Vienna

Wednesday - October 23

When we got off the train in Vienna, we got on a bus to take us to our hotel.

Oh, Vienna! Even from the bus you are beautiful.

Our hotel was even more amazing than the one in Budapest.

And, it was literally only across a small street from a metro stop.

We were two to one room instead of three.

And our bathroom was BEAUTIFUL.

We all went to Belvedere Palace, and optional visit, and David paid with DIS money, just like the spa in Budapest was optional and David paid with DIS money. Sometimes traveling with big groups for school is great.

There were no photos allowed inside, but it was an art museum and most of the stuff was really beautiful and the place was pretty huge.

There were also beautiful gardens in back of the palace with a beautiful view of the city.

We got to Belvedere around 1:30pm and saw the whole museum. The girls I had been hanging out with most on the trip and I went to Schönbrunn Palace, but we didn't go inside because it cost money. The beautiful gardens were all dug up for fall, so that was kind of ugly, but we went around back and saw the grounds. There is a maze when the leaves aren't falling, but you could see through them now so it was closed.

It was very fall-like, and it was fun to just walk around the extensive estate and enjoy the weather (much warmer than Denmark) and the beauty.

We took the opportunity for more photo shoots.

From left to right, my friends are Katrina, Anna, and Becky. We also hung out with my friend Josie and Anna's friend Kaitlyn a lot.

We didn't have time to go up the hill to see this, but it was cool from down here, too.

Then, we all met for dinner at Cafe Museum.

It was pretty fancy. The guy on the left is Jesal and the girl on the right is Stephanie.

David bought himself a bottle of red wine and shared with those of us who sat at the same table as him.

For an appetizer, we had a roll of ham stuff with egg salad.

For the main course, we had a Viennese meat dish with mayo, spinach, and apple horseradish sauces. The sauces were delicious!

There was also a shredded potato and cheese side.

For dessert we had cheesecake with raspberries in a jello on top. A lot of people didn't like the cheesecake, but they also had a lot of complaints about the other food we had eaten on the whole trip. They are concerned with how much food we had been getting and how unhealthy it is and how fat they are getting. I, on the other hand, was feeling fat and happy and blessed that I was able to go on this trip and not get sick.

Then we went to a concert hall and listened to the Mozart Orchestra.

The tickets said they were about 60 euros a piece. It was awesome because I didn't fall asleep like most people and like I do on academic visits. The orchestra was dressed up in time period-appropriate clothing, which I thoroughly enjoyed but which many other people didn't appreciate because they thought it was too gimmicky.

Some of the pieces were accompanied by opera singers; a man, a woman or both of them. They were also dressed up and were trying to put on somewhat of a performance.

Thursday

We went to the Austrian Red Cross headquarters for our academic visit of the day.

I liked it a lot because we got to see where they draw blood and how it all works and what they do to purify the different parts of the blood. They were pretty technologically advanced and had really cool labs and machines.

As in all the other visits, our group of 30 students was too large for comfort. We were always blocking doorways, and some people couldn't hear the tour guide, and we were always interrupting the workers. That's one of the things I hate about travelling in big groups.

Then we went to Naschmarkt, the famous outdoor market in Vienna.

There were mostly food stands and restaurants, though there were a few shops with goods.

I got some baklava for 2 euros.

The people running the stands spoke less English than the people in Hungary did. I'm sure they get more tourists and consumers that know German than the Hungarians get tourists who know Hungarian.

So after some troubled trying to order from a restaurant with Anna, I just bought a feta and tomato and spinach sandwich.

Then we went on a guided walking tour of the city. This is an art museum that houses contemporary exhibits and is pretty famous.

This is one of the few parts of the old city wall that were left standing around the ring road.

This is a Holocaust memorial that serves as a reminder to Austrians that many of them were Nazis even though they used to think of themselves as free of blame. Underneath the ground there are bodies of civilians and the remnants of houses that were bombed in WWII.

This is the national library, and it's connected to the outside of the Imperial Palace. 

The grounds of the palace are extensive, and this is where the Spanish Riding School is and where they house the horses.

This is what's left of the oldest parts of the palace that were continually added on to as the Austrian empire grew.

We saw the balcony where Hitler made a speech. The square inside the palace was full of people and tents preparing for the festival for their national holiday on Saturday. There was a crane 190 meters tall that people could pay 190 euros to bungee jump off of and break the world record.

Outside the palace, there is the most expensive shopping street in Vienna. There are beautiful jewels and a famous chocolate shop and Gucci and Louis Vuitton shops.

This is a memorial for all the lives lost during the plague. The emperor traveled around Europe trying to avoid the plague, but basically just brought it with him everywhere. 

And this is Saint Stephen's church. I think it Gothic style and it's being renovated or cleaned right now so that it will be closer to white again.

I love the Gothic style architecture in Europe. Again, my photos don't do the beauty justice.

Especially on the inside of the church. It was honestly the most beautiful church I've ever seen. More beautiful than Notre Dam and Sacre Coeur in Paris.

Then we had free time until dinner, so Jesal and I used the suggested walking tour on a map I had to see the rest of Vienna.

We passed through a historic neighborhood with a cute bookstore.

And there were cobblestone streets and a really old church.

Across the big canal, the buildings are new and modern.

And the graffiti along the canal is really cool.

We saw one of the buildings of the University.

And we walked down a street for pedestrians that was quaint and adorable.

We walked through the park surrounding a neogothic church that was also being renovated.

This is the city hall.

And the concert hall (surrounded by more people preparing for the national holiday festival).

The park next to the main campus of the University.

And this is the parliament building. There is a statue of Athena, the goddess of wisdom, and the joke is that she has her back turned to the parliament, meaning that wisdom doesn't lie inside the building but outside it.

I think that's more applicable to the USA though, because we had another government shutdown while I've been abroad.

For dinner, we went to a traditional restaurant/brewery where we had a beer tasting with our dinner.

The staff was dressed up kind of like the German's do for Oktoberfest.

We started off with a pilsner beer, and a tomato and mozzarella salad.

The main course was delicious. It was chicken weinerschnitzel and a yummy potato salad.

Dessert was a warm apple struedel in an icing-like sauce.

We had five beers in total, each about half of a mug. We had a pilsner, a light beer, a wheat beer, a red beer, and a dark beer.

I usually helped Anna drink hers because she was not beer's biggest fan.

We went back to the hotel and got ready for a night on the town. Chase (a senior that goes to Macalester) had a room to himself so everyone went there for a beer or a glass of wine before we went out. Someone met two English guys and invited them. They were both named Tom, and their accents were adorable.

We took the tram to somewhere then walked a long time. We tried to get into one club, and some people did but it was 21+ so the rest of us just went to the club next door. There were not many people there since it was a Thursday night, but there were about 15 of us there so we tore up the dance floor. I had SUCH a good time. We were all dancing with each other and just letting loose. I hadn't gone out at all the whole trip, so I thought I really deserved this.

Then we had to walk home because the public transit was done for the night. So that was horrible because only one person knew how to get back and most people were drunk and tired, haha.

Friday

I had about 3 hours of sleep and then I woke up, packed, and went down to breakfast. We had to check out so we put our luggage in the secure luggage room and went to the biggest orthopedic hospital in Vienna.

I was falling asleep during the presentation, but shortly into it, one guy who was allergic to tree nuts (and who was probably too tired to realize one of the pastries had nuts in it) bit into it and started having an allergic reaction. He forgot his epipen in Copenhagen so the presenter and Christian tried to find him medical help in the hospital. The girl who got bit by the dog wasn't there because she was going to a different hospital to get the rabies series. So then I was awake.

What a coincidence that the group of pre-medical school students was having so many medical problems.

When the presenter came back, he took us to see the day surgery clinic and the sports/gait analysis lab with cameras and software that measured force on joints. It was AWESOME! And the day clinic had a window that could unblur to allow students to see inside a operating theater and blur when family or patients were waiting in there. It was a private hospital, so it was mostly planned surgeries and not trauma cases.

Then we had a buffet for lunch back at the hotel.

There was mediterranean pasta and fried fish and potato salad and pork tenderloin and rice and veggies and salad and soup.

Dessert was a grape strudel thing and fresh fruit.

Since we were having the medical problem with the tree nut allergy and because our course assistant was staying with him, we cancelled the hour where we were supposed to present on our research paper topic. 

Instead, some friends and I took the metro to the state park and saw this beautiful site around the metro and the park itself.

Originally, the allergy kid was told to stay until tomorrow for observation, but they signed waivers and he made it back to the hotel in time to take the bus to the airport. The dog-bite girl got her shots after trying one hospital that ended up not having the right medicine.

All in all, it was a fantastic trip for me and a nightmare for some people.

I got back to Albertslund around 9:30pm and bought a slice of pizza from 7-11 and didn't want to wait 40 minutes for the bus so I walked home in the rain. 

I was exhausted after waking up early every day and staying out pretty late every night.

Today is Saturday, and I made myself wake up at 9:30 to try to get back into my routine. I feel fine right now but I feel like the lack of sleep is going to catch up with me this week and I have kind of a lot of homework to do...

Oh well. The trip was great and I spent less money than I did when I was on my own in Amsterdam, so I'm very happy.

I also took about 400 pictures during the trip.