Going out-kind of, The Central Cemetery, Allison goes back home, the end of midterms, Krakow and Auschwitz.

Montag 25 Oktober: So today I had a midterm and a lesson, so unfortunately Allison was on her own. I think the midterm went well, it was in Art and Architecture. Then I had a very good lesson. While I did all of that Allison went to Museums Quartier and hit up a few museums. I was sad I couldn't hang out with her today, but I'm glad I have a friend that's independent and able to do stuff on her own. What a guy! At night we decided to try to go out. We went to Loco, which is a bar that has 50 cent drinks (no relation to the rapper), but they were checking id's and not everyone had their id. We decided to default and go to Chelsea. It was totally poppin. There was a band playing, but you had to pay 5 euro to see them, so we just hung out in the part the band wasn't in. Then we got a kebap at the best kebap stand and headed in early.

Dienstag 26 Oktober: This morning Allison and I decided to go to the Central Cemetery of Vienna. It is where Beethoven and anyone famous who died in Vienna is buried. It took forever to get there a. because it was at the very end of one of the lines on the Ubahn, b. because it was a long long walk from the Ubahn and c. because we walked the wrong direction for a good 15 minutes. Once we got there, we realized that there weren't any cemetery maps there, so we just wandered around and looked at graves. It was still really interesting, but next time I go, I'm going to find a map before hand. For lunch we had to get some Wienerschnitzel. You can't leave Wien without eating some schnitzel first! So no one really told us, but today was an Austrian holiday. Austrian independence day. And therefore, nothing was open. No stores at all. Nothing. It was worst than on Sundays. And of course Allison and I planned on doing some shopping today and for her to get some last minute gifts and of course, everything was closed... Turkish market to the rescue! Thankfully the Turkish Markt up the street was open, so Allison could at least get some candy for people. At night we had tickets to the Vienna Phil! They were standing room and they only cost 2 Euro!!! They played a Brahms, then a Trombone Concerto and then they played Dvorak's New World Symphony!!!!!!!! It was so amazing and so beautiful, I got teary eyed in the first movement. It was just great! After that Ben made us dinner and then we went to Chicken Dinner, so I could show Allison and so she could get one last radler before leaving! Then it was time for her to go, so I walked her to the Ubahn and said goodbye. It was so nice to have someone visit!

The Central Cemetery... Map not included.

There were a lot of people walking and driving around while we were there.

There were so many graves.

Mittwoch 27 Oktober: This morning I got up so early to study for my Nations and Religions midterm. I think it went alright, but this whole midterm business has just been so stressful not knowing what to expect! After my test I came home and cleaned and slept and packed for Krakow and studied for my last midterm that's tomorrow. I found a yarn store on Mariahilf so I got some yarn to knit on the train tomorrow.

Donnerstag 28 Oktober: I took my backpack to my midterm with me and left for the trainstation straight from my test. On my way out I picked up some mail and I got a birthday package from my viola students at home Toran and Lexa! It was so cute and I loved it so much! The train ride from Vienna to Krakow was 7 and a half hours long. We had to transfer once in Katowice. It was so funny because we saw all these IES kids that were on our same train and we ended up being in the same compartment as some of them. It was so weird. When we got to Katowice our train was late, so we were worried we missed the connection. We don't speak Polish (obviously) and it was so confusing trying to figure out what platform we were supposed to be on and if the train was gone. (Basically if I were by myself I would have been crying.) But then we saw the most ghetto old school sign that said that the train to Krakow was delayed and we found the right platform. (sigh of relief) We finally made it to Krakow and now it was time for us to find our hostels. Jennie was staying at the Flamingo hostel, which was easy to find because it had a ton of flashing lights coming from it... (Little known fact, Krakow is totally poppin at night. There are a ton of people out and about and even the mall is open until 11 at night, very different from Vienna, the city that goes to sleep at 10) Once Jennie was all settled Emily and I found our hostel, which was The Dizzy Daisy. It did not have flashing lights. It was down a very very dark street, but once we were inside, it was super nice! (Strangely there were a ton of Spanish tourists in Krakow, the first two nights, all of our roommates were Spanish except for two or three people). After we were all settled we went to find somewhere to eat so we went to a 24 hour Perogie place. We each got a traditional combination perogie plate. It cost the equivalent of about three US dollars! Polish money is called Zloty. Here are our perogies:

Areal view of the dumplings. Mmmm!

The one on the far left is some sort of potato, cream cheese mix. The middle one was my favorite, cabbage and mushroom and the one on the far right was some sort of meat. So yummy!!!

After eating dinner we went to a bar. I was pretty wiped so I didn't get anything, but we decided that this bar should be called "Fish Dinner, the Chicken Dinner of Krakow" here's why:

There were pictures of fish everywhere...

They also had a projector showing weird movies.

 Freitag 29 Oktober: Today we visited Auschwitz. This was just the most real and the most surreal day of my life. I don't even know how to describe the experience. We took a two hour bus ride from Krakow to the camp. Every visitor has to go in a tour, so we went on an English tour in a big group. Our tour guide was great. He was very thoughtful, passionate and informative. We started at Aushwitz I. The most emotional parts for me were when he talked about the orchestra that would play as people went to work and came back and how many people would come back dead. I don't even know how I could possibly play music in conditions like that. There were several parts of the camp, different buildings, where I would just feel like I couldn't even breathe. Like something was compressing my chest and my heart was racing and eventually I just started leaking. It was unlike any crying I've done before. It wasn't crying, tears were just uncontrollably leaking out of me. I don't even really know how to write about it all, just because it was so intense and I don't know how to make the experience come across through a blog post. The whole time it was really difficult for me to take pictures. I could only take pictures outside and even through the four hours or so that we spent there, I only took about ten photos. There were some people that were just going crazy taking pictures, and posing in front of things and having their picture taken, it was just so weird. I guess it's strange how different people deal and treat these sort of things. After Auschwitz I we went to Auschwitz II, Birkenau. That was just surreal too. We went into one of the barracks and imagining all the people that were forced to live there and seeing how many barracks in the camp there were. It was just like, even though I was there I couldn't grasp the magnitude of how big the camp was, or how many people were contained there and definitely not how many people died there. I'm so glad that I had the opportunity to visit Auschwitz and see it for myself. It was just so intense.

The entrance to Auschwitz I.

The train tracks that lead to Birkenau.

Each of these chimneys was were a barrack was. There were so many of them.

After we got back to Krakow we went to the mall. The mall in Krakow is huge and as I said before it's open until 11 at night. This was the biggest confusion to by brain ever. Going from this intense day where I felt like I was on another planet, where something like this was possible to going to a super familiar, most American feeling place since I've been to Europe-this huge mall. It was just a huge mind f*#% if you know what I mean. It was just draining and all I wanted to do was sit and think or sleep or I don't even know. So basically we turned in pretty early and just went back to our hostels and slept.

Samstag 30 Oktober: So we slept in today, which was just great. Then we just walked around and did some shopping, I got some pretty cool slippers and a scarf. We went to the Jewish Quarter of town and we had the most amazing bagel I've ever had in my life! We basically just walked around a lot today. It was really nice and I was still thinking a lot of yesterday, so it was nice not to do a lot. 

St. Mary's Basilica in the main market square. After the bell tolls on the hour, a trumpeter plays taps!

There was a strange group of people all dressed up.

A cute little brass quartet. The tuba player never changed at the right time, it was so funny!

And a puppetier with a bunch of marionettes.

My yummy homemade bagel with lox!

At night we went to an ice cream place and then we went to a jazz bar, where we made friends with some people from Krakow. Thank God too, because one of them told me that the time change was tonight! We didn't even know. It's fun to make friends with people from all over. It's also fun to speak with people who English isn't their first language. It's like talking to a kid with adult ideas or something. I like it. The guy that was playing at the bar looked just like Bill Murray and we discovered a new drink. It was something like beer and raspberry juice. The radler of Poland I guess!

Yep, that's ice cream!

Prost! (I don't know what cheers is in Polish)

Watching Bill Murray on the screen from the other room.

Kind of like Bill Murray? Huh?

Sontag 31 Oktober: Can you believe it's Halloween? So weird. Anyway, today we leave Krakow and go home to Vienna. I must say I am quite homesick for Vienna! (For the states too, but what's new) In the morning we got some snacks for the road, then went back to our favorite perogie place for an early lunch. This time I got broccoli. It was so delicious!!! After that we headed to the train station and went to the mall to spend our last few zloty. We made it to the train with time to spare and we got these kind of bagel-pretzel things that they sell everywhere. They're very good and ours tasted kind of like an everything bagel and they cost the equivalent of about 30 US cents. So cheap. Coming home we had some pretty old trains. Very eastern Europe. We made it home without any hitches and it is good to be home in Vienna!!! Now I think it's time to watch a scary movie to celebrate Hallowien! (haha)

Krakow was just so beautiful!

We passed a man playing accordion on the way to the train station, I gave him a few zloty.

Us with our funny bagel pretzel things.

A view from the train.

Sunset from the train. (This was at 4:00...)

One stressed out apartment, Schoko muffins, Allison visits!!!!, So.Many.Taxidermy-ed.Animals, CARDILLAC!!!, St. Michaelerkirche, Die Elefanten haben viele caca! and a Bat shit on my head

Montag 18 Oktober: Not a lot going on today. I've been doing a lot of reading and studying so that when Allison comes I won't have to spend a ton of time doing that when she gets here. Midterms start on Saturday and I think everyone is starting to feel the heat!

Dienstag 19 Oktober: Everyone is stressed. Hostile, angry, fighting, stressed. Can't wait for a break.

Mittwoch 20 Oktober: Today I decided that it would be a good idea to bake something to diffuse the stress that is currently our apartment. I went to Spar on the way home from class this morning and picked up some chocolate muffin mix. I made the chocolate muffins, same deal as the Sacher torte, I wasn't quite sure if I got the instructions correct or if the portioning was right, but they turned out great! Then I made little name tags for everyone and put them on a plate next to a muffin. We can all eat them together tonight and get along again! Yay! Tonight at performance workshop was our dress rehearsal for the concert tomorrow. This is frustrating because that means we all have to sit through the concert essentially twice within two days, right before midterm exams and the concert is just under three hours. It's just a little frustrating, but tomorrow Allison comes! She left this morning! I can't believe it!!!

Donnerstag 21 Oktober: Today after German (in which our teacher handed back our oral presentation scripts which we have to memorize tonight and perform tomorrow... yikes) I ran down the stairs to the lobby of the IES center to meet Allison!!! I was so excited! Unfortunately today is a very busy day, so I had to send her to the apartment with one of the guys that lives downstairs and gave her my key. After that I had to go to a piano coaching, then we had a "mandatory check-in meeting", then I had class, then I had a break and went to get a kebap in the Naschmarkt with Allison, got changed for the concert, went to another piano coaching and then it was time for the concert. (Sigh, what a busy day!) The concert went pretty well. I played the second movement of the Francaix string trio, the second movement of the Tchaikovsky no 3 string quartet and then the quartet part of the Mozart Sub tuum with two sopranos. After the concert we went out and got sushi!! Then it was back to work and I worked with Jennie and Claire for two hours trying to memorize our 15 minute German skit. What.a.day.

Freitag 22 Oktober: We spent another hour before class going over the script. The skit went pretty well! I was super proud of us for getting it together so well with such little time! After class I went home and Allison and I made lunch. Emiy and Jennie and I had to buy our train tickets to Krakow (I'll be leaving after my last midterm on Thursday and coming home that Sunday) so Allison came along too. Jennie had to buy a Vorteils card (mine came in the mail last week by the way. Oh man, that picture... I look like an evil villain from some weird anime...) so she had to get pictures of herself somewhere. We asked so many people for directions and wandered around forever! Finally we found a camera store that did it! Then we bought our tickets and it all worked out. After that adventure, Allison and I went to the Natural History Museum. It was super cool.

The Natural History Museum, located right across from the Kunstistorisches.

There were so many rocks! They were all so beautiful!

Dinosaur bones.

That little one is the real Lucy!!! (Allison is on the right)

There were tons of taxidermy-ed animals. It gave me the creeps, I seriously had goosebumps and was terrified the whole time. This is what brings babies to the earth.

This is what takes dead people away to hell.

This is the bird form of Prince. Obviously.

We also saw the Venus of Willendorf! It's a tiny little fertility statue dated to 20,000 BC! We learned about it in my Art and Architecture class. I didn't take any pictures though, I felt weird about it since it was in this intense glass case in this dark little house made specially for it. After the museum we went to Dremels which is where the marzipan museum is and we got a piece of Sachertorte to split. We went back to Museumsquartier and at it on these funny colorful bench things that they have there. Then we went to Zielpunkt and Spar so we could get groceries and Allison could experience all the different grocery stores. We made dinner then were off to Phil for some German studying.

Samstag 23 Oktober: This morning was the German midterm. For about half of it I was doing pretty well, then after that I started fading. I was really tired and just couldn't focus. Which is unfortunate while you're taking a test... Then when I turned it in, our teacher told me I did an entire page wrong so I had to redo that, but I was so tired. Basically, I'm not so sure about how well that one went. Oh well I guess we'll see. After my test Allison and I made lunch, then we were off to the Flohmarkt with Emily. We all made some pretty good purchases and it was really fun, as always. After that we went to get in line to see the opera. The opera tonight is Cardillac by Hindemith! Did you know Hindemith wrote an opera? Ya, me neither. We got in line at 4:45. The show was at 8:00. We played card games for two hours then we bought our tickets at 6:45. Then of course, more waiting. Then we finally got to go get our places to stand and tied our scarves to the railing to mark our spot. After that was all settled at about 7:15 we left and got some food. Allison, Ben and I got käsekraner, which is a sausage with cheese in it placed in a hollowed out bagette with mustard and ketchup in it. It's pretty good, but I can only ever eat half without feeling like I'm going to die, so Allison and I split one. Emily, Marisa and Kelsey got schnitzel boxes. A schnitzel box is essentially a box with fries and cut up schnitzel (a cutlet of turkey that's breaded and fried) After that it was back to the opera! One of my favorite feelings is after the overture and the curtain is about to go up. You're waiting in anticipation and when it finally goes up you see the set for the first time and it's just incredible! The set for Cardillac was very monochromatic and it was just so cool! All the music was very Hindemith, I loved it. The costumes were all black or grey. There was this one scene that used a screen and shodowy silhouettes. It was just so cool! All the movements were very robotic and in scenes with groups everything was in unison. It was just so amazing! I loved it so so so much! The story goes that this really renowned  jewelry maker, Cardillac is a murderer. His daughter is in love with this one guy, but she also feels she belongs to Cardillac as his daughter. In the end the town attacks Cardillac and he turns to gold. It was just awesome! Although this one lady two rows in front of me fainted! (I'm surprised that doesn't happen more often to be honest) After the opera it was roommate bonding time. Then Allison and I watched this documentary called Catfish about this guys online relationship with a family and how online relationships can be deceiving, it was very interesting. 

Waiting for the opera to start.

This is the fire screen this year. They change it every year, I really like this one.

Me and Allison at the opera!

The final bow! Just an idea of what the sets were like.

 Sonntag 24 Oktober: So today is Sunday. You know what that means. Yep. Church. Marisa, Emily, Allison and I headed out this morning and went to St. Michaelrkirche. (St. Michael's church). It was really amazing going in. It looks rather plain on the outside, but on the inside, there is this elaborate baroque altar that is just incredible! There were frescoes in this church, mainly on the tympanum (the decoration above a door or arch) which I haven't seen a whole lot of since a lot have been painted over in various renovations. The church was basilica style and had three aisles. (Can you tell I've been studying for my Art and Architecture midterm?) There wasn't any stained glass though. There were windows, but they just had regular glass. It was all very pretty though. Afterwards we of course went to McDonalds, haha.

This is the altar of St. Michael's

Close up of the altar.

Frscoes on the Tympanum of the arches.

One of the, I think they call these chapels. So elaborate.

Then Allison and I went to the Zoo at the Tiergarten of Schönbrunn! It was so so awesome!!! The zoo itself is so amazing and beautiful. We saw a koala, (the first time I've seen a live koala) pandas, (there's a baby panda that was just born in August and we watched the camera that watches its mom and the baby, they're not on display for the public), we saw a baby elephant (7 months old. When we were there a little girl said "Mama, die Elefante hat viele caca" that would translate to "Mom, the elephant has a lot of poop" haha), then we got some chestnuts roasted on an open fire for a snack (they were really yummy and kind of tasted like a sweet potato!) and we went in this crazy room where bats were just flying around and would run into you. One pooped in my hair... We didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. There were these doors of plastic fringe and the downstairs is a circle that is one way, you have to go this way. You go through the doors and go into this tiny room that is dark and has hundreds of mouse-sized bats flying around, hitting you and freaking out. It was terrifying! If I was a child I would be traumatized for years, no joke. The exit was blocked by these people taking pictures so we had to just stand there for a few minutes with the bats hitting us! When we finally got out Allison and I were terrified then she told me I had bat poop in my hair. Great. "Der Flughund hat viele caca." "The bat has a lot of poop." Ew, what an experience.

Koala! They look so soft and cuddly!

Panda bear! Isn't that amazing they have pandas! AND a panda baby!!!

Baby Elephant!

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire!

That's what the inside of a roasted chestnut looks like.

Look at these giant fruit bats! Thank God those weren't the ones in that terrible room!

This is looking up at a lion that's lying down on a widow!

This is the Tiergarten of Schönnbrunn, whcih is where the Zoo is at. It's so beautiful!

Now it's time to study more for midterms and get some sleep!

SO STRESSFUL, More on Stephansdom, the mood chart and a day at Hallstatt! (That's my Statt!)

Montag 11 Oktober: Today an awful thing happened. I couldn't find my music before our coaching on Francaix! I looked frantically, then went to the library, it wasn't there. I had to tell Barbara (our coach) that I didn't have it. Luckily Zan forgot his music too, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Then we decided to just coach on Tchaikovsky (which for some reason I did have the music for). But this was not the first time I lost something important today, no clearly today was the day that it all fell apart. I had a lesson in the morning and after setting out my lesson sheet that your teacher signs so you can get credit/reimbursed for lessons, I couldn't find it in the morning! I had to go to my lesson without it and Matthias (my teacher) said he would sign it next week. The only problem with this was that tomorrow is the day we get reimbursed for our lessons so far. Needless to say I got home at night and literally tore apart my room looking for all of these missing papers. I only found the lesson sheet.

Dienstag 12 Oktober: So today after all of that I forgot my lesson sheet at home and by the time I got it and made it back to school, they were all out of money for reimbursements. This is clearly just not my week. I looked for my music forever, and still didn't find it, then I had the epiphany to look under a couch where I dropped some music last week and sure enough it was there!

Mitwoch 13 Oktober: Today my Art and Architecture class went on a field trip to Stephansdom, now I know I've talked about Stephansdom a lot in the last few posts, but it's pretty much a defining landmark in Vienna and I've had to do a lot of reading on it for my class so it's been on my mind. Here are the pictures from the field trip and what I learned:

The ribbing on the ceiling is more complicated in the later Gothic and you can tell which part of the church is older by looking at this.

Here's kind of a weird picture of the pulpit. But you can kind of see a self portrait of Master Pilgrim (the builder of the pulpit) peeking out a window. The detail on this was so amazing! The more intricate detail indicates it is late Gothic.

The stairs going up to the Pulpit. The wheels with three symbolize the father, son and holy ghost and those wheels are rolling up, while the wheels with four (representative of earth: four elements, four seasons) are rolling down. On the rail there are lizards and toads crawling up the banister to symbolize evil and at the top is a dog (to symbolize faith) scaring off the toads.

Here is another self portrait of Master Pilgrim. The story goes that he was made fun of for spending so much time and attention to detail on this "ugly" organ loft and he said that he would carry it on his shoulders and he made a self portrait of himself carrying the organ loft on his shoulders.

This is the top of the main altar which shows a painting of the stoning of St. Stephan and the heavens opening up for him. These windows behind are the last of the old windows. The rest of the windows were taken out and replaced with these ugly simple pastel windows in an attempt to make the church less dark. Kind of sad.

 We had our Framcaix coaching today (with music this time, haha) and Barbara introduced us to a new candy! (she always brings chocolates to coachings and throws them at us when we're getting tired) She calls them "cocos". They're kind of like Ferrero Rochers but with white chocolate, coconut and a macadamia nut in the middle, so basically I loved it! Yum! At workshop today a dramatic soprano came and taught a master class. We were all required to attend. Elizabeth sang and was so amazing! She sounded just incredible! The master class was really interesting. It's interesting to see someone of a different instrument be taught. Then for dinner what else but some celebratory sushi!

Donnerstag 14 Oktober: Today was pretty busy, two piano coachings, I had to perform with all three of my chamber groups for workshop today, but it all made me feel really great. I felt like I learned a lot today and that was really good and it felt good to perform and just play because I wanted to. (Even though I had to play, I decided that I wanted to and it made it all much better)

Freitag 15 Oktober: Today I was so tired. I needed a break so Emily and Amanda and Amanda's roommate, Joncie and I went shopping on Mariahilf after German. I didn't buy anything, but sometimes it's just nice to go out and look. The rest of the day included more practicing, coachings and homework. At night we went to Chelsea again. That was fun, just me, Emily, Marisa and Elizabeth. Then we ended up going to a party that David's apartment was having. The events that followed have really made me reevaluate what friendship is and question a lot of things. It also made me think a lot about not letting others ruin your experience or bring you down, because in the end you are the one that decides how other people effect you, not them. 

The view of Hallstatt from the ferry.

Samstag 16 Oktober: Today Amanda and I went to Hallstatt for the day. Hall in latin means salt, and Hallstatt is the oldest saltmine in the world. More about that in a minute. So Amanda and I booked the train for 5:40 in the morning and booked our seats on one ticket, Amanda had the ticket. I left for the train station at 5:05 and we were meeting in front of the train at 5:30. Unfortunately after just missing both of the Ubahns that I needed and several frantic phone calls with Amanda telling her to get on the train without me I was pulling up to the train station Ubahn stop at 5:39. As soon as the doors opened I sprinted up the stairs, ran across the street through traffic (definitely a frogger moment) then up another set of stairs to the train platforms, just as the conductor looked out the train for a final look I ran up waving my hand, jumped up to the door and just as my last foot left the ground the train took off!!! Yes, I pretty much just jumped on a moving train!!! It one of the craziest things. As I started walking through the train Amanda called me, "Oh no! The train just left! What do we do?!" and I said "tell me which compartment you're in because I'm on the train!!!" We were so happy! I still can't believe it! The train ride was around three and a half hours long and we had to make a connection. We were both super tired so we set an alarm for when the transfer was and we pretty much slept the whole way. Once we got there we rode a ferry from the train to the town. It was pretty cloudy and cold today, but it was still so beautiful! It was so nice to get away for the day too. It was just what the doctor ordered! When we got there nothing was really open, haha. So we found a cafe and had coffee (well I had Heiße Schokolade) and just sat and relaxed sipping our warm drinks for a few hours. After our morning of leisure (wow I kept wanting to spell that liesure since in german i and e take on the sound of the second vowel...) we went to the salt mines. You have to ride a lift up the mountain then once you get there you have to wear these funny outfits because it's so cold, and you go down slides in the mine and it's dirty and all that stuff. They were very funny. The tour wasn't exactly what I expected it to be. I thought it would be a lot more salt, but it was mostly a lot of history about the mines and the towns, but it was still really cool and really interesting. The mine was set up in a really visitor friendly way too. It's just amazing to me how much money and effort they put into all of their museums. It's like every museum is just really nice and up to date, it's really nice. The tour was also in German and English so it was pretty cool to be able to listen in German and try to understand then hear it in English and see how close you were. I was pretty close most of the time, but sometimes I was way off, haha.

We kept getting really lost getting to the salt mine even though there were these signs all over the place directing us there...

Going up the mountain to the salt mine.

There were all these really cool mirror cube stacks on the hike up to the mine, I thought this was the perfect application of modern art in nature. It was just so cool. On some of the cubes they had information about the area in German.

This is what the outfit looked like. Mine was maroon. The picture of us together wearing them is on Amanda's camera, but once she tags me in it I'll post it so you can see!

This is what the wall looks like. The light kind of washed it out, but can you see some of the salt sparkling?

This is so cool. It's a little lake! This is the ceiling reflected in the water! Isn't it so pretty. They had the story of Hallstatt illustrated and projected against the rocks, it was really cool. They were mining salt in Hallstatt when the Egyptians were building the pyramids! Isn't that amazing! People are just incredible, what they are capable of doing! Wow. 

The view from up near the salt mines.

After the salt mines we got lunch at this little stand. They had roasted chickens (very Bavarian) and so we split a half chicken and serving of fries. It was amazing! It was so warm and seasoned perfectly! Oh it was so good! After that we walked around and looked at all the little shops. We went to this one that had all these hand carved little nick nacks. They were all so pretty. After that we went to the chapel of St. Michael. It was a really pretty church with a cemetery and then a charnel house out back. Several things I noticed about the cemetery: A bunch of the grave stones were wood! How do they maintain that? Also they all had flowers and candles, all of them, it was pretty remarkable. Several things I noticed about the church: The stained glass windows were the perfect combination of fancy and letting light in, they were really nice. There were kind of two churches in one. There were two altars in front and the church was kind of divided into two cells. It was interesting. Several things I noticed about the charnel house: Well I guess they gave us a paper to read, but here are the facts about the charnel house: A charnel house is what is used when there is no more room for graves. Bodies are dug up and the bones are placed in a charnel house to make room for more graves. In the case of this charnel house, the skulls were bleached by the sun and then painted. Different symbols meant different things, roses love, laurel leaves meant status, etc. They were really pretty. It was cool too because we saw photos of this charnel house in my Art and Architecture class so it was really cool to see first hand. Before leaving we got some apfelstrudel, yummy! Luckily we had the insight to check times for the ferry and realized that if we were going to take the last train as we had planned, there would actually be no ferry to take us to the train, so we had to take a different train, but that was fine and I was really glad we thought to look at that, (or rather that Amanda thought to). 

The adorable town of Hallstatt!

A bunch of the houses here had trees like this that grew up the side of a house and the branches grew around the windows. Isn't that just crazy?!

Owl babies! These were at the carved wood stand. Aren't they cute?

The cemetery. See how they graves are wooden? They kind of look like bird houses.

The view of Hallstatt from the church. (Yes it's a view of another church, haha)

Balance of light and beautiful stained glass.

The skulls in the charnel house. See how they're pained?

The inside of the charnel house. SO many bones.

Auf wiedersehen Hallstatt!

The train ride home was good. We slept a lot and we had the compartment to ourselves the whole time, so that was really nice. Every time they come by with the food cart it makes me think of Harry Potter when they're on the Hogwarts Express and the lady asks if they want anything from the trolly. I got home and hung out with my roommates for a while, then I watched Love Story and went to bed. What a tearjerker. 

Sonntag 17 Oktober: Happy two month anniversary Vienna! Can you believe it's already been two months?! That's so crazy. This is the longest I've been away from home. Today and tomorrow also mark the halfway point. I leave on December 18, so two months from tomorrow, and I can only imagine that the second half will go faster than the first. I keep thinking about this chart that they kept showing us when we were getting ready for studying abroad. It was a kind of line graph showing what emotions everyone would feel and when they would hit. At the time I thought that was extremely stupid and that there was no way to anticipate emotions, let alone generalize and say everyone would go through that. But now that I'm here and experiencing it, I would have to agree with it. I feel like my emotions are almost always right on par with that graph, haha. Today was like most Sundays, catching up on homework and taking naps. We skipped out on church today since we all have so much work to do getting ready for midterms, but I want to be sure to get as much done as possible before Allison gets here. She comes to visit on Thursday! I'm so excited!!!! For dinner Elizabeth and I went and got sushi. That was really nice to just sit and chat. I really love my roommates, I got really lucky!