AHHH! VIENNA!

Time to start all my travel blogs. Since I only have a month left of this semester, the work is piling up and taking up all my free time but I shall do my best to recap my travel experiences.

Vienna was city number one and part of my ECH long study tour. The city clearly has a slight obsession with Mozart and this era as men are seen walking around in powdered wigs and on our first night we were able to attend a Mozart concert performed in period dress. In addition to their love affair with music the city and the people are clearly big fans of art. One famous artist is Gustav Klimt who was part of the Vienna Succession movement in the late 1800’s. I really love his work and the use of colors and geometric patterns. His subjects tend to be people, more often women, and he uses a lot of gold and dramatic portrayals. Another Austrian artist I fell in love with was Hudertwasser and his philosophy regarding the incorporation of nature into architecture and art. He designed buildings with the intent that they should blend with nature and express individuality. His artwork is rather abstract and uses a ton of colors and his favorite symbol- a spiral. To him "straight lines are godless" and nothing so sharp and unnatural should appear in construction and creation. (I encourage you to google both artists, as they are amazing). My friends and I also opted to check out another art museum during our free time and were able to see Van Gogh, Monet, Picasso as well as a few other artists.

Besides art, history was also on the agenda for this city. To mention a few places we went... St. Stephen's Cathedral which dates from the 12th century and is a clear rendition of Gothic architecture. One of the Hapsburg palaces located inside the city- now available to live in since it is so big and has been broken down for realistic use. During the tour of this palace is when I first encountered the obsession surrounding “Sissy,” a famous Hapsburg Empress who has become a sort of icon and can be found on all sorts of toursty goods. Next: the Schönbrunn Palace, another home of the former Hapsburg monarchy. The gardens were immense and beautiful. In fact, they were so large that on our hike to the far up back garden area, my friend and I found ourselves out of time and had to sprint back down the hill to meet up for our tour of the baroque style rooms found inside.

When given free time on our own in the evenings, my friends and I choose to explore via riding "the ring" tram around the city center and eating as much local food as possible. The ring was a great way to see those things we hadn't on our tour such as the parliament building and town hall. We also got to eat ice cream, have a cone of fries and eat some wiener schnitzel! Oh and we also managed to have some cake, bratwurst and drink some Radler because let's be honest food is key to culture.

I'd also like to point out this was my first of many days of aching feet. I don't think I've walked around so much in my life nor have my feet been so angry at me (well, until Rome at least). But I have to say that walking around really helps to acquaint you with an area and get you adjusted to the city. One of the things I've discovered is that when you're in a new city the best thing to do, even if you arrive and it's dark or late, is to go out and wander around a bit to get adjusted with the new surroundings (when you’re changing places as often as I did this is especially essential) so that you will be less lost later and better able to understand how your map works.

Overall Vienna was a positive experience. The lectures we received were very informative and gave us a better sense of how people in Austria, specifically Vienna, identified themselves both before and after WWII. Afterwards, I was especially interested to learn about the Hungarian identity and how it was affected by Communism considering it had been in a very different situation then Austria prior to the fall of the USSR.

The city itself opened my eyes to a few new artists and strongly presented an opportunity to compare with Budapest, the second city of my ECH tour. While it wasn't my favorite city and had a lot of attributes common to most Western European cities, I enjoyed my stay and was glad that I had chosen the Vienna/Budapest study tour.

Next up...Budapest!!

If we do not honor our past,
we lose our future.
If we destroy our roots,
we cannot grow.
-Hundertwasser