Stille Fox

This past week has flown by.  Ever since we left for Vienna it feels like I have just been going non-stop.  Even after sleeping in this morning I am still mentally and physically exhausted.  Going back to the beginning of the week though I remember being super excited for our first excursion to Vienna.  Since I got to Europe I have felt overwhelmed trying to plan everything so I was excited to have everything already planned out.  Tuesday was travel day and it was pretty exhausting.  Traveling was a non-issue but as soon as we got off the plane we passed through the hotel and then began our journey in Vienna. 

We were first met by Dr. Schnabel who proceeded to take us on a historical tour of Vienna.  Apparently there was an outbreak of the plague in Vienna while we were there but luckily the doctor had plenty of medicine for us.  Upon completing our tour of Vienna we went to the Freud Museum.  I have always been very interested in all things relating to psychology so I was very excited for this.  Dr.  Wasser had told us prior to arriving that we would be inhaling cigar particles leftover from Freud.  I do not know if it was just my mind playing tricks on me but I actually thought I could still vaguely smell cigar smoke.  Since Freud smoked 20 cigars a day it seems pretty feasible that it would be possible to still smell the smoke.  I also thought it was very interesting to hear about the man who stole one of Freud's hats but then consequently returned it.  This is the kind of information that I feel like I would never hear about if it were not for having Dr. Wasser with us.  That is one thing that has made this trip very valuable to me.  I feel like I am learning about things that I would totally miss without having Dr. Wasser showing us around.  After the  Freud Museum we went back to the hotel for a bit and then headed to the gulasch museum for dinner.  I had an awesome dinner at the gulasch museum.  The food was delicious and I got to bond with the people who were at my table.  We laughed throughout the entire dinner.  This was probably the hardest I had laughed recently so all in all it was a pretty perfect night.  Upon getting back to the hotel a group of us got together to listen to our listening assignments.  At this point I am remembering that Dr. Wasser introduced us to the phrase "stille fox."  Apparently this is a phrase used to quiet German kids.  We had trouble staying quiet during our entire stay in Vienna so we used the phrase a lot.

Day two of the Vienna trip started off really nicely because we got to sleep in!  Sleep has been pretty hard to come by since I got to Europe so I was happy to be able to get a few more hours.  After breakfast it was off to the Josephinum.  One thing that struck me from the very beginning was just how massive the Josephinum is.  The Josephinum would have been considered to be extremely large for a hospital even by today's standards.  It was also very interesting learning about the different buildings and their intended purposes.  The fact that there was a whole branch of the hospital dedicated to women who were pregnant with children not belonging to their husbands was quite interesting to me.  The coolest part of this tour had to be the wax models.  The wax models really amazed me from an artistic standpoint.  Crafting such intricate models must have taken an extreme amount of skill and patience.  Due to the intricacy of the models I can see how they must have been extremely valuable assets to individuals who were studying to be doctors.  After the Josephinum we headed to the Haus der Musik.  I really enjoyed the Haus der Musik but we were on a pretty tight timetable so it was hard to absorb all the information that was present.  We did have a very knowledgeable tour guide though which helped in understanding the most important information.  

After Hause der Musik we went to the Kapuzinergruft.  I remember thinking that the sarcophagi in the first room were massive, that is until I saw Maria Theresa's tomb...  The sheer size and intricacy of the sarcophagus is amazing.  After the crypt we went back to the Freud Museum where Dr. Wasser gave us a lecture on Freud.  We were all exhausted by the end of this but Dr. Wasser rewarded us with gelato afterwards.  

Day three of the Vienna trip began with a visit to the Narrenturm or "Fool's Tower."  The Narrenturm is actually a pretty creepy place between the wall to wall number of specimens and the fact that it used to be a psychiatric hospital.  That being said it is still very kool.  Going to the Narrenturm gave me a chance to gain a better understanding of how certain diseases were treated in the past and also gave me an opportunity to see the impact of different disorders.  We went to lunch and then after that a group of us toured the Hofburg palace.  The Hofburg was extremely elegant and definitely worth seeing.  After seeing the palace we went back to the hotel to get ready for the concert.  

The concert was definitely up there with the Narrenturm in relation to my favorite things on this trip.  The church was beautiful and made listening to the concert an awesome experience.

Our final day in Vienna began with a visit to the Natural History Museum of Vienna.  

The museum houses a massive number of specimens and artifacts and was an awesome experience.  One of the stand out items on the tour was the "Venus of Willendorf."  She is a very small, chubby statue that is almost 30,000 years old.  She is not a massive ornate statue but the fact that she is almost 30,000 years old and still intact is amazing.  30,000 years is such an immense amount of time that it is difficult for me to really wrap my head around just how long that is.  After seeing the Venus we went through and saw a large portion of the animals that the museum has on display.  The Museum of Natural Science in Houston has a collection of animals but the collection at the museum in Vienna blows it out of the water.  There are models of just about every bird, mammal, reptile, etc., that you can think of.  I wish I could have spent a lot more time at the museum but in the end the group I was with decided to leave.  Thus ends the Vienna journey!