So much to see, such little time!

Vienna and Prague in 6 days. WOW. And to answer the question of which one was better, I cannot decide. I loved them both SO much! It was all so beautiful. The architecture was out of this world. Every building was unique in it's own way and contained such beautiful detail.  I never really saw myself as a person to really admire and be stunned by the looks of a building, but this trip taught me otherwise. Since we did so much in such a short period of time, I am going to just touch on some of the great highlights from the last few days.

We were in Vienna from Tuesday-Friday, and honestly I could have stayed another week. It was so beautiful and there was so much to see. We visited the Sigmund Freud Museum, which is actually his old house. Later in the trip we actually had a psychoanalysis lecture downstairs of his house. There is always something special and unique when you learn something in the location it originated in, and I appreciated it even more now that I am a psychology minor. We also visited in Narrenturm, which is a really old psychiatric hospital from 1784. I am certain that we all thought the place was haunted. It was filled with both real examples, and models and displays, that showed some really crazy diseases that patients had, such as a skeleton affected by Rickets disease. They also had an iron lung for polio patients. One evening we went to a nice dinner where I had Gulasch, which I would describe similar to pot roast, but more stew sauce than meat. I also tried horse meat, which wasn't too bad surprisingly. And of course, we had dessert and it was wonderful, because all dessert in Europe is wonderful. The last night in Vienna we went to a classical concert at the beautiful St. Anne's Church. There was a cello, viola, and two violins, and they played Mozart and Schubert, and it was lovely. The pictures of all the places don't do it justice, and that is a trend I have found out during the trip.

Friday afternoon I took a five hour bus ride to Prague and got settled into the Airbnb where we stayed. Saturday we did almost everything the city had to offer, and it was such a long and amazing day. We instantly realized that the Czech currency is weird and hard to handle. $1 is ~23 CZK, so carrying around a 1000 bill seemed really weird, and it was quite frustrating at times when we all had to pay for dinner together on one tab where none of us had smaller bills. All in one day we saw the astronomical clock, the Dali, Mucha, and Warhol art museum, walked up to the Prague Castle, ate dinner on the river, went to the Charle's Bridge, and ate lots of yummy food (my favorite was the Trdelnik filled with strawberries and gelato). It was probably the most successful Saturday I have had in a long time. Sunday we just walked around the old town again until we had to go to the airport to head back to Bonn. This short visit to Prague was the first time I have gone to another country by myself without really any adult guidance and plans already made. It was exciting, yet stressful, to make plans with a group of people and figure out what to do. Luckily, we had a really great group and it was easy to travel together. This week we stay in Bonn, have a few day excursions, and then Brussels this weekend!

Until next time,
Emily