"V" is for...

Vienna, Austria: Beyond ready for a tremendous 12 days of adventure, the class was loaded onto a bus Thursday morning, and Vienna bound! However, as you read in my previous post, my 12 days were cut short. Nevertheless, Austria and Italy were a good time while they lasted. When we arrived in Vienna we followed our typical routine of dropping off our bags at the hostel and heading out for a mini tour of the city. We started down a main strip of shopping places where we would eventually be doing damage to our wallets. Then, just turning off the street and down another was a beautifully grassed and gated in area with huge museums. We proceeded to scurry past them for the time being as it began to down pour! We postponed our outside tour until the next day and ran until we arrived, soaking wet, to the Imperial Treasury. The Imperial Treasury holds a collection of treasures from the Imperial House of Habsburg. There are several robes on display as well as the Imperial Crown, Orb, and Scepter of Austria. I thought it was really interesting to see the belongings of the Holy Roman Empire! Following the tour of the treasury we parted for lunch in which I tried Weiner Schnitzel for the first time. Weiner Schnitzel, the “w” is pronounced as a “v”, is a traditional dish of Austria; it’s a thin piece of veal and is breaded and deep-fried. It’s good but not “that good”. After lunch we met again to visit St. Stephen’s Cathedral which was immaculate to say the least. We were only there for a short while and then set free to venture on our own. That night, Jenna, Taylor, and I had a lovely spaghetti dinner in a little eatery overlooking the city night life. We then caught up with the rest of the group who was getting ready to go out, but by that time I was pretty tired and checked out. I tagged along for a good time anyway, and while trying to speed walk/ imitate Abby’s speed walking, ended up face planting right upon reaching our destination. In my defense, my short strides managed to fit perfectly in this plastic wrap on the ground, capturing both of my feet and taking me down. It was pretty funny at the time yet pretty painful in the morning. On our second and last day spent in Vienna, we were given the option of four museums to tour. The majority of us chose the Museum of Art History called, Kunsthistorisches Museum which took a couple hours to get through. My favorite part of the museum was the Egyptian art and artifacts that took up most of the first floor of the museum. I also thought it was fascinating to see several art students replicating the works of art hanging throughout the picture gallery. Following the museum a few of us were given just enough time to lie in the grass and soak up some sun, as we waited for everyone else to finish their tours. Still enjoying the beautiful weather, we looked forward to visiting the local market for a bite to eat before heading to the Imperial Apartments of the Habsburg’s. The museum displayed the chinaware used by generations of the Habsburg’s and the rooms once lived in by royalty. After visiting more than enough museums for the day, a few of us indulged in some last minute “spring break attire” shopping. I decided to hit the hay right when we got back to the hostel, ready to leave for Italy the next morning!

Items from the Imperial Treasury 

My fall in the street along with the plastic thing that caught my feet!

Kunsthistorisches Museum: Outside and Inside

Venice, Italy: After sleeping for six of our seven hour bus ride, I woke up to wonderful scenery of graffiti marked brick walls and an Italian yelling at us to move our bus. Nervous that this was how we’d be treated during all of our stay it fortunately was not but close to it. From where we got off of the bus, a train took us five more minutes to Venice, my favorite city thus far. We started on a tour first visiting the site of an old Jewish ghetto. Like usual Jan [yawn] had a lot to tell us about each stop, and as we were listening, an intrigued, older woman wandered over to learn something, too. Surprisingly, the surviving Jews of Auschwitz that once occupied this quarter, came back to live here hoping to restart their community. Moving on we found ourselves at a dead end. Jan led us there on purpose to show us how easy it is to get lost in Venice, and boy did he warn us. We kept walking with the entire class until we reached Piazza San Marco (St. Mark’s Square) and then split up for the rest of the day. Thad, the one who always has a plan, led us to this great homemade pasta place called Alfredo’s. We loved it so much that a handful of us went back the next day! I found out that the man who took our order both days was the owner; he was Alfredo and the guys working right alongside him were family. So reasonable, and so delicious! Of course after accomplishing pasta in Italy, gelato was next on the list followed by wine and wandering the night life of Venice. When we got back to the hostel, Taylor and I got barked at by a middle aged woman for being too loud. It was maybe 10 o’clock, for five minutes when we were hysterically laughing in our room, yet she waited until after midnight to yell at us. We found out that it wasn’t just us she tried to fuss about; it was our whole group she wanted to “kick out”. Taylor and I just concluded that our happiness was unwelcomed at this hostel seeing as how our last one in Vienna was called, Happy Hostel. Our second day in Venice happened to be Palm Sunday, so St. Mark’s Basilica was full of tourists when we visited it. After our walk through of what seemed like the hundredth cathedral,  we all fulfilled the excitement and enjoyment of a gondola ride. We couldn't have asked for more perfect weather to tour around some of Venice’s oldest parts of the city. Sad to say good bye but anxious to start spring break, (or so I thought) I loved everything Venice had to offer, and I hope to make it back there some day! 

Gondola Rides!

Alfredo's Pasta!

Vennice at Night

Most Recently: From my last post explaining Jessi's and my spring break failure, everyone has made it back safely, and our issue is no longer haunting us (as much as it was at first). Working around Jessi getting sick, we tried to make the most of what free time we had, in Olomouc, but everything seemed to fall through. Places we wanted to go to were closed, or we couldn't find them. Part of us thought that we were just supposed to listen to our worried mothers after all; they had told us not to go anywhere and to just stay in our dorms all weekend. However, we were eager to at least to something festive for Easter since it's different in the Czech Republic. Being the most atheist European country, the Czech Republic doesn't focus their Easter around Christ's resurrection. Here, they celebrate Easter as the end of winter and start of Spring, and it's on Monday instead of Sunday. Sunday evening a few of us girls went to dinner anyway to fill in for each others' families; it was a pretty bittersweet Skype call that evening (for all of us) as I was passed around to talk to everyone in my family. Our Easter was just beginning though; Abby, Jessi, Taylor, and I took a train to Rožnov pod Radhoštěm where traditional Czech Easter festivities always take place. We were overjoyed to see the hand crafted Easter eggs we were told about, performances of traditional Czech dancing, and rows upon rows of little shops that people had brought their handmade goods to sell. That's about all I have for now! My next blog will be about my visits to Terezin and to Krakow, Poland and Auschwitz. Thanks for reading, love and miss you all!

-Molly

Random Stuff:

• I tried the milk here because I was craving a bowl of cereal, and it did not taste like home's. Even their version of Cheerios was way off from what the U.S. has. Of course, I'm the only one who can't stand it because for some reason my sense of taste and smell are incredibly strong and sensitive.
• I finally watched the movie Frozen for the first time and immediately fell in love with it!
• The past two days we've been blessed with an amazing lecturer. He's been incredibly inspirational and has said a lot of what people my age need to hear. He simply started by differing the job place from the work place. Long story short, to find something you like to and want to do, and do it, and from there plan your life around what you want to be doing.
• As I shared in what may have been my first post, every Wednesday a country is celebrated at a nearby club, and our turn is finally here! America Night is next Wednesday, and we cannot wait! (You'll be hearing about this in my next blog post, too!...maybe.)