I can’t believe I’ve been in Vienna for over a week now! On Saturday (May 25th) we had a walking tour of the nearby attractions in Stephansplatz. That night was the Life Ball, an AIDS benefit ball, in front of the Rathaus and they had standing room for people without tickets to come and oggle at the celebrities. It was so accessible to the public through huge screens broadcasting the event the whole time with sign interpreters and English captioning on some of the speeches. We left a little early to go see Tobi (his photo is below) perform with his group at a local bar. Both the psychology and music groups were there so he had a pretty large fan group. On Sunday we went to Mass at St. Augustine’s and then on a bus tour around the entire city. Unfortunately, so many of us were so jet-lagged that I don’t think anyone stayed awake for the whole tour. We ended at a traditional heurigen, which is a wine tavern that serves only this past year’s vintage.
We started class on that monday with German. There are only 3 people in the non-beginner German so it’s pretty intense. The psychology classes are in the afternoon. I’ll post more on those later. On Tuesday evening, a group of us went to go see “Natürlich Blond” or “Legally Blonde” as it’s known in English. They sang and acted completely in German but there were also English subtitles on screens on the side. We got standing room tickets for 5 Euro each and were able to move into seats that hadn’t been taken after intermission. On Wednesday we went to go see “Don Quixote” the ballet at the Staatsoper. Those tickets were only 4 Euro, but we got into line 2 hours before the show started. The ballet was absolutely fantastic. Thursday was technically a “Feiertag” for Corpus Christi Day so all the shops and things to do were closed. The entire city pretty much shuts down on Sundays and feiertage. My roommate and I spent our long weekend at the Naturhistorisches Museum, going to the Naschmarkt, and exploring Vienna. Some people from the program took advantage of the class cancellations by going to Venice for the weekend, but I wanted to see Vienna a bit more before going out and exploring the rest of Europe.
It’s been a whirlwind first week getting used to the 7 hour time difference and slight cultural differences but I’m really glad that we have 5 more to go.
Emily Park
<p><span style="color: rgb(29, 29, 29); font-family: Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; background-color: rgb(237, 237, 237);">Emily is a rising senior studying psychology with a focus in development at the University of Rochester. Her dream job is to be a family therapist somewhere sunny. When she's not studying psychology, she enjoys dancing with the Ballet Performance Group, swimming on the Master's team, running along the Genesee, and studying Russian. She is excited to learn about psychology in its birth place, brush up on her German and live in the beautiful city of Vienna.</span></p>
