bad as the one at the theme park.
So after Vienna why is it red now what the heck. I don't know how this happened so I am going to roll with it. After Vienna Austin, Claudia, Shannon, and I caught a train to Munich. We didn't do anything in Munich really, just slept. The main thing we did was CASTLE. As whoever has read my blogs would now, I have basically talked about visiting Neuschwanstein (A CASTLE) in every blog I have written and I have finally gotten to go to it. The train ride from Munich was beautiful. We got on the train in the morning and watching the sun rise over all of the hills was really beautiful thing to look at, I don't know how Shannon fell asleep. What I really was not expecting was mountains. I was peacefully looking at the hills and I looked far out and I saw snowy mountains and I got even more excited because I didn't know the castle was actually in the mountains, I always thought it was on a hill. Basically this trip was just magical: I got to see A CASTLE, there were MOUNTAINS, and it SNOWED. Winter wonderland all around 10/10 would recommend. I think my favorite thing about the castle was not touring inside of it but rather just seeing it in the distance and enjoying the view. That thing looked stunning from all angles. I just really want a castle now. But after our castle tour (which was kind of disappointing because as it turns out the interior was never finished because the king dude who was supposed to live in it died so they stopped building it) we went hiking to find the bridge that was perched so that you had a majestic view of the castle and the surrounding area. We took the trail less traveled and I discovered that I am not used to hiking on an incline. Whenever I go hiking at home, it's always on some flat area of land because well I am from North Texas. It's flat there. So mountain hiking was a whole new thing for me, as the only thing I have done on mountains is ski. The snow made the path a kind of a slip n' slide and kind of treacherous, but we were going to get to that dang bridge. As it turns out the bridge was actually closed, but we did as everyone else was and just walked around the gate blocking off the path to the bridge. Now that path was an icy adventure. The last stretch was a slope down to the entrance of the bridge, so you just had to hang on the the railing and slide right on down. Fun, kind of scary, but super fun. Once we had taken all the pictures we wanted from the bridge, we crossed it and started hiking up the tall mountain on the other side. We really wanted to hike to the top and we got super close, but we had to head back down before we got to the top because we didn't want to be stuck up there in the dark. We had almost made it all the way back into town with no casualties until Austin slipped hopping down from a little ledge. It was hilarious because it literally looked like a cartoon slip, feet went straight up in the air it was great. However, I only laughed at him until I made sure he was okay, I'm not heartless. That only happens on Tuesday. But alles klar no broken bones. We were just super glad the same road that we had to take up to the bridge was not icy and slippery on our way back down. It had snowed while we were hiking in the mountain and that little bit of powder made walking down so much easier.
The bus ride back to Bonn took 8 hours. Heckin whoop. But my favorite part about trips is looking out the window and I must say Germany is gorgeous. But yeah, once I got back to my host family I scarfed down some soup and went to bed. I had hopes that I would get work done but ha.
Well that was the past week. This was a lot more than I usually write and it took a lot longer than I liked and most of y'all who started reading this probably didn't get to the end so congrats to those who read it all. OLYMPICS START THURSDAY and I am conflicted between how I am going to watch the Olympics and do Carnival at the same time :/
I digress and somehow we are back to black. I don't understand Blogger. If anyone can explain to me how to go back and add words without typing over the words that are already there that would be fantastic.
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