Some of My Favorite Things

Forgive me for the Austrian cliché title, but that’s basically what this post is: descriptions and photos of some of my favorite things from my first month in Vienna.

1. Naschmarkt-The Naschmarkt is a bit expensive but delicious market of food stands that’s open every day. In particular, the selection of dried fruit is extensive and delicious. There’s also a flea market on Saturday, where I’ve found some great items, including a pair of 10 Euro rollerblades.

2. Parks-There are so many gorgeous parks in Vienna and I’ve only visited a small minority of them so far. Beginning with picnicking in the Stadtpark my first weekend in Vienna (the park has a significant number of statues of famous musicians), I’ve enjoyed every park I’ve seen so far. One of my favorites is Volksgarten (I really love the line of trees lining the park):

3. Danube Canal-As mentioned in my previous post, I LOVE the Danube canal. I live pretty close to the canal and really enjoy walking along the canal, either on the way to class or just for fun. Since I bought my rollerblades, I also really enjoy rollerblading along the canal as well. All the walls along the canal are covered with cool street art and graffiti and from the number of times I've seen people actively spray painting the wall in broad daylight, it’s accepted as well, which I think is pretty awesome. 

They also light up the bridges over the canal in different colors at night!

4. Architecture: Vienna has lots of wonderfully gorgeous buildings, especially in the city center. Some examples are the Opera building (which I walk by almost every day on my way to class):

and the Town Hall (which is really a state parliament since Vienna is its own state):

There is also the Hundertwasser House, which is about the exact opposite of these buildings architecturally. Designed by Austrian artist and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser, it's one of the more unique buildings I've ever seen:

He also designed a heating plant pretty close to my dorm. Probably the most visually attractive municipal building I've seen: 

5. Visiting Museums for Class: As I mentioned earlier, my Austrian history class goes to different museums or other sites in Vienna every week, which is great because I get to see really cool sites in Vienna and go to class simultaneously. So far, we've visited the Romer Museum, a small museum that explains life in Vienna during the time of the Romans (here’s a photo of some of Roman ruins elsewhere in Vienna):

the Crown Jewels of Austria (The sheer amount of items, between crowns, scepters, and clothing, as well as their extravagance, was impressive. I did not take any photos that day, but here’s one from the Internet of the  Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire. If nothing else, the fact that this crown was probably made in during either the 10th or 11th century is impressive.)

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Weltliche_Schatzkammer_Wien_(169)pano2.jpg

the main art history museum (although we were mostly there to see Baroque art, here's a photo of the wall paintings at the museum done by Gustav Klimt-the bridge in front of the paintings along with an exhibit about his life are at the museum to celebrate his 150th birthday this year):

Stephansdom, the main cathedral:

and Karl’s Church, a major Baroque church: 

(and yes, the man on the right in the above fresco is Martin Luther-got to love Counter-Reformation art).


6. Food: In addition to the deliciousness of the Naschmarkt, there’s the plethora of gelato restaurants along the Donau Canal, Wiener Schnitzel (although I’ve admittedly only eaten it once in Vienna so far, it remains one of my favorite German dishes and can be found everywhere), and der Wiener Deewan, a wonderful pay what you want Pakistani buffet where pretty much everything in the buffet is absolutely delicious (I also really like their sign-all the "stations" are different Pakistani foods):

 Here are a few more random Vienna photos:

This is part of the memorial commemorating the Gestapo headquarters in Vienna. The text says Zu Spät, which translates as too late.

Although my life in Vienna certainly has its challenges (for starters, school is hard in ways that it’s never been before), as the above list shows, it’s also pretty fantastic. And so I’m trying to keep in mind the message of this adorable art piece that’s down the street from my dance class:  

“Lachen bringt mehr als weinen.” Laughing brings more than crying. And I’m happy to say my life in Vienna has far more laughter than tears.  

Vienna Waits for You

On March 1, I began the second part of my study abroad program in Vienna, Austria. I’ll be living and studying in Vienna until the end of June. As an introduction to my time here, I figured I should give a bit of an overview of my typical daily life and coursework.

In terms of my living situation, I’m living at a Jugendwohnheim (youth residence) in the 20^th district of Vienna. The 20^th district is a pretty diverse part of town with a large number of recent immigrants. It’s pretty close to the city center (only a 20 minute subway ride to class) and is very close to the Danube canal (many, many photos of the canal to come-one of my favorite things to do in Vienna is to walk or rollerblade along the canal). Around 250 young people between the ages of 15 and 30 live in my youth residence. Some are studying, some are working, and a sizable percentage of the people come from other countries so it seems to be a nice mix of people. It’s been a bit hard to meet people, but I’m sure that will get better with time. Here are some photos of my room:

Most bars and restaurants in Berlin (and some in Vienna as well) have lots of free advertising postcards. Instant wall decorations!

In terms of classes, two of my courses are offered just for our program. One of the courses, Theater Alive, is taught by Gisela, a German professor from Macalester who is also spending the semester in Vienna. For the course, we read the texts of plays, attend one or two performances a week, and then discuss and write reactions to the performances. So far, I’ve mostly enjoyed all of the performances we’ve seen. Some highlights of the first month include die Dreigroschenoper (Three Penny Opera) by Bertolt Brecht, which was my first time seeing the show, and die Froschfotzenlederfabrik (general translation: pleather factory), a modern piece written last year that was about a dysfunctional family in former East Germany. It was a great production with lots of audience interaction and use of media. Honestly, any time the table of people I’m sitting with is given cake, a glass of champagne, a pair of underwear, several anti-Nazi fliers, and Is sprinkled with confetti during a theatre performance, it’s been a good time. 

Our other program course is entitled Multicultural Austria and is basically an Austrian history course with a focus on art and cultural history. It’s taught by Toni, a lovely Austrian historian. We meet once a week for lecture and another time during the week for a tour. Usually, we either walk through the city learning about the buildings and places around us or visit a museum (I’ll write more about our specific museum visits and tours later).  So far, I’ve really enjoyed the course and it’s been great to learn more about Austrian history, as it was discussed fairly infrequently in my European history courses in high school.

These courses are housed at the Austro-American Institute, an organization that both houses exchange programs of U.S. universities and offers English classes to people living in Vienna. Here's the building:

The rest of my courses are at the University of Vienna, where I’m basically direct enrolling in courses. At this point, I’m taking three courses, but will only receive credit for two back at Macalester. Two of the courses are in German and are history courses. One is a women’s history course and the other is an Egyptian history course. They are both really interesting, but I’ve found it challenging to listen, read the power point, understand everything, and take notes in German. Also, taking large lecture courses with more than 50 people is definitely a new experience, especially after studying at Mac where almost all of the classes have less than 25 people.  My last course is a seminar course with only 30 people in English looking at the politics of the European Union from a comparative perspective. The readings are interesting, especially the pieces comparing the EU to the United States, and I’m enjoying the course for the most part. All of these courses take place at the University’s main building. Here are some photos: 

I’m also taking a folk dance course through the University’s sports course program that meets one evening a week. I never really realized until the first class how much I associated folk dance with my childhood and my parents. Even though I didn’t know all the dances, didn’t know all the music and didn’t know any of the people, folk dancing felt like being at home. So in some ways, this course is a taste of home in Austria, and is definitely a highlight of my week.

Prague

On the way from Berlin to Vienna, I took one of two 5 day trips with my study abroad program, this one to Prague. Prague is an absolutely beautiful city, in part because the city was not bombed during World War II, meaning the city’s old buildings still remain. 

Throughout our trip, we saw the typical Prague sites, including the medieval Charles Bridge.

If you make a wish while touching the above sculpture, it’s supposed to come true.

We also went to the bridge for sunrise one morning. While the sunrise was a bit of a dud, it was wonderful to have the bridge pretty much to ourselves. (It’s usually packed with people).

Here are a few photos of the Old Town Square, complete with the usual pretty European churches:

Here is the Astronomical Clock, Europe’s most over-rated tourist attraction (while the clock itself is pretty cool, the guys moving above the clock on the hour are pretty underwhelming):

We also visited Prague’s castle complex, the largest in Europe.

Among other things, the castle complex includes a cathedral:

some great views of the city:

and a window (here’s the view through said window):

through which some Catholic priests was thrown by Protestants in 1618 in the Defenestration of Prague, starting the 30 Years War. Although the window was rather unimpressive, since the Defenestration of Prague is one of my favorite European historical events and defenestration is one of my favorite words, I figured I should mention it.

Here is a photo of the National Theatre, which was built beginning in 1868 by the people as the first theatre with performances in Czech in the country. The theatre was a big step and symbol for growing Czech nationalism against the Austrian empire. We saw the Bartered Bride, one of the first operas written in Czech, there our last night.

Prague also has a number of interesting and distinctive statues:

The bottom part of the pool is in the shape of the Czech Republic.

The last is a monument to victims of government oppression during the period of communist rule. Each sculpture going back becomes smaller until only feet are left.

We also visited the Jewish Museum in Prague, which consists of around five or six sites, most of them synagogues. Unlike most European cities, most of Prague’s Jewish architecture remains today, since Hitler planned to turn Prague’s Jewish district into a museum for future generations to visit to learn about Jewish culture after the Final Solution was completed. Although it’s great that these buildings remain to educate the public about Jewish culture, the history behind the continued existence of these spaces is problematic.

Among the buildings of the museum were the Spanish Synagogue, which has a gorgeous Moorish interior, a cemetery, whose tombstones were placed unbelievably close together, and the Pinkassynagogue. On this synagogue’s walls were written the names of all the Jewish individuals who were deported from the Czech Republic by the Nazis during the Holocaust, organized by location. It was really powerful to see the number of names and how much wall space was required to write all of them. Seeing the specific names was also powerful as it emphasized the unique identity of the victims in a way that a simple number cannot.

The trip was rounded out by walking along the river and up one of Prague’s many hills for a wonderful view of the city: