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.