From Oct. 23rd...

(I wrote this blog on Oct. 23rd, but forgot to post it until now! whoops!)

This past week we got to do a lot of fun stuff that you have to do while living in Vienna. Firstly on Tuesday I went shopping to try to get some warmer clothes and a little more fashionable clothes-everyone here seems to be very fashionable so I’ve been looking around seeing what’s “in” and I was able to go shopping to get some more clothes that will help me fit in to the culture around me haha. That was fun, and thankfully most of the clothes I found had their US size as well as their European size, since they’re different. After spending the day shopping I went home got out some of my new clothes and got dressed up to meet Ben downtown to go to the Opera to see “La Traviata”.

We just did standing room at the Opera because it’s only 4 Euro a person, but you can’t buy your tickets ahead of time, so Ben got there earlier than I to wait outside. I got there in JUST enough time before they started letting people in, so we waited for about an hour and half before we were allowed into the Opera Hall, and we quickly lined up with the rest of the Standing Room folk, to wait to be ushered into our spots. Thankfully, we had really nice spots, so we marked our spots then walked around the Opera House and took pictures before it started. We had a great time and at the intermission got a coffee in the lobby, after the intermission a few people had left so we had a little more stretching room which was nice. When it was over we quickly got our jackets from the coat check and since we were starving we walked across the street for some good old American Subway for dinner. Overall, it was a great experience and we’d like to do the Opera again when possible. I also really enjoyed the story of “La Traviata”, the only thing I didn’t like was that they made it more of a “modern version”. Obviously the music was all the same, but the costumes and acting parts of it were all modern, and I would have enjoyed seeing the more traditional version, but we still enjoyed it.

Otherwise the week was pretty laid back. I worked an extra day this week and we ended up going to an indoor swim hall on Thursday which was a lot of fun. They had a water slide, a “whirlpool” section and most of all the water was nice and warm (which was great since it was so cold outside!). However, it was interesting to see how different our culture is from the European culture when it comes to even in little things, like how they run a pool. First off there was just one giant locker room to keep your stuff and to change meaning men and women used this huge locker room to change. There were a few stalls (which I used to change in to my swimsuit) but otherwise there were a lot of men, women, and kids running around naked and getting changed. Very interesting. Also, with the water slide, if that was in a pool in America there would be lifeguards at the top telling you when to go and exactly how to lay down when going down the slide, but not here. They just had a light above the slide that would change from red to green when you could go down the slide, and you could go backwards, forwards upside down etc. they seem to be must more trusting of people here, and don’t patronize them with having a lifeguard there having to explain to you how to go down a slide.

This weekend was also fairly laid back since I have had a cold since Friday and haven’t been feeling super great. However, we did get to do some fun stuff. Yesterday we had a “Sigmund Freud Day” by going to the famous Doctor’s old residence and museum here in Vienna. I really enjoyed the museum much more than I thought I would. We all hear about Freud’s sexual theories and his “Id” “Ego” and “Superego”, but the museum wasn’t as devoted to his specific works, it was more of a memorial to an extremely brilliant individual and his family. Most of the things we saw were orginial manuscripts of his works, pictures of his family and friends and a few items here and there that belonged to Sigmund Freud. They also had focused on the tragedy surrounding Freud and his family. Since he was a Jew living in Austria during WWII, he and his family had to flee to London to avoid being put into Concentration Camps. Most of Freud’s sisters were taken away to concentration camps where they died. They also discussed the fact that the SS had mad many visits to his home (the home that we were in for the museum) mainly looking for gold, money and other valuables to steal from him. It really was quite an interesting to learn more and more about his life as a person and an individual how he loved his family and seemed to have a great sense of humor as opposed to just focusing on his seemingly odd sexual theories. The other thing at the museum that intrigued me was the room devoted to Anna Freud (Sigmund’s youngest daughter) who also became a psychiatrist, but her work revolved around child development and such. They talked about how she opened a daycare in Vienna for under privileged kids, but it only stayed open for a year before she had to shut it down and flee to London with her parents to escape the Nazis. They even had some of her original typed notes for observations at this daycare, talking about how these kids started associating her with food because every day when they arrived she was sitting by the window with an apple or orange that she would share with the kids. Just some interesting little tid-bits that I learned while at the museum.

After spending the afternoon at the Freud museum, we went down the street to Café Landtmann which was Freud’s favorite place to go for coffee and food, which is right across from the University where he taught. He would apparently sit here and do his writings while sipping coffee. It is an extremely expensive restaurant so Ben and I just had coffee there to say that we’ve been there haha. But it was very good coffee and we sat in a booth and talked sipping our coffee before we left for our next little journey.

Since we were out we decided to take a trip to the hotel where my parents were thinking of staying when they come to visit so we checked out the rooms and were able to figure out how close it was to the U-Bahn station and downtown. After our “research trip” we went to our favorite cheap pizzeria for a delicious late lunch/ early dinner, then headed home.

Now it’s Sunday and everything is closed, since I’ve been sick I slept in too late to go to the church service we were thinking about. So today I think we will just be staying inside, relaxing, staying warm, trying to get over this cold and planning out what we want to do next in this wonderful city =)