Vienna and Krakow

This past week, I got the chance to go to both Vienna and Krakow,, after being home in Bonn for just one day. In a span of just 7 days, I've been in Italy, Germany, Austria, and Poland, and it's taken its toll on my body. I started off the Vienna trip sick, and I still have a cough a week and a half later. I blame the sick guy next to me on my plane back from Rome. Despite feeling a bit under the weather, Vienna was beautiful. I loved the city, maybe because it was so much more laid back than Rome, but nonetheless I want to revisit one day when I'm not feeling so krank. Ironically enough, Dr. Wasser's good plague doctor friend Dr. Schnabel led us on a medical history tour of Vienna the first day. We also got to see the crypt of an old church the first day, which housed hundreds of coffins and several walls filled with piles of bones. The next day started with a visit to a drug museum, which I'm sure would have been much cooler if I wasn't even more sick that day. The rest of the day involved me sleeping, drinking water, and leaving the hotel one time for medicine and another time for food. Thursday was very interesting: we started off at a tour through a medical museum in an old psychiatric ward. Most of what we were shown were very traumatic injuries and diseases; it was a very gross-neat experience. The Freud house was next, with an intriguing lecture on Sigmund Freud from Dr. Wasser. The museum itself was not extremely interesting, but the lecture taught me many things I did not know about Freud. That night we watched/listened to a string quartet perform Mozart and Hayden. I didn't know it was going to be a quartet at first, so I was slightly caught off  guard, but they were all extremely skilled musicians. Friday felt like the shortest day, even though it definitely was not. First, we watched the Lipizzaner practice at the Spanish Riding school. As interesting as it was, after the first 20-30 minutes it got a little old. Later that day we went to the Natural History Museum in Vienna. I have a soft spot for all museums, but this one was especially cool because it houses the Venus of Willendorf, a legendary sculpture from 20-30 thousand years ago. I also liked looking at the birds, especially the ducks. The rest of the night was lazy, until we made our way to the bus station for our night bus to Krakow. Somewhere in there I also realized that I had booked the wrong flight back from Krakow to Dusseldorf, so I had to re-book and hurt my wallet to ensure that I could make it home. Then, the ticket guy at the Flix bus said I had the wrong ticket (I did not), making me think I did the same thing twice, for the same trip. I'd only heard bad things about Flix bus, so my expectation were very low for the ensuing ride, but I slept all 8 hours or so, even through the stops. I had almost no expectations going into Poland, because I hadn't heard really anything about it, but Krakow was beautiful. It's another city I'm having to add to my list of places to visit again when I have more time, because there is so much we didn't get to see. Mind, the real reason I wanted to go to Krakow was to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau, but I still wish we were there a day longer. Saturday was essentially the only day we had to do anything, and we spent most of it at Auschwitz. Auschwitz  was in a word, horrifying, and it was one of the most shell-shocking experiences I've ever had. Of course, I knew what happened there beforehand, but textbooks can't really prepare you for the things you can see there. I walked around on my own, with just a guide book. The atmosphere was heavy, and it was almost hard to breathe. Some of the most terrible things I saw was all of the hair taken off of the women killed in the gas chambers, the shoes, the suitcases, the death wall, the gallows, the David Olere exhibit, and especially the gas chamber and crematorium itself. I did not have as much time at Birkenau, but the sheer size of it and the hauntingly famous view of the railroad into the camp was enough for me. By far one of the most impacting trips, it's not one I'll soon forget. The rest of our stay was much lighter, with burgers the size of our heads and a peaceful homework day spent in a nearby bakery. It was also my first time staying in a hostel, and it was a pleasant experience. Getting home was easy enough, and we arrived with plenty of time for me to eat dinner and finish my homework.

There isn't much school to talk about this week, because I basically didn't have school. But, I very much enjoyed the Freud lecture, because it was new information to me. Outside of that however, the entire trip was a learning experience for me, as I notched two more countries on my belt. I have two tests coming up in the next week, and one the following week, and enough homework to boot. Enmodes is kicking off as well, and  we have a presentation of our problems to the company next week as well,