Trip to Vienna!!

 This week of the HOM trip, we got to go to Vienna!! Ahh cue the Billy Joel song! As soon as we got here, I was taken away by how beautiful the architecture here-it might be the prettiest city I have been to so far! And everything is really clean too even though it smells a little funky! I love the train system here too, most trains come every few minutes which is very convenient! On the first day, we visited the catacombs and I thought it was insanely cool-we saw skeletons that were older than the United States and they were people that most likely interacted with people like Mozart which is insane!! And even though it was eerie to see all the bones, it was kind of a humbling experience for me because it was a good reminder that life is very ‘vain’ in the sense that it goes by so quickly and so many of the things we worry about it are not going to matter at the end of the day. That might sound depressing but it was actually a really inspiring, comforting thought to me. That night, we went to a very authentic Viennese restaurant that basically looked like a cellar and I had the most delicious goulash. I always love the group dinners because we all just feel like a family and I am so grateful for how wonderful, kind, and selfless everyone on the trip has been! I can already tell it will be hard to leave everyone so soon, which I don’t want to think about! The next day, we went on a plague tour with “Professor Schnabel” which was equally hilarious and intriguing. We even had a few plague curses ourselves-some of which were very yummy. Afterwards, we went to the drug museum which was very cool to see how personal and quaint the pharmacies used to be not even that long ago! The next day, we went to the fool’s tower which is the old psychiatric hospital essentially that holds several specimens. Some things were difficult to look at for very long but it was still cool to see the variety of different ailments shown there. Next, we visited the Freud museum and the lecture we heard over him was probably one of my favorites-he was just such an interesting character and, though some of his ideas were quite outrageous, I think trying to understand the mind is an extremely interesting topic and I am sure that the next time someone acts out rashly, the id, superego, and ego are going to come to mind. That night, we all went to a string quartet concert in St. Anna’s church which was so beautiful and relaxing, despite the uncomfortable pews. I am not even a music buff but I was kind of amazed by how crazy beautiful music really is when you think about it for long enough-it is like a gift from God that our ears work the way the do. And it was fun to imagine myself living in another time going to a classical concert for entertainment instead of just turning on Netflix. Today was our last day here as a group and we went to the natural history museum which honestly might have been my favorite part of this excursion! It was so much fun seeing all the jewels and the fossils and the taxidermy models and fake dinosaurs-like I was in awe basically the whole time! It felt like I was in a series of movies-Jurassic Park, Ice Age, Finding Nemo, the Lion King!! So....basically this excursion was a blast and I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to come here. Luckily, I am staying over the weekend so I am excited to see even more!

P.S. Had the best hot chocolate of my life at Cafe De Mel-definitely going to dream about that when I am back home!