We're Halfway There

As I sit here and type this blog post, I have been in Vienna for 21 days, and unfortunately, I depart in a short 23 days.  So by the time this gets posted, I will be exactly halfway done with this journey.  That being said, I did some more exciting things this past week and have many more adventures planned for my remaining time here.  Here’s this week’s update!

I went to the Freud Museum last Wednesday.  I’ll be the first one to say that I don’t agree with many of Freud’s theories, but I do appreciate him because without him the field of Psychology would likely not exist.  The museum had a free English audio guide, so we got the back story of each room we walked into.  There were even some original items of Freud’s. I’m really glad we decided to go experience this museum.

On Friday, I went to Salzburg for a day trip.  I experienced my first ever train ride! It was really fun (except when we went into tunnels and my ears popped like crazy).  We didn’t really have a distinct plan for Salzburg, but knew we wanted to see all the sites where The Sound of Music was filmed. So we started at Mirabell Gardens, which is where the song “Do Re Mi” was filmed and while there we happened upon the Dwarf Gardens, which I also wanted to see while we were there.  After exploring the gardens, we decided to take the 30 minute tram ride to the Helbrunn Palace, which was the house in the movie.  We took some pictures there and then ventured to the gardens to find the gazebo where “16 Going on 17” was filmed.  It was near a pond so after taking some pictures we relaxed near the water.  After we got back from the palace, we got dinner and walked around the old town until it was time for us to depart again.

On Saturday, everyone was either out of town or busy, so I decided to explore the city on my own! I hadn’t really gotten a chance to do that until that day and now that I was more accustomed to my surroundings, I knew I could find my way home on my own.  I wound up wandering a bit in the city center, then decided to go to Stadtpark (which is close to where my school is). It was a beautiful day, so I actually wound up sitting there and people watching, reading, and watching the ducks on the pond for about five hours.  It turned into a much needed relaxing day.

On Sunday, the Museum Moderner Kunst (mumok) was free. In English, that is the Museum of Modern Art.  Since it was free some of my friends and I got together and walked through it.  The mumok has three underground floors, the ground floor, and five upper floors, so we started from the bottom and worked our way up.  There were some really interesting pieces on display and you can’t get much better than a free museum! After the museum, we went to Mariahilf, which is a street near where I live.  They have a shop that has rolled ice cream, which has become a viral trend lately, so we decided to try it! I was a little expensive, but a lot delicious!

On Tuesday, I went with a couple of friends to the Imperial Crypt and the St. Stephen’s catacombs.  At the Imperial Crypt, there were sarcophaguses from the last 400 years including Maria Theresa’s and Franz Josef’s.  The most recent one was from 2011.  Walking through the St. Stephen’s catacombs was a chilling experience.  It is estimated that the remains of 12,000 people lay under St. Stephen’s, a lot of whom died from the Black Plague.  There were also old, broken statues in the catacombs that dated back over 700 years. 

And today, Wednesday, I had my presentation for my Health Psychology class.  It was over suicide prevention, so it is an important topic, but also a difficult topic to discuss.  I think the presentation went well.  Now I just have to write my midterm paper for the class.  Tomorrow I have my German midterm test, so after I finish this blog, I’ll be doing a lot of studying.

As you can see it has been a pretty packed week and next week will be equally as busy.  Friday we have a class trip to Semmering where we will hike through the Alps and go cave exploring.  Then Saturday I am going to Bratislava, Slovakia for the day.  Sunday I’ll be exploring Vienna a little more, then I’ll start classes again.  Come back next week to hear about these experiences and more!