post 7

The beginning of this post might be boring because it's not the end of this post. You'll understand later. If I start jumping around I'll never get around to writing about all that I've done.

Friday for art history class we went to the Kunsthistorische, which is this huge museum in the Museumsquartier near The Ring (downtown). The building itself is gorgeous (like pretty much everything here). It's huge and museum-y and you really feel like a million bucks just by walking down the stairs. Our professor gave us an in depth tour of the Greek and Roman wing of the museum, which was pretty awesome. One story I will abridge for you but it's too cool not to mention. They have a bronze statue called The Youth of Magdelenesburg (don't know about the spelling), that they thought was a gift from the Romans to this town called Magdelenesburg. About 15 years ago, a woman was doing some research on this statue and discovered that the Romans didn't make it (based on the way it was cast, etc.). So they cut it open to study it further and they found a playing card from the 16th Century. What they think happened was this: as cool things often do, this statue changed owners a few times throughout history, and at one point the archbishop of Salzburg had it in his residence. The emperor of Austria asked for it back and at this point the bishop probably had a copy made and either gave it to the emperor or kept it for himself and gave the original back. Sweet story. The playing card part really gets me.

Summer by Giuseppe Arcimboldo

Raphael's Madonna

After class I went to lunch with a few girls and then we decided to go back to the museum to see the paintings upstairs. Holy cow. I'm not a big time Rubens fan, and honestly I wouldn't say Renaissance stuff is my top pick, but I almost started crying a couple times. Raphael's Madonna of the Meadow and Rubens' Lamantation of Christ by the Virgin Mary and John did bring the tears. Stuff I really really loved included a whole room of Pieter Brugel Sr. paintings and four of Giuseppe Arcimboldo's paintings. In love. We went to My Fair Lady at the Volksoper (which we found with no trouble this week) and while it was fun and we made friends witht the people next to us, watching a two and a half hour play in German and understanding six sentences wasn't my favorite thing ever.

Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Breugel Sr.

Peasant Wedding by Pieter Bruegel Sr.

Saturday was a nice, lazy day spent indoors doing homework and hanging out with Norbert and Liesl (I found out I've been spelling her name wrong). We did brave the cold to try out a little pizza place near the Volksoper for dinner. I'm 98% positive there was some mafia stuff going down, but Becca and I were happily oblivious because our German is coming along very slowly. We came home and caught up on The Bachelor (you can have the finest art and music at your fingertips but sometimes you just need to know what's up with Ben and all his ladies).

This photo is super dark because we didn't know how the Mafia would react to a flash.

Today was one of the top five best days of my life, I'm pretty sure. We woke up early to hear the Vienna Boys Choir sing in Mass at the Hofburg Chapel. It was gorgeous and during the service they are above you so you really feel like angels are singing. Then after Mass is over they come down and sing a couple of songs and you can take pictures and they are adorable.

Vienna Boys Choir

After Mass, we got on the wrong bus, so we missed church (woops), so we headed home. Liesl and Norbert whisked us away for an excursion to Neusiedler See, a big lake on the border of Austria and Hungary. The lake is frozen solid and you can ice skate on it without pulling an Amy March and falling right through.

This is me before we got out on the lake. I figured while Liesl was tying my skates for my that it would be a good time to confess that I'm not much of an ice skater. She is a saint.

You guys, ice skating is a) one of my greatest fears and b) the last thing I would ever choose to do for fun. I almost cried before we went out on the lake and you better believe I was praying my brains out. But skating on this lake was the best thing that has ever happened to me. Of course, I made Becca and/or Liesl hold my hand the whole time, but I loved it. We skated from the Austrian side to the Hungarian side and we saw a fish frozen under the ice and I was frozen on top of the ice but I didn't care. Also, in case you are wondering, Liesl can do everything. She's like, a professional figure skater.

Liesl basically pulled us back to the car like this. No joke. She's the best.

So so pretty out there.

I was clinging to Becca for dear life in the beginning.

Liesl, Becca and me

After skating, we drove to a restaurant that Norbert wanted to check out as a potential location for his upcoming birthday party (which will likely have 200 guests...nbd). The restaurant was in Hungary and was totally adorable, like I was eating dinner in The Shire or The Burrow or somewhere else with low ceilings and nobbly wood furniture and handmade lace tableclothes and amazing food. We had a great time at dinner just laughing and chatting and I accidentally went in the men's restroom and Norbert thought the bill was in Euros but it was in Forints (Hungary's currency), so he thought it was SUPER expenive and then the waiter brought him back tons of change (like, €100). We were all feeling silly and sleepy and I slept all the way back to Vienna. When we got home, Liesl made Palatschinke, which is just like crepes (as if we needed more food), and we laughed and chatted some more. Then I talked to my family. Perfect day.