This week was full of a lot of German study and field trips for Humanities. On Tuesday we went on a tour of the Austrian Parliament. The building itself has a heavy Greek and Roman influence. It is interesting that they still do not use technology when they take a vote, if one vote’s yea they stand up and if they wish to note nay, they stay seated. Then they simply count the number of people standing and sitting. One of the assembly halls is insanely decorated with Greek statues and large murals. After the tour and German class we got some rest before seeing a Harry Potter double feature as a group. The English theatre showed Part 1 of the seventh movie at 9pm and then the Midnight showing of Part 2. That’s right we saw it 2 days before it came out in the states. It was really fun to go as a group and even though I didn’t get into the books, I really enjoyed the both movies.
On Wednesday we went to one of the former apartments of Beethoven. There was not very much original stuff; however they had a time period piano and such. It was a really hot day so we went to get Ice Cream, Viennese style. We went to a café and had what they call Spaghetti Ice Cream. They take vanilla ice cream and run it through a grater so is looks like spaghetti, then they topped it with a strawberry sauce and shredded coconut chips on top. On Thursday we had a big German test so we studied all morning. In the afternoon we went as a group to Café Central. It was one of the oldest ones in Vienna until destroyed in the war. It was rebuilt and opened again in the 1980’s. I was like a five star restaurant specializing in Hot Coco, Coffee and Cake. The building was supper fancy much like most of the royal building we have been going to.
On Thursday we also ate at a random Mexican place that we found. Four of us started talking to the waiter who didn’t know English so I talked in Spanish and made conversation. After a while we found out that he was actually from Brazil. I found it really funny that we were eating at Mexican place in Europe with a Brazilian waiter (Note the representation of 3 different Continents). Needless to say we had some really good chicken tacos. On Friday we ate dinner with our Host Mom. She feeds us dinner once a week, and it is always a three course meal. This week we had soup, gulasch, and cake. The closest thing to gulasch in the states would be a thin stew. We are starting to understand her better now that we know some German. (She doesn’t speek English very well and mixes words between English and German).
This weekend we went on a Bike Trip to a town about an hour outside Vienna called Melk. We took a bus to Melk Abbey, which is a school / monastery / museum. It was so amazing. In the Museum part they had a different room for each era of history as it related to the history of the Abbey. There were around 400 rooms and 1365 windows in the connecting buildings that make up the building. It was massive. The highlight was the Cathedral. The only way to describe it would be Baroque architecture on steroids. There was gold everywhere and on top of that they had just had a celebration so there were massive rose circles hanging from the ceiling.
After the tour of the Abbey we went to a local hotel and rented bikes. We rode on a 23 mile bike trail (similar to the Centennial Trail in Spokane or the Provo River Trail). It was really cool because we rode through some really small towns and villages. The houses were really small and the streets were very compact and skinny. Some of the way was paved with cobble stone. Let’s just say that I have a new appreciated for the difficulty on stages in the Tour de France that have cobblestone. The best part about the bike ride was the Castle we found. We parked our bikes at the bottom of a hill along the trail and hiked to the top where there were remnants of an old castle. I thought it was sooo cool. One of the towers still had the original stairs and we also walked down into the dungeon. I found is amazing that a structure built so long ago without today’s technology and on such a grand scale would still be standing.
When we got back to Vienna we headed to a pasta place that makes the sauce right in front of you. They have all the fresh ingredients in front of them (I mean really fresh as the herbs were growing in pots and they just picked them off). They mix the ingredients into the sauce you want and mix in the pasta, then you take it to your table and enjoy. It was delicious.
And as always, because internet is very slow here and we do not have access to it very much all the pictures are posted on Katelyn’s Facebook as soon as possible.
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