Hiking in the Alps

Hiking in the Alps was truly a memorable experience and probably one of my favorite activities that I was able to do while abroad.  I went with a group of six girls instead of the main class group so we all had a slightly different, and shorter, hike.  Since we were a group of girls, we decided to enjoy the experience of being in the Alps by not only hiking but also meeting new people, picking flowers, and trying to find Catholic crosses and shrines.  This made the hike go a little slower, but for us it really increased our appreciation for the Alps and Austria in general.

While hikers in America are generally nice, very rarely do you get the chance to meet a group of gentlemen who just rock climbed up a sheer cliff but still have the energy to talk to a bunch of girls about their hiking and climbing history.  It was also very interesting to hear their reaction when we told them that we were from California.  They were so incredibly excited about it!  As soon as they found out they just started asking us tons of questions about all the mountains and climbing opportunities that we have there.

And it was not only the people in the Alps that were pleasant, the trails themselves were incredibly nice as well.  Unlike in America, I did not see one scrap of litter the entire twenty kilometers that we hiked.  And the truly amazing part was that I did not even see any trashcans.  Apparently, Austrians must feel more of a responsibility in keeping their country clean and beautiful, a trait which you can see both in the Alps and in the cities as well.

The most interesting and memorable aspect of the Alps however, had to be the man made structures that you could find there.  The most obvious of these are the beer houses that are scattered throughout the mountains.  These were great when you were hungry and thinking about turning back and then all of a sudden there is randomly this great little house where you can get a warm meal and a cold beer.  The other man made structures were much more numerous but they were supposed to serve a much higher, and more divine, purpose.

The crosses and shrines that were scattered throughout the mountains were incredibly numerous and also tended to seem extremely random.  They were apparently erected mostly during the Counter Reformation by the Catholics who are very fond of their relics and holy images.  I am still unclear exactly how putting up crosses and shrines throughout the Alps was supposed to advance the Catholics' cause but their efforts did make for a much more interesting landscape.  

I hope that I can revisit their Alps someday very soon.

  

Schonbrunn

Schonbrunn palace is very much your standard European royal palace in that it could not be mistaken for anything but the very grand living quarters of a royal family.  No one but the wealthy and powerful aristocracy could ever have afforded to build such a massive and beautiful building and no one else certainly could ever have afforded the up keep.  Since I am a poor college student, I did not actually pay to go inside the palace so all of my observations and analysis is based on my touring of the grounds and the pictures I have seen of the interior.  However, even without seeing the interior, I can very easily tell that Schonbrunn is a place that has obviously been designed to impress.  With its huge royal living space, extensive servants quarters, grand gardens, and its very own zoo, Schonbrunn is any royal family's dream.

It was especially interesting to go and visit Schonbrunn after seeing the Habsburg's previous residence at Klosterneuburg.  While Klosterneuburg is unquestioningly beautiful, it cannot compete with the sheer size and grandioseness of its replacement.  This change in residence that was enacted by Maria Theresia does indeed make senses both within the Habsburgs and on the larger European scale.  For Maria Theresia this was a place that she could make her own without the shadow of her father hanging over everything like at Klosterneuburg.  This desire to build something new and something that is yours is a pretty universal feeling.  Also, on a less personal level, Klosterneuburg could not compete with the huge palaces of other European monarchies at the time.  A French representative coming from Versailles to Klosterneuburg would probably not have been very impressed, but a French representative coming to Schonbrunn would have been forced to view the Habsburgs as a powerful and wealthy rival.  This palace then, is only one of the many instances in which the Habsburgs used art and architecture to convey their power and advance their absolutist monarchy.

The Pond in Front of St. Charles

I spent quite a bit of time over the month hanging out in front of St. Charles Church.  The plaza was beautiful and a great place to read and write while enjoying a cup of coffee.  The best thing to do at St. Charles plaza though was to people watch.  I think I saw Viennese do more interesting things in this one place than anywhere else in the city.  I got to see children playing, couples on dates, friends hanging out, and I even was able to sit by the pond looking at a rainbow while an accordion player played in the background.

Despite all of these wonderful times, there were two instances that truly stuck out for me.  The first was the night that the class went to see the Mozart performance at St. Charles.  While we were outside waiting we say a group of men cheering on their friend who was swimming in the pond with a snorkel and a animal floaty.  We asked them all what they were doing and apparently it was a bachelor party.  This was quite surprising since in America a bachelor party normally does not include having to find a bunch of items at the bottom of a man made pond.  Apparently a common practice for bachelor parties in Austria is actually a day in which a grooms friends get to assign the husband-to-be a list of tasks that he has to accomplish.  To me this sounds like a lot more fun than what is considered a normal bachelor party in the United States.  

My second favorite experience involving the pond in front of St. Charles was when a group of Austrians brought a raft and started to have team races across the water.  They would invite strangers to participate and when they all finished they would cheers and drink together.  I am not sure if this is a normal occurrence, but I was glad that I got to witness some Viennese letting their hair down and having a good, if extremely silly, time.   

English in German Speaking Austria

There is always the possibility of confusion when traveling to a country that speaks a different language.  Most of my experiences with problems because of language were because I did not speak German.  Whether that means not being able to read a menu, understand a sign, or answer a strangers question it did make life a little bit harder.  Thankfully though, despite many Austrians prefacing talking in English that they did not speak very good English, most Viennese spoke excellent English.  Because of this I had very little problem getting around although there were of course times when language was an issue.  There was one instance in which a language misunderstanding caused a lot of confusion and quite a bit of amusement and I thought it was a great example of what it means to be an English speaker in a German speaking country.

One day I was with three other students at the cafe at the Kunsthistorisches enjoying an absolutely fabulous lunch.  The setting was obviously beautiful and the waiter was one of the best I had had while in Austria.  He was nice, friendly, and very helpful.  Our food was delicious and, in true European style, we were able to sit and talk for an hour after we finished while we enjoyed our coffee.  When it came time to pay Karl offered to pay the whole bill with his card since he did not have any cash on him and the rest of us would just pay him back.  So, after we asked for the bill Karl handed the waiter his card to pay.  The waiter asked if we would like to leave a tip so Karl turned to us and said "Nine?" and we all agreed and responded "Yes, nine."  After this the waiter looked extremely affronted from several seconds but then his face cleared and he asked "Nine euro?"  Karl told him yes and the waiter went off to go run the card.  We all were wondering why the waiter had looked so put out when we gave him a nine euro tip.  To us it seemed like plenty, especially in a country that does not normally tip as heavily as Americans do.  When we started walking down the stair Karl just started randomly laughing.  When we asked him why he said.  "The waiter thought we were saying no tip.  He thought we all looked around at each other and said No? No tip sounds good."  At that, the rest of us started to laugh as well.

Although this was only a one small instance of miscommunication but I thought it was funny and a good representation of how even the most basic words can get you in to trouble.

The Natural History Museum

The Naturhistorisches museum has a much more elaborate facade than any other natural history museum that I have seen.  However, on the inside it is almost exactly the same as any other natural history museum and it is because of this similarity that I wanted to write a blog post about it.

So much in Vienna is totally different from America that it was interesting to find a place that, despite its outer appearance, was so set up so similarly to an American museum.  I have to preface everything I am about to say with the fact that I am a History major and an art lover.  I am not very interested in Geology, Zoology, Paleontology, or Marine Biology so I do not have as much knowledge about all of the exhibits in Natural History Museums as I do about exhibits in Art or History Museums.  However, despite my lack of knowledge about the subjects addressed in the Naturhistorisches museum, it seems to me that these exhibits are almost the exact same exhibits that one sees in American Natural History museums.  You have your dinosaur bones, your rare rocks, your stuffed animals, your plant specimens, and your marine life samples.  Indeed, there were only two items that I found in the Natural History Museum that I had not seen elsewhere.  The first was an actual beehive with a passage way to the outside through which the bees could enter and exit.  It was actually a truly fantastic display in my opinion.  The second unique item was of course the Venus of Willendorf.  The fact that this small and unassuming statue is actually from sometime between 24,000 to 22,000 BCE blows my mind.  I cannot believe that something that old could still exist and that people that long ago created it is absolutely incredible to me.  Even being in the same small, dark room with something that old sent me into a state of historic euphoria.  So, on one hand the Naturhistorisches museum was very much like any other natural history museum you could find back in the United States but like all other museums, no matter their location or theme, there were still unique and worthwhile exhibits to go see and experience.

Austrian Movie Theaters

While in Vienna I saw two extremely different movies in two very different settings.  The first movie that I saw was Dark Night Rises in an English movie theater.  The second movie I saw was The Magic Flute at the outdoor film festival.

Going to a movie in a non-American movie theater was a very interesting and new experience for me.  When someone suggested that we go see the Dark Night Rises I thought it was a great idea since I had not seen the movie yet and a nice relaxing night also sounded very appealing after the first hectic week. What I did not take into account was just how different an experience an Austrian movie theater would provide as opposed to an American theater.  The first difference that I realized was the movie tickets for students were only about six euros.  This was about a four euro discount from the regular ticket price.  Compared to the $11.50 student price I have to pay in America, which is only about a dollar discount, this was amazing to me.  While this was my first experience with the pretty sizable student discount in Austria, it was thankfully not my last.  The next change that I saw was that we had assigned seats.  This was extremely new to me, at least in a movie theater setting, and it also seemed very impractical since we were not given a choice of seats and there were only about five other people in the whole theater.  The seats themselves were also quite unusual to my American movie going self.  They were not stadium seating, which would have made it very difficult to see the screen if there had actually been anyone sitting in front of us, and they were also surprisingly nice and squishy.  This last discovery was actually quite nice since often times in America this is not the case.

While we were watching the movie two other things become obvious very quickly.  The first, was that there was absolutely no airconditioning.  Given the fact that I had been in Austria for a week already and experienced the fact that they definitely did not believe in central airconditioning, I am not sure why this surprised me.  I guess I can blame it on the overly airconditioned movie theaters back home.  However, the lack of air in the theater made the whole experience a little difficult since it had to be about eighty degrees in the movie theater.  My second discovery while watching the film was that no one else in the theater laughed at all during the movie.  The Dark Night Rises is obviously not the funniest movie, but it did have some one liners that made our group laugh but when I looked around, all the Austrians were just staring up at the screen without a smile on their faces.  This lack of response from the audience is a very interesting difference from American audiences who laugh, cry, and often yell at the screen.

 My second movie experience in Austria could not have been more different from my first.  I went with a group of other students to see The Magic Flute at the open air film festival outside the Rathaus.  There were dozens of different booths with a wide variety of foods, beer, and wine, all of which were absolutely fantastic.  After getting something to eat we were able to sit down with a glass of wine and watch The Magic Flute.  The atmosphere was great, the weather was beautiful, but I had absolutely no idea what was happening in the movie.  The fact that it was in German and had no subtitles I am sure had at least something to do with my lack of understanding but given that it was an opera I am sure that there were parts that even native German speakers probably could not understand.  The setting and staging of the movie did not help at all either.  It would go from three women singing on fake Alps to a man dressed in yellow who drove a yellow car filled with bird cages.  In short, the movie totally baffled me.  Despite my lack of understanding however, this was one of my best nights in Vienna because it was such a wonderfully Viennese experience to have.  

Thomas Frankl

My first impression of Thomas Frankl was that he was not like any Holocaust survivor I had ever seen before.  Not that I had seen a Holocaust survivor in person but almost all of the interviews that I had seen depicted survivors in a serious light.  This was not the case for Thomas.  He came into the room full of life and energy despite his advanced age.  He told us the stories of his and his families Holocaust experiences.  Theirs was an exceptional experience, especially since the members of his immediate family all survived.  While he was telling us this story, Thomas Frankl made jokes, showed us pictures, cried, and laughed.  The fact that he did not express his story in a completely serious or a completely comedic manner, to me at least, made the experiences of his family seem more real.  Yes, they were obviously victims of horrible crimes but that was not all that they were.

I was unable to go to the Adolf Frankl gallery but I did look up all of his pictures that I could find.  I had seen a couple of them in the handouts that Thomas had given us, but those did not begin to do justice to his fathers pieces.  Each one is more disturbing than the last.  However, despite their disturbing nature, these are some of the most powerful paintings I have every seen.  Through them you can feel the tiniest of fractions of the horrors that Adolf and the millions of other victims of the Holocaust had to see and go through.  While obviously we can never truly understand that horror, I do believe that it is important to at least try to do so.