A man must keep going. A man must not stop.

A man must keep going. A man must not stop- These are the very words going through my mind when I woke up Tuesday morning at 3:00 AM in preparation of flight to Vienna. If it weren't for this absolute determination, I’m not sure I would have overcome the tiredness that was pulling me back into bed like a tidal wave pulls a helpless jellyfish into its endless grasp. Or like a black hole pulls time itself into its beautiful, infinite abyss… “A man must keep going.” 

A man was tired because he had still not really recovered from Berlin and the 9 hour FlixBus commute. However, I did get up and took some candy from Ina's stash and went outside. 

Joshua and the taxi driver pulled up to Alice-Salamon St. to pick up Kevin and myself and for an absolutely phenomenal start to the week. The taxi driver opened up and started talking to us quite a bit after he realized we knew and liked Pink Floyd (it was playing in the background). What a guy that Taxi driver. We’ll probably never see him again, but I hope he has a great rest-of-his-life.

Fast forward to Vienna. What…a…city! I’ve actually always dreamed of visiting this city and it did not disappoint. Not in the slightest. Even the weather was perfect. I’ll include a picture or two because a picture’s worth a thousand words and all.

Ferris Wheel- Vienna, Austria

Heart Balloon-Vienna Austria

 

Dr. Wasser really set the tone by calling his colleague to give us a walking tour of the city on the first day. Truthfully, I really appreciated that tour. Similarly, I very much enjoyed the classical music concert we attended. I’ll be honest and say that I did not know who Joseph Haydn was before the concert, but I left that church as a fan. 

The academic aspects of the excursion did not disappoint either. Having learned Sigmund Freud’s studies many times before, I really enjoyed being in the official Freud museum. Also, I learned quite a bit. While I am familiar with his theories and beliefs, I learned during our lecture that I knew nothing about Freud’s actual life. I didn’t even know he was married (much less that his original name was Sigismund).

The Natural History museum was also extremely informative and all-around cool. You can’t go wrong by taking a bunch of science majors to a science museum. I also had the pleasure of going to the Art history museum and got “lost in the sauce” it was great. I mean, we spent nearly 2 hours on just the first floor. Well, it was actually floor 0.5, so I guess we barely even made it to the first floor which is kind of wild if you think about it. There was so much amazing work. It has me very excited for our excursion to the mother of all museums later in March.

Finally, Krakow was super cool. I had what I can easily call the best burger of my life. Since we all went to bed extremely early, I was very rested the next morning and went for a run around the city. After having done this in Vienna as well, I think it’s my new favorite way to see a new city. I’ll include a picture of my run along the Vistula River. The coolest thing happened during this run though. After several miles along the river, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I heard it too, since I had fortunately and randomly decided to take out my headphones. It was a flapping noise. Turning to my left towards the river, I see a giant swan fly past me on the river with his feet dragging along the water. There was no one else around really, just the swan, myself, and perhaps whatever fish it was hunting. Its wings hit the water with each stroke and made a loud(ish) sound; yet, it was so graceful-really, really cool. Another swan did the same thing afterwards and I contemplated taking a picture but decided not to. I do like swans much more now than I did before that run.