Vienna!!!

I have loved Vienna so far!!! It is a beautiful city and there is so much to see here! This is probably one of my favorite cities that we've been to, along with Prague and Berlin. We'll be home in less than two days! Crazy!!

The Sigmund Freud Museum was pretty cool, but I think I enjoyed the lecture that Dr. Wasser gave and what the tour guide had to say more than the actual exhibits in the museum. I felt like there wasn't too much to see, but it was really interesting learning about Freud and his way of thinking. I would really like to read one of the books that he wrote now. I think they would be really interesting, especially his The Interpretation of Dreams. I learned much more than I had known before about Sigmund Freud so I really enjoyed our time at the museum. We just tried looking for souvenir shops during the time between the museum and the opera. I was really surprised how few souvenir shops there are in Vienna, especially considering it is a tourist city. The operetta Die Fledermaus was awesome last night!! I absolutely loved the dancing and all of the singing. Their voices were incredible. There costumes were all really pretty too. The only thing that I did not like about the opera is that I could not understand any of the speaking parts. I was really glad that they had English supertitles for all of the singing and for the basics of what was going on during the operetta. However, I really wish I knew exactly what they were saying, especially since the crowd was laughing alot. It would have been nice to have heard the jokes and when there was alot of speaking going on, such as in the beginning of Act 3, with no supertitles at all it was a little annoying. Some parts were still funny to me, even though I didn't understand what was being said. Despite not being able to understand German I still really enjoyed the operetta overall and I'm really glad that we went.

The Medical History Museum at the Josephinum was awesome!! At first when there were only photographs and medical instruments to see I did not think that I would enjoy the museum much, but the wax models were incredible! I thought that the wooden doll used during the time of the SEmmelweis for learning obstetrics was interesting, but I was unsure what exactly it was used to teach. The prostheses models were also pretty cool, but my favorite thing by far were the wax models. It is amazing that they could make such accurate and detailed models in the 18th century. It's also crazy that the model of the woman with the open chest and abdomen showing all of her organs was made with real human hair and that it had been preserved like that since it was made in 1785! I absolutely loved looking at all of the wax models! I'm not sure that I could really pick out a favorite model because many of them were wonderful. I really liked the full body models though, both the ones showing the muscles and those showing the internal organs, the models of the babies in the wombs, and the models of the hearts. I really enjoyed this museum and even though I was disappointed about not being able to go to the Forensics Museum, I felt like this was a good substitute and I liked it alot.

I know there is still so much that I would like to see in Vienna and several other places in Europe, but for now I think I'm finally at the point where I'm ready to go home. I definitely want to come back to Europe as soon as I get an opportunity to. I can't think of a better way to have spent my Christmas break! It has been an incredible experience!