Vienna

One of the coffins from the Vault of the Hapsburgs

The view from the Castle in Bratislava, Slovakia

The main hall of the Austrian Parliament

,The North Face of the Vienna Opera house at night

Well I finally feel like I am updated on this darn blogging stuff. I am back in Salzburg after a 5 day group trip to Vienna. We left on Friday morning, taking a chartered bus. Vienna is about 3 hours drive from Salzburg. On our way we stopped at one of the Nazi work camps; Mauthausen. It was a work camp, with a large stone quarry, and then on the top of the hill areas for housing etc. It was pretty gruesome. Its really hard to explain a concentration camp to someone who hasn't been to one, but needless to say it is an extremely intense and mortifying experience. There were 200,000 total prisoners over the years of the war, with more than 100,000 dying during that time. Life was terrible. For food you got bread(which was sometimes made out of sawdust) and a small amount of soup, you were worked from dawn to dusk, slept in a small room with hundreds of people, often sleeping on top of another person because there was no room. We saw gas chambers, places to shoot, hang, and give lethal injections to people. There was a 187 step staircase in which exhausted workers had to carry heavy rocks to the top, if they made it, they were forced to jump off the cliff to their death. Needless to say, this was an absolutely atrocious sight. We left the camp and headed to Vienna. We got there and had free time for the rest of the night. So a group of us went to explore the city. We had Kebabs, which are absolutely amazing, and enjoyed the city. It really seemed like there was a palace or beautiful building on EVERY block. The next day we had a 3 hour bus tour, followed by a 3 hour walking tour. There are so many interesting things in Vienna. We toured the burial vault of the Hapsburg rulers, went into St. Stephens cathedral, saw numerous special buildings and a Klimt art museum. My friend Sarah Anne and I really wanted to see Wagner, which was playing at the Vienna State Opera house (one of the finest in the world), but we had to go wait in line to get tickets. After about an hour or so of standing and waiting in line, we got tickets, only 3 euros!! ($5), the only problem is that they were standing tickets, and the Opera was 5 hours long. It didn't even matter. We ran upstairs and marked off our "standing area" with our scarves. It was actually really nice. There was a railing that you could lean on, and on the railing was a small screen that displayed the words, you could even have it translate to English. Needless to say the opera was EPIC. All of the singers were of the highest quality, the orchestra was excellent, and the set and design was top notch. Overall it was an absolutely incredible experience. However I had been standing or walking for almost 11 hours, and my legs were exhausted. The next day a group of us decided that since we were so close to the border were would hop a bus to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. It was a cheap ticket to get there, and even though it was only around 30 miles from Vienna, the difference was astounding. You could really tell that this was a former Soviet Bloc country. The atmosphere of the entire city was simply different. We ate at a restaurant, then went up and toured the castle on top of the hill, we couldn't go inside, however, because they were renovating it. It was an interesting city, and cool to say that I have also been to Slovakia. We got back around 6:30 and went to the famous Vienna Christmas market. It was a huge area set up in front of the Rathaus (city hall) full of small shops, rides, and all sorts of goodies. They had the Rathaus, the local theatre, and everything else in the area lit up with lights, it was pretty magical. On Monday we had a guided tour of the Austrian parliment, which was extremely impressive to say the least, then we went to Municipal Department 17 (MA17) to talk with one of their employees about integration in the city. It was pretty awesome. Vienna prides it self on doing EVERYTHING possible to integrate people from all different cultures. They have free German language classes, work with local police and groups to try and get the minorities integrated into society, and even help them find work/places to live. It was really cool that these people worked to hard to help everyone get along... and you could really see it in the streets. The city was very nice and quiet, and has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. After that we had a tour of the Austrian resistance movement museum, this was really cool because a lot of us had been wanting to hear more about Austria's role in WWII, and we finally got some answers. After that I went with Rachael and Kara to the Treasury of the Hapsburg Empire... wow. These people were so incredibly rich and powerful, they basically had gold toilet paper, it was crazy. But there were so many precious gems, crowns, gold weaved clothes, it was interesting to see the pampered life these people had. After that I visited the national library... it was straight out of Beauty and the Beast. The library was huge, ornately decorated and absolutely beautiful. On tuesday we visited Schloß Schönbrunn. This was the summer home of the imperial family... again, huge and ridiculous. The gardens, although not in bloom were incredible and huge. Then we went to a Monestary called Melk. This place was basically a summer getaway for the Hapsburgs, and they invested a lot of money here. The church itself was huge and basically covered in gold. It was mind blowing to see all the wealth that these rulers had. Overall it was a great trip, and Vienna is probably my new favorite city. Full of culture, music, nightlife, diversity, an excellent public transportation system; the city is simply amazing, and unlike anything else in the world.