My Post about Vienna

Howdy! It is currently Saturday evening in Prague, and we are getting ready to go to a bar-hopping event provided by Sir Toby's! We have just spent the entire past week in Vienna, Austria with Dr. Wasser and Olivia. I don’t even know where to start talking because we did so many different things in Vienna.

My first impression of Vienna is that the people there are very proper and conservative about behavior and mannerisms. I feel like in every situation, our group is always that “obnoxious American group” that people do not always appreciate. For example the other day while we were on a tram in Vienna, some drugged up French man started shouting at us across the bus telling us that he was “not interested in anything we had to say.” Nevertheless, it is moments like these that I will always remember and laugh about at the end of the day.

Though we went to so many different places, there were a few places that stood out to me this week. The Museum of Vienna was interesting because it was my first introduction to Vienna’s history, of which I had no prior knowledge. The Siegmund Freud Museum and lecture were both really cool. I did not know too much about Freud’s philosophies about psychoanalysis, but being an atheist myself, I found some of the concepts very relatable. It makes sense that we are controlled by Id, Ego, and Super-Ego that keep our mental state in balance. Going to the Narrenturm was also really fascinating because we went through the Federal Pathologic anatomical Museum. When Dr. Wasser said that we, as medical students, don’t have to worry about getting sick from the displays on this tour, I thought that I would be the one to prove him wrong because I cannot stand looking at large amounts of blood. Fortunately, all the organs were cleaned as they were placed in separate jars and the wax models were nothing close to blood gushing out of people’s skin like I had expected. What I found interesting were some of the very rare diseases that have been found and modeled with wax: the girl that died with a bunch of nails found in her stomach because she had a mental disorder…the many different still born Siamese twins that were not able to make it…all of these cases were very cool to see yet very sad as well.

And lastly, we went to an orchestra concert to hear Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony on our last night in Vienna. Unlike everyone else in our group, I actually did not think the concert was all that great. I have been playing the violin since I was very young and my high school orchestra has been constantly ranked as number one in the state of Texas, so I grew up playing with and listening to more intense and professional orchestras. I had expected that hearing a concert in Vienna, the place I have always known as the city of Mozart and Beethoven, would have been mind-blowing to me, but I am sad to say that I was a bit disappointed in the lack of musicality and tone in this performance.

We had a good amount of free time during our time in Vienna as well. A lot of the girls in our group particularly enjoyed eating at Café Demel. I especially liked going to Belvedere and looking at Gustav Klimt’s artwork and observing how the style of art has been changing over time. I realize that in any branch of the arts, our society has grown to appreciate individual style more and more. While a respected artist in our generation is usually praised for his/her expression of individuality, it is the artist’s technique that must be mastered before anything else. I compare Klimt to Lady Gaga in this aspect. Klimt’s earlier paintings had made it clear that he had the skill to be just as good as any well-known painter in the early 1900’s. Similarly, Lady Gaga got into Juilliard at a very young age, making it clear that she had the ability to be a great musician. However, it was these artists’ revolutionary style that distinguishes them from the other artists/musicians that are just as talented. In this case, it was Klimt’s famous gold-leaf paintings that changed the art world during this time.  I believe that it takes both ability and bravery to become a respected artist or performer.

Anyways, I feel like I am starting to make this blog post unnecessarily long…overall Vienna was a great cultural experience. Every day, I am more grateful to have been given the opportunity to travel across Europe and learn about so many things I have never seen before. Though it was not my personal favorite, Vienna is definitely a place I will never forget.