Prague and Vienna

Hello faithful readers! As promised in my previous entry about visiting Mauthausen, this week's blog entry will be a lot happier. Because I have visited two amazing places, this weeks entry will be about my travels. For those of you who have not had the pleasure of going to these two places, let me introduce you to Prague and Vienna!

Prague: Last weekend, four other people from my program and I went to Prague. The train ride on Friday was long, and we had to change trains a few times. Once I stepped off the train, I was surrounded by a lot of U.S. restaurants and stores (i.e. McDonald's, Sephora) and old buildings. After checking into our apartment, we got dinner at a nearby restaurant where I had one of the best meals I had on my trip---angel pasta with shrimp, olives, sun dried tomatoes, and olive oil. We went back to the hotel to relax and watch the Olympics and Fear Factor on TV before going to a British pub for drinks. On Saturday we met up with a friend's friend who lives about an hour outside of Prague. Two of the girls who went with us were in Prague the previous weekend, so they went to some art museums while the other two people and I made our way to the Prague castle. Unfortunately, the line was long so we decided not to wait. However, we did go into a beautiful cathedral with amazing stained glass designed by Mooka, a famous Czech artist. We walked on the famous St. Charles bridge back to Old Town, where we shopped until we met up with the other girls for dinner. The rest of my group did a pub crawl, while I went to a local wine bar for a glass of Proseco and an ice cream shop for some gelato.

Vienna: Every Wednesday my group has gone on excursions, and our last and most recent one was this lovely capital city. Because Vienna is three and a half hours outside of Salzburg, we had to leave at 6 am. Fortunately, I slept for two hours on the bus before we stopped at a rest stop for breakfast. Our first stop was the Schonbrun Palace, where Austrian rulers such as Maria Therese (Marie Antoinette's mother), Franz Josef, and Elizabeth lived. I love visiting palaces, and I'm not quite sure how Schonbrun stacks up to Versailles (I went there last year when I was in Paris), since they are both gorgeous. My one complaint was that I could not pictures inside the palace. You'll just have to imagine huge rooms, porcelin china, a huge bed...you get the picture. After visiting the palace, we went to the gardens, which are stunning. We had lunch in downtown Vienna before heading to the Jewish museum. Though we were supposed to be at the museum at 3 pm and had maps, we got lost. Our director told us where to go, but he didn't tell us that there were two Jewish museums. The first one we went to was under rennovation, and we eventually found out by asking some locals that there was a Jewish museum in Judenplatz--which our director supposedly told us not to go to! We got there a half hour late, but I didn't feel too bad about being late since the museum was not very impressive. I loved walking around Vienna and wished I could be there for more than a day--spend more time in the gardens at Schonbrun, go to the Freud museum (must do for a psychology minor!), go to the Volkstheater, and other places that I am unaware of at the moment.

I will be in Salzburg this weekend, as we have to stay here in order to study for finals. I have two papers and a final exam before I am homeward bound. My final is for my theology class, and our professor explicitly told us we do not have to study for it as long as we have been doing the readings and paying attention in class. Today I gave a presentation in that class about Anti-Semitism (or Anti-Judaism, as my professor likes to say) in the Christian Scriptures, which I rocked--I don't know my grade, but virtually EVERYONE in my class told me I did a great job. Aside from papers, my plans for this weekend are going on the Sound of Music tour and walking around Salzburg to explore the churches and shops. If the weather is nice, I am also going to go to Mirabell gardens.

Tchuss!