Wienerschnitzel

After Prague, the group zipped over to Austria for a week long excursion in the capital city of Vienna. My first impressions were of awe of both the size of the city and the resounding architectural prowess that the city possesses. The statues that scattered the landscape of the city were beautifully mastered and detailed, as well as seemingly innumerable.

From a touristy standpoint, we were able to see many of the sights and sounds of Vienna. From the monuments and statues to the gardens and buildings, I thought the city was a sight to see. In the open air tour bus, we were able to see a majority of the districts that make up the city, as well as many of the important landmarks in between. For example, the Hundertwasser house was phenomenal because of the colors and the architectural uniqueness of no straight lines. We also enjoyed the sounds of a Mozart orchestral performance at the Vienna Concert Hall one night. Although the sounds of classical music are soothing to the ear, the downside is that this soothing quality encourages sleep. Despite this fact I was able to remain conscious, partially due to the fact that we moved closer to the stage in the second half, and I greatly enjoyed the performance.

Now, as we are here for work and not play, from the scholastic standpoint, we saw both interesting and intriguing aspects as well. Freud’s house was very interesting to me because I had little previous knowledge in his field of psychoanalysis. Both he and his daughter, Anna, were influential people in their field, and helped to bring the field to where it is today. I wish that we could have seen the actual couch were he performed his analyses, but that has to be another trip. Also, the unsuccessful, but still eye-opening, trip to the cemetery was done in Vienna. We were on the search for the graves of Freud’s parents as well as a collection of anatomical graves, but despite the fact that their location remains a mystery, we were able to see the size and grandeur of the gravestones and were able to walk through the different sections of the cemetery. Finally, probably my favorite excursion of the trip was the visit to the Medical School in Vienna. The collection of the anatomical wax models was almost overwhelming. To think that these models were all hand crafted from the specimen of the time period is just mind blowing. I also like the way that the full body sculptures were arranged in such a way that was both artistic and anatomically interesting. I felt that this brought a sense of life to the wax models, as opposed to a mere display. Anna (no relation to Freud lol) was a great tour guide of the facilities, and the skills lab that she brought us to had many practical applications set up. This was the first time that I was able to do many of these things, such as suturing, catheterization, and drawing blood from an arm. I can definitely see how the skills lab can be beneficial for the many up and coming medical students in any university.

Then after a long and exciting week in Vienna, the group made the split to different parts of Europe: 8 to Venice, 5 to Switzerland, 1 to Salzburg/Nuremburg, and 1 to Duesseldorf. We are quite the world travelers.

Ps. Venice was the bomb.

Until Next Time,

Matt