Day 2 (5/15)

Thursday, May 15th
8:15-12:00: Introduction to Vienna: Tour of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, St. Peter’s
Church.
2:00-5:00: Walking tour of the historic center of Vienna and the Ringstrasse
including Hofburg Palace, the Michaeler Platz (Adolf Loos’ Michaelerhaus)
Readings: Tung, pp. 34-59; Loos, pp. 60-65; Schorske, 62-110; PQ #2

We had to meet at 8:15am in the lobby.
I paid 5 euros for a not so great breakfast: two pieces of toast with butter and jelly, warm milk :( , apple juice, and some grainy pears.
We walked to the U-Bahn as a whole group, rode theh U6 to the U3 to Stephansplatz. We entered the town square and walked over to the St. Stephan's Cathedral, a gothic style cathedral originally built in the 1300's.

• It was very dark and large inside, intricate design
• At first it seemed sporadic in design, but on the tour it was explained how the space is laid out.
• They still hold services daily (even one in Latin)
• In the past they had 60 priests, each doing 3 services a day (180 total!)
• Following the tour of the main floor of the church we toured the catacombs of the church
• It smelled funny down there, and we saw a lot of caskets of kajillion year old dead bodies.
• Then we went into the "new" part of the catacombs which was still pretty old; it was where "normal" people were "buried," and it was cold and dark and scary. We saw actual bones stacked up and in piles! It was kind of uncomfortable and I was feeling claustrophobic.

So after that tour, it was still rainy and cold out, so we walked toward another church, St. Peter's, but stopped at a place for some people to exchange money. So I went into a dessert shop nearby with a few others, and everything looked so yummy!
Then after about 15 minutes we walked to St. Peter's Cathedral, a more baroque style church. There was a mid-morning mass session going on, so we had to just look from the back, take pictures, and leave.
So afternoon plans changed, we were supposed to have a walking tour of the historic center of Vienna and the Ringstrasse, but it was too cold and rainy. So they showed us where the entrance of the Kunsthistorisches Museum was, and we were to meet there at 1:30pm.
So we had a break for lunch, and we found a sandwich/bakery place. I ordered a ham and cheese sandwich, because there wasn't much I liked to choose from.
This is where we met Riley, Elizabeth, Alyssa, and Jessica! Whom we stuck around with for the rest of the trip. After lunch, and some good laughs, we walked around to explore nearby.

I bought some MORE postcards, for my collection! But I also bought some stamps to send a few home! I don't know how long it will take for a piece of mail to get all the way back home, but the stamp cost 1,70 euro!
So then we went to the Kunsthistorisches museum, where we had to get into groups of 3 to analyze an assigned piece of art. Katie, Alan, and I had to analyze an Apollo statue...but there 4 different ones, so that made it interesting.
We had 2 hours to spend in the art museum to do our project and look at the art. I'm not too big into art like that, so I had trouble staying focused and enjoying the experience at times. There was so much art in there too; it would take several trips to the museum to look at all of it meaningfully.
After the art museum, the whole group walked to the S-Bahn (street car thingy) and rode it back to the hotel.
Alan, Katie, Jacob, Riley, Alyssa, Elizabeth, Jessica, and I went to the grocery store, Hofer to look and buy some breakfast foods and snacks. It was so funny that the Hofer had the same logo as Aldi. I bought chocolate, gummy bears, nutella, a baggette, and balisto at the grocery, nothing too out of the norm for me.
Then we ventured to find dinner, we walked up and down the street to find a restaurant, only to land at the "Balkan Grill Restaurant." It opened at 7pm, which was kind of a strange concept to me.
The menu wasn't in real German, so I was of no help, and neither was my dictionary. I always order cola or fanta, because if I have to pay the same for water, then I might as well get the cola. It was difficult to decipher at the time, but we picked what they said was a burger with fries. It was a tad bit chewy and we later found out that it was some sort of Slovakian kosher burger steak stuff...at least it was beef. The burger was so big though, it was bigger than the size of my hand, and it was on some sort of pita bun.

After dinner we returned to the hotel, asked Dr. Hellenbrand what we had just eaten, and "dispersed" into our rooms or to do our own thing. So I sat in the lobby for a little bit to write in my journal some and relax, try to use the wifi...