Venture to Vienna

Vienna, capital and one of the nine states of Austria, is by far one of the coolest places I have ever been. From the first tour around the city to the closing remarks at the Natural History Museum, I was fascinated by the city and its history.

To break down the excursion, I'll just start with Tuesday. After arriving and settling in to the Hotel Deutschmeister, we as a group went to meet Dr. Schnabel, a friend and colleague of Dr. Wasser, for a tour around the city. Unfortunately, Dr. Wasser wasn't able to attend and totally missed out; Dr. Schnabel showed up in his plague doctor outfit and gave us a tour of not just Vienna today, but of Vienna years and years ago when the plague was thriving in the streets. We would go see buildings that used to be old hospitals and care facilities for plague, even though now they're just restaurants and shops. He gave us old medicines that were believed to cure and prevent the plague, some of them enjoyable (not all). He took us on a true trip to the past, and then showed us something truly unique by taking us to Sigmund Freud's old apartment. When I took Psychology, we were taught about Sigmund Freud and his methods of analytics, but because he was just another guy with theories from that class I didn't really give him too much though. But walking into his old home, looking at the rooms where he lived and worked, breathing in the old cigar molecules that surely still inhabited that place, I was in awe because now, then, he wasn't just some guy I read about in a text book anymore; he was real! Now, that probably sounds stupid and childish phrased like that, but I can't truly describe the feelings I felt when my eyes were opened to the amount of history that place held.

Wednesday, we took trips to the Josephinum, the House of Music, and the Capuchin Crypt. The Crypt and the House were cool and everything, but the Josephinum was a marvel. The history of the building was interesting, from the conception to the construction, and the old surgical tools that were showed to us were neat as can be, but nothing compares to the wax models kept in the museum. Upon entering the first room that housed them, I was struck with utter....there is no word for the feeling I felt. I looked upon the first wax model, and was captivated. It looked like there was an actual body under the glass. Even though it was just wax, it was truly a way to appreciate the beauty and majesty of the human body in a way I had never felt before. Some may think that may sound weird, but odds are they never saw those rooms, and never truly appreciated the greatest machine every made: the human body.

Thursday, we visited the Narrenturm, the Federal Pathological Anatomical Museum, or as I like to call it the "House of Nightmares." Just the day before we saw beautiful models and sculptures depicting the majesty of the human body, and then that day we saw damn near everything that could go wrong with it. Models of horrible skin afflictions, wax replicas of tumors swelling out of eye sockets, actual organs floating in jars, bodies of children twisted and mutilated; it was an eye-opener for some of the truly horrific afflictions some people have to go through. After that, I thank God I live in the time of modern medicine, but I also felt inspired somewhat after all the monstrosities. After all, if I do end up a medical doctor, it will be my duty and privilege to help people suffering in ways like that, and I will not back down from that challenge. That evening, we went to a classical concert in St. Anne's (though technically Schubert is a Romantic artist, I believe) and then later got to know Dr. Waltz more over drinks.

Friday, we visited the Natural History Museum of Vienna, which isn't as good as the NHM of New York, but is still very cool. What made the trip unique to me was the Venus of Willendorf. I had actually heard of the Venus in high school in my Humanities class, where we discussed the relevance she would have had to early man who crafted her. And then to see hear behind glass over five years later, not having given her a second thought after that class, was again boggling, just like Freud's house was.

Ultimately, Vienna gave me a newer sense of respect for history, and a greater respect for the older world we came from. I wish that I can go back in the future to see the things we missed, and hopefully learn more from what came before me.