Vienna

I went to Vienna with my class Vienna: capital of Classical Music for Thanksgiving weekend. we left Thursday night in a blizzard, and so everything was delayed. Luckily we still made it that night, and the airplane served us  sandwiches and coffee/tea and wine. it was amazing! I remember when american planes used to do that. we had a nice hotel, but I got put on a cot with another girl, and it turned out to be like 3 couch cushions pushed together with a sheet stretched over them. it had a huge sunken spot in the middle between us, and my body kept falling in the cracks and wanting to roll to the middle. It actually might have been the worst bed I have ever slept in in my life. But oh well, someone had to. Breakfast was awesome too, and then Friday morning we headed off on our first adventure, a 4 hour walking tour of Vienna in 17 degree weather. It was a beautiful tour though, and the city is fantastically ornate and beautiful. Everything seems so decorated, and unlike a lot of places I have seen now, Vienna's ornate nature looked or at least felt very deliberate. The people all dressed to match, and overall the city had a very swanky dressed up feel. We got so cold on the tour that we dipped into a fancy cafe and got some Viennese coffee, which is apparently very special. When the tour finally concluded, we were sent in to one of the best cafes in the city for lunch. We had fancy tablecloths and bouquets on the table, and we had a delicious meal of some sort of soup first and then a fancy version of  macaroni and cheese with ham.  for dessert we had apple streusel.
       For the afternoon, we walked over to the Museum district and visited the Leopold art museum, where my group gave our 10 minute presentation on turn of the century art. (everyone had a presentation like this at some point in our trip) Then we got to tour it for as long as we wanted, and we were free until we met for the symphony at 6:30. The girls in my group and I ended up staying the longest, and we saw some of Gustav Klimt's nouveau art as well as some Monet, cezanne, de gaul, van gogh, picasso, and matisse. It was great! Then the three of us went to check out the Christmas market outside. We bought a few things here and there for our host families, and we bought some gluwein. Gluwein is the Viennese version of Christmas wine, which is almost the same as it is in Denmark. It is hot wine in a mug with some fruit floating in it, like raisins and cherries, and its also has some added Christmas spices. It is actually delicious and the Viennese have many varieties. They served it in a real mug, which required a 2 euro deposit, and when you returned it, you got the deposit back. it was a great idea, and each market had different mugs. We had viennese sausage/hotdogs for dinner, which was very exciting, and then we headed for the symphony.
     the symphony was awesome, and in one of the top 5 concert halls in europe. It by accident has perfect sound, and many many concert houses since then have tried to imitate it. The symphony was cool, but the music was very dissonant and not all that fun to listen to. but the pianist was extremely talented, and as he played, he looked just like mr. bean. his face was highly animated and it kept changing and contorting. and that was really fun to watch, but sometimes it was hard not to laugh.
    Afterwards, we all went out for a little while and drank some more gluwein to stay warm, but we went to bed pretty early. We started off our second day with a visit to Mozart's apartment, which was less like a refurbished version of his apartment and more like a museum about him that happened to be located in his apartment. it was still pretty cool though, and afterwards we went straight to another museum, the museum of music. This was sadly not that exciting, but it was informative. We had some free time after that, and Lizzy and I went to a huge food market for most of it. We walked down by all of the stalls and drank some hot cider, and we bought some tasty snacks for lunch, including a date stuffed with cheese and pecans and an apricot stuffed with cheese and almonds. they were really tasty!  we also saw a fruit stand with at least 10 types of fruit I had never seen before in my life--it was weird to realize that my idea of fruits was extremely narrow. Finally we had to run back to our hotel to get dressed up for the opera. before the opera we visited the opera museum, which was sweet, but none of the words were in english, and then we went to a very fancy dinner in a restaurant right next to the opera house. The Opera was amazing! we had great seats and little screens that translated what they were singing into English. Our teachers took us out to drinks afterward, and it was a really fun classy night.
     Our last morning we went to see a choir competition. It was the finals of a worldwide competition, and we got to see the top 10 groups compete. It was really cool, and they were from all over the world. Then we had some time before lunch to be free, and so I walked around the park for a while went over to a pond that had a lot of ducks. I got some great pictures, and soon a little girl ran right up to me smiling and took over the bench I was sitting on. Her mother came up too, and the little girl began tossing bread to the ducks. then she offered some bread to me, which was very sweet. when my piece was gone, she grabbed the whole bag of bread and placed it between us, showing me she had enough for me to have some more. She was so sweet, and I really enjoyed that time even though I couldn't speak to either of them. Finally I had to leave to go to lunch, which was pretty good. we had ham and soup and chocolate cake for dessert. A few of my friends and me then went to the belvedere palace where we saw many more of Klimt's work, and that was really great to see. we walked around in the Christmas market outside it, and then sadly we had to head back to the hotel and to the airport. We were lucky enough to attend three different musical performances in 3 of the 5 best concert venues in Europe, and was an amazing opportunity that I am really happy I got to experience.
     Getting home was a nightmare, and our train was really delayed. we got in at 11, and all the transportation into the city was delayed, and so my friend and I missed our train at 12:07 to Roskilde. This was bad news because the next train was canceled and the next one wasn't until 2:07 am. so we went to the only thing open, mcdonalds, and got some dinner. I have to say, that was pretty disappointing. Then we still had over an hour and a half to wait, so we decided to brave the blizzard and go to a bar. we found one and ordered a few drinks so that they would let us sit there in the warmth, because the train station wasn't heated, and finally it was time for our train. Laila picked me up at 2:30 am at the station because the buses weren't running, and the wind was blowing snow into huge drifts into the roads, and we almost got stuck in one on the way home. Luckily we made it though, and I was thrilled to get back to my bed.