Wonderful Wien

     Last week we went to Vienna (Wien) for our educational field trip. I struggled with figuring out how exactly to convey the awesomeness of the experience to you readers-- a separate blog entry for each day? Each activity? Truth is, there's no conceivable way to express every separate moment's joy, so I'll attempt to condense it to the best stuff and, for the sake of time, give a brief overview.
     Day one of our stay in Vienna was, for the most part, taken up with travel-- going to the airport, waiting there, flying, driving to the hotel, etc. But shortly after our arrival in the imperial city, we had already begun our whirlwind tour, starting off the trip with a tour of one of Mozart's apartments. I expected it to be more like Goethe's house in Frankfurt, which was furnished much as it was in his time. Instead, it was filled with information, more of a museum than an exact preservation of his house. Still, though, I found it fascinating, especially because here I was within the same four walls that Mozart had lived and composed. To top off the night, we had a group dinner consisting of-- of course-- Wiener schnitzel and apple strudel.
     Day two was rainy and cold, but that did not at all detract from the experience. In fact, it made for the perfect day for going to museums. We saw two that day-- the Kunsthistorisches Museum (art history museum), which was incredibly gorgeous inside and had exhibits of Greek, Egyptian, and 17th and 18th century artwork. The other museum my group saw that day was the Albertina Museum, which housed modern art. Admittedly, I didn't like that one quite as much, since I'm not really a modern art fan. They did have a Monet painting though, which was so cool to see in person and catered to my tastes a lot more than other forms of modern art. After that we went to THE Cafe Sacher, which was pretty much across the street, and had the famous Sacher Torte which was invented there.
     Day three, which was Thursday, we went to the Stift Melk, which is a monastery and school in the town of Melk about an hour outside of Vienna. I thought monasteries were supposed to be bare and austere, but this one certainly wasn't! It was filled with gorgeous baroque architecture and had beautiful gardens. My favorite room was, of course, the library. Gilded books filled shelves which completely covered the walls-- if I remember correctly, there were ladders too! Basically, that room will have to be in my house someday. Then that afternoon we had "free time" in which we could do whatever we wanted. I went with a group to Belvedere Palace (yet another gorgeous place in Vienna-- there's no shortage of palaces, it seems) and looked at an exhibition of Gustav Klimt's paintings inside (among other artists' works). I previously did not know any of Klimt's works besides "The Kiss" (which is gorgeous in person), but I have to say that after seeing so many of his works I am quite the fan of Klimt's works. After that, almost everyone in our group went to the Circus Roncalli in front of the City Hall. It was so much fun, and the acts were incredibly impressive-- especially the trapeze artists and the strong man.
     I think Friday, day four, was my favorite. We started off the day with a journey to the Schloss Schoenbrunn, the summer palace of the Hapsburg Family (you know... like Marie Antoinette before she was married off to Louis XVI...among other important historical figures who lived lavish lives). It was rather cold but it was well worth braving the cold to traverse the palace gardens. We didn't have a ton of time to do so but a bunch of us walked up the hill to the cafe at the top. Only my friends Ashley, Evan, and I went to eat inside the cafe, though. The views were gorgeous and the prices weren't terrible, and we had a great conversation over lunch. So great, in fact, that we might have lost track of time a wee bit... the three of us went and found the subway station. We were only 10 minutes later than when we were supposed to meet the group, but of course they had left by that time. It was no problem, though-- we got on the subway, figured out where we were supposed to go, and problem solved. From there I went with my separate group to the imperial crypt of the Hapsburgs, where people like Maria Theresa are buried.
     Friday night was the best. We had LOTS of extra time to get all dolled up, and Ashley's and my room was basically a beauty parlor. After everyone's hair and makeup was done and we were sufficiently dressed up, we headed down to the lobby because the whole group was about to go to a Strauss/Mozart concert together. Seeing a classical music concert was basically the one thing I HAD to do in Vienna (it is the classical music capital of the world, you know...), so I was ecstatic that Pepperdine had planned just that for us. I loved every minute of music and soaked it up as much as I could. It was incredible and ended far too soon.

Stift Melk... can you believe this is a monastery?

pretty BOOKS! Cue drool...

The cafe at the top of the Schoenbrunn gardens. Can you believe we actually got to eat lunch in there?

     Saturday was, sadly, our last day in the beautiful city of Vienna. We started the day with a tour of Stephansdom, Vienna's famous Cathedral which was partially burned in (I believe) the 1940's. It was, like so many other things in that city, absolutely gorgeous. After that I toured the Kunsthaus Wien, an exhibit of the works of Friedensreich Hundertwasser, an eccentric artist (his first name, clearly not the one he was born with, basically means "peace kingdom"). He was very into the green movement and had some very interesting ideas about sustainable living, and his art looks kind of like an acid trip (at least what I would guess an acid trip would be like). While we were there, my friend Chris and I had a pretty intense discussion about the art of the future and how technology is changing everything-- what will our museums be like in the future? Will art on canvas be a thing of the past? How will people in the future define the culture of our day? All in all, it was a pretty cool day. After those activities I personally was exhausted and, after getting some cheap food, went back to the hotel lobby for the 30 or so minutes I had left until we were to depart for the airport. After that, we left Vienna. Our travel home was uneventful, and before long we were back in our beloved Heidelberg.

Schoenbrunn ist so schoen!

     That, in a nutshell, was our Vienna trip. It seemed like a VERY short 5 days, and I wish we could have had so much more time to soak it all in. But, conversely, I'm also thankful that we had so much time there-- Vienna was at the top of my list of places to visit whilst in Europe, so I'm glad that it ended up being the location of our field trip so that I had 5 days of vacation rather than trying to squeeze all that amazingness into a 3 day weekend. And now, it is back to reality: papers are due soon and there's always homework to do. Sigh. But I can't really complain; either way, I'm still in Europe having the time of my life :)