Duesseldorf Digest and Bonn Blog: Vienna, Prague, and Dresden and I didn't get the Bubonic Plague!

On Monday, we rode a train to Vienna. We checked into our hotel and then went on a walking tour around the city. Our guide was Dr. Schnabel, a plague doctor, who sounded and looked strikingly like Dr. Wasser. It's funny how a lot of our tour guides bear a resemblance to Dr. Wasser. Maybe they have a common set of tour guide genes. Anyway, the tour was really interesting! We saw the locations of the old medical school and what used to be a plague hospital. We saw where the Lipizzaner stallions train. When these horses are born, they are brown in color. Most horses will become white as they age. We learned that Martin Luther and his wife cared for plague victims in their home. Martin Luther said that clergymen and state officials were duty bound to stay during plague outbreaks but anyone else who was able should flee the plague in order to keep themselves alive. We say a famous statue of Jesus. It is jokingly called, “Jesus of the Toothache.” Apparently, people used to tie a cloth around Jesus’s face since he appeared to have a toothache. Of course, during our tour, Dr. Schnabel had to protect us from the “sticky sparks of plague.” To do so, he periodically gave us different medicines including clove, rosemary, spiced vinegar, urine of a healthy boy (soda), and, most importantly, Haribo candy. We learned about some historical medical treatments. “Powder of Sympathy,” for example, was used to treat wounds. The powder was not put on the patient though; rather, it was applied to the weapon that caused the injury. We saw the sight where the first C-section that was intended to leave the mother alive was performed. The purpose of the surgery was to save the mother's life as the fetus had died during pregnancy. The procedure was successful, and the mother was even able to get pregnant again!

I thought I looked like a modern Dr. Schnabel

After our city tour, we had dinner at the Goulashmuseum. The group dinner was a lot of fun! Several students tried the horse goulash. Apparently, it tasted similar to veal. I had a vegetarian goulash, as it was the only gluten free option. It was quite good. The restaurant manager gave me ice cream for dessert even though it wasn't on the menu!

On Tuesday, we visited the Josephinum. It was founded by Emperor Joseph II in 1785 in order to serve as a medical and surgical academy. The building was part of an entire medical center that had different types of hospitals and doctors including a vast wing for the military. Today, the Josephinum houses a very impressive collection of anatomical wax models. The collection includes everything from models of individual parts of the brain to models of the all of the muscles in the body. It also has the largest collection of obstetrical models which show the stages of pregnancy and different birth complications. The collection was used primarily for teaching medical students, but it was opened to the public once a week.

After the museum tour, we had time to grab a quick lunch before our next tour. Vienna doesn't have a convenient market like Bonn does, so I needed to find something fast and gluten free. My solution? Sushi! Unfortunately, the sushi wasn't actually gluten free. After finishing it, my stomach started to hurt. Apparently, there was wheat in the sushi rolls. I had been so careful the whole trip, and then I just assumed I could eat the sushi. Well, I learned my lesson. I just wish I had had time to take some medicine before heading down the crypt.

The St. Michael's crypt tour was very interesting! Through desiccation and cold temperatures, many of the corpses were naturally mummified. We got to see a few of the best-preserved ones. Some of the coffins had symbols painted on them. White flowers were painted for unmarried women and girls. Many coffins had crosses on them. Another had a clock face with bat wings. I guess time flew for that person. The Viennese were afraid of being buried alive, so coffins often had strings in them that were attached to bells. If someone was buried alive, he would ring the bell and hopefully escape. The tour guide told us that some Viennese will hurry their deceased loved ones with cell phones that have six month batteries so that they can call their loved ones. Unfortunately, I was burping the entire crypt tour because I ate gluten at lunch. I tried to stay as quiet as possible, but that just made it sound like I was trying to make zombie noises. I felt really disrespectful, but there was really nothing I could do until I could take some medicine and a nap at the hotel, which is exactly what I did next.

Tuesday evening, we went to a concert in St. Anna's Church. Before the concert, Andrea, Amanda, and I ate dinner at a little Israeli restaurant. We met up with the class in front of St. Stephen's Cathedral. From there, we walked to our concert. We heard a string quartet perform one piece by Mozart and another by Beethoven. They were absolutely magnificent! The musicians’ movements followed the phrasing of the music. The performance was almost as exciting to watch as it was to hear. The Beethoven piece was especially exciting because it has some unexpected cello parts. In the second movement of the piece, the cellist plucked the cello strings and used the instrument percussively instead of just playing it with the bow. As far as I know, this was quite avant-garde, even for Beethoven!

All dressed up in front of St. Stephan's Cathedral

Interior to St. Anna's Church

On Wednesday, we visited the Narrenturm, the Fools Tower. The tower was built under Emperor Joseph II and was the first psychiatric hospital. It is round and has 28 rooms on each floor. The hallways were all circular so that if a patient got out of his room, he wouldn't be able to really get away. In fact, he might walk a loop and go back in. Each floor had 28 room, each with a window. This was because doctors of the day thought that insanity was related to the 28-day moon cycle, hence the word “lunatic.” In 1866, the psychiatric hospital was closed, and the building was used for housing for doctors and nurses. Now, the tower houses the Federal Pathological-Anatomical museum. The museum has wax models of many, many disease states. Unlike the teaching models at the Josephinum, these models would have been on display at hospitals to help fully trained doctors diagnose disease. A hospital would order models for the 10 most common diseases in the area. In my opinions, the most fascinating models were those of conjoined twins. We also saw preserved body parts including a skull with a bone cancer growth. The bone cancer growth looked almost like a snowflake. The preserved lungs were amazing! We saw lungs that had pockets in them from tuberculosis. Doctors knew that tuberculosis caused pockets in the lungs, so they tried to fill the holes with things like wax. I am not really sure why doctors wanted to fill the holes, but it sounds extremely painful. Also, was plugs might melt if a person got too hot.

After the Fools Tower, we got coffee and pastries like true Viennese, according to Dr. Wasser. We went to Cafe Central. Apparently, the Cafe is linked with many famous figures including Freud and Trotsky. I was very excited to find that they had a gluten free pastry for me! I got a brownie with a strawberry rhubarb pastry. It was wonderful to just take a break and enjoy chatting and eating with friends.

After lunch, we visited the Natural History Museum. Our tour guide showed us the dinosaur fossils and the mineral collection. We saw the largest turtle fossil ever found! After the tour, Amanda and I looked at the animal exhibits. I found the rhinos, so of course, I took a picture with my rhino mask on! My mask has been quite the life saver on this trip!

I found my rhino cousins!

This is the giant turtle. It wouldn't have had a shell

Next, Amanda and I went to a globe museum. The museum had a beautiful collection including globes of the moon and mars. California used to be represented as an island on globes, even after people knew it wasn't one. There were globes showing different constellations and star charts as well. Many of the older globes showed images of sea serpents and zodiac signs. This highlighted how superstitious people were about traveling over the ocean.

This is a lunarium and tellurium

This case included globes of different planets

The ticket to the globe museum included entry to a small exhibit on Esperanto. I had never heard on Esperanto before Wednesday, but it was fascinating! Esperanto is a language created by a Polish doctor in 1887. The language was meant to be used for international communication. As such, it has regular rules and phonetic pronunciation. The language was really growing in popularity until WWII when both Hitler and Stalin harshly oppressed it. I think that the language would be a very useful tool, especially since it is a neutral language: it belongs go no one people group.

This was a poster advertising the international Esperanto convention in 1956

On Friday, we visited the Sigmund Freud museum. The museum was located in his actual apartment in Vienna. We got to see where Sigmund and his daughter Anna practiced psycho-analysis. Anna was Freud's sixth and youngest child. She was his only child who followed in his footsteps. Anna actually wasn't an M.D. though. As it turns out, Freud felt that psychologists shouldn't be M.D.s, as he thought the medical knowledge would interfere with their practice. I learned that Freud wanted to go into physiology research, but he was advised against it due to anti-Semitism in Vienna. I also learned that Freud loved Chow dogs and Egyptian artifacts. I wouldn't have wanted Egyptian artifacts staring at me during an appointment with Freud, but whatever works I guess. Dr. Wasser told us a funny story about Freud's hat that is displayed at the museum. The hat was stolen when the museum first opened. For five years, it was missing. Then, it turned up in a box on their doorstep. Apparently, the man who stole it was seeing a psychoanalyst. The doctor eventually convinced the patient to return the hat.

We had lunch as a class at a Pakistani buffet. The food was great, and it was an interesting atmosphere. The restaurant has people pay what they want for their meals. Since AIB paid for the meal, I don't know whether other customers pay before or after eating. It is an interesting idea. The restaurant is opening another, larger location, so it must work for them.

After lunch, Andrea and I caught our train to Prague. Once we got to Prague, we wandered around the main train station trying to find a way to purchase public transit passes for the day. When we finally figured out where to go, we headed to our hotel to check in. Prague felt very different than any of the cities I have been to in Germany. It felt very foreign. It was much less comfortable. There was more graffiti, and the language was less familiar. Still though, I was much more confident entering a brand-new country with a totally foreign language the second time around.

The subway stations in Prague were pretty

Prague was beautiful! It had so many things to see. We certainly could have spent an entire weekend there, but I think one day was enough to enjoy the city. We started our day by doing the Rick Steves Prague audio tour. It was really interesting because he explained the history of different buildings. For example, after Prague Spring, the Czechs purposefully did a poor job repairing a building in Wenceslas square so that people couldn’t forget the violence. We saw some contemporary art in the city, including giant baby statues and a statue of Good King Wenceslas riding a dead horse. The latter was a political commentary against the current Czech president. We saw several parts of the old town. There, I learned about Jan Hus, a religious reformer like Martin Luther. He is a hero to the Czech people because he fought the Hapsburgs for their political freedom and the Catholic Church for the freedom of the people to take the Sacrament. Hus also developed a more phonetic alphabet for the Czech language. We crossed the iconic Charles bridge over the Vltava River. The bridge was full of tourists, artists, and musicians. It was bustling and lively! I enjoyed listening to one ensemble especially. They had a trumpet player, a banjo player, a clarinetist, an euphonium player, and a percussionist who had a wash board and a high hat.

Wenceslas Square

Wenceslas on a Dead Horse

Site of Prague Spring Revolution

Penguins in Prague

Powder Tower

Hussite Memorial and Cathedral

Giant Baby Statue

We also walked up to the Prague Castle. The castle complex was huge! We visited several different buildings, and the cathedral was the most impressive. It had beautiful stain glass windows and arched ceilings. It was similar to the Cologne Cathedral but also a masterpiece in its own right.

Iconic Red Roofs

Stained Glass in the Cathedral at the Prague Castle

I finally got Starbucks in Europe. It was a really hot afternoon.

After visiting the castle, we picked up our bags from our hotel and headed to the bus station. We made it to what we thought was our stop and waited for the bus. Apparently, Flixbus had two busses heading to Dresden at 6:40 from different platforms. Long story short, we tried and failed to get on what we thought was our bus. Then, we went to the help desk. We were able to get tickets on the next bus, but this meant that we were cutting it really close with the time we needed to check in to our hotel in Dresden. By really close, I mean that we arrived at our hotel five minutes before it closed for the night. But hey, we made it! And I even had tuna and granola in my backpack for a makeshift dinner.

On Saturday, we went to Saxon Switzerland National Park to see Bastei Bridge. It was absolutely gorgeous and also quite the adventure. It was such an adventure, that it needs its own blog post, so I will describe our hike there.

On Sunday, we explored Dresden for a few hours before returning to Bonn. We visited the Zwinger, a palace that is now a museum complex. We also visited the Dresden Royal Palace. At the palace, we saw a few amazing collections. The first had ornate carvings and art pieces. The next had fancy weapons and armor. The last had the clothes from Saxon royalty. After visiting the museum, we went to the Pfunds Molkerei, also known as the most beautiful dairy in the world. The dairy definitely lived up to its name. Their ice cream tasted great too! I got a sundae with some unique ice cream flavors: wild berry, mango, lemongrass, and quark, which is basically cheese ice cream. Ice cream is a nutritious lunch, right? Dresden was beautiful. Someday, I will go back to hike more in the park and explore the city!