Vienna, Austria

Vienna is a city that I could easily come back to because there is so much to do here, and we have very limited time!  It has a very old and complex history, but a cool modern culture as well.  Yesterday we spent half of the day on a walking tour with a local guide that gave us way too much history on the city and not enough time to experience all the cool architecture.  This is becoming an unfortunate problem.  When we were finally released for independent study Dan, Devin, Lin, Jen, and I ate lunch and meandered our way back to the hotel.  Along the way we stopped at several interesting shops that were really modern like an up cycling store, some art galleries, an entire architecture and design based bookstore, and a local bike shop.  I think we spent an hour in the bookstore going total geek status drooling over design and architecture books.  We peeled ourselves away from the books, got a quick dinner at McDonald’s (of all places), and headed back to the hotel to meet up with everyone else for a planned evening activity. 

Last night we all went to a Mozart Symphony.  We got to the theatre early so we hung out at the bar.  I felt extremely underdressed for the high class event.  It did not help that I ordered a cappuccino while everyone else was drinking wine, but that did not matter once the symphony started.  The symphony was actually a sextet that quickly turned into an opera, so I did not enjoy the show near as much as I thought I would.  It was a great first experience, but I am glad I ordered a cappuccino because I am not sure I would have stayed awake otherwise.  The music was relaxing; that is for sure!

Today has been one of my favorite days in quite some time because we had an entire day to ourselves for independent study.  It was so wonderful!  Dan, Devin, Grant, and I decided to leave the hotel around 10:00 a.m., hit up a café for breakfast, and head to the museum district of Vienna.  We went to two very different contemporary and modern art museums.  The first one, Leopold Museum was full of mostly expressionism paintings, which I love!  The second museum, Mumock, was a minimalistic installation museum.  You know the weird off-the-wall art that could have only been created by an artist on crack?  Yeah, this museum was full of it!  I kept wondering how any artist could become famous from stuff like this, and then I realized.  This museum has an exhibit that I will remember for the rest of my life!  It is memorable and most definitely unique!  To become famous at anything pretty much all you need is to be memorable and unique.  I mean, look at Lady Gaga!  Anyways, as I progressed through the museum, each room found a way to disturb me in a different way.  Those were actually the words of Devin, but it summed up my thoughts on the museum exactly.  As disturbing as it was, I loved every second of it!

After the museums we picked up a quick lunch and headed to the hotel for a full afternoon of studio work.  Later we went out for dinner at a local pub, but besides that I spent the rest of the day working.  I wish I could say I got a lot accomplished, but it is design work so that hardly ever happens.  I am just starting to get nervous about my project.  I know it will get done; it always does, but I am worried about the quality of my final product.  I can only hope and try for the best and leave the rest up to God!