Becoming Viennese

June 14, 2011 – Tuesday

Today our class got moved back till 2 pm because Dr. O had to talk with the insurance people because someone stole all of her expensive paintings and jewelry. This happened just a couple days before our first session started and they said that it must have been an inside job because they knew what was valuable and what wasn’t. I feel so bad for her; but, after the initial shock, she seems to be doing alright.

So instead of sleeping in with my extra morning time, Megan and I went to the Spanish Riding School practice. This had been one of the top things on my list of Vienna to see but after seeing it, I have no idea why. We sat there watching the practice, expecting to see some awesome tricks for two hours. The coolest we saw were a couple cool walks/steps/prances that they did and twice we saw the horse lift up on its two hind legs. Since performances range from 50-150 euros I was still glad that I went to see what it was all about while only paying twelve euros. 

After the performance I ran over to my favorite kabob stand from the Nach Mart and headed back to the institute to check e-mail. Quarter to two I moseyed over to St. Stephens, our class meeting point. When we went inside my mouth dropped open; what once was only a few tall gothic windows covered in colored paper had turned into ALL the windows covered. The church looked like a club! The colored lights shone everywhere and there were many statues in multi color. Dr. O said that there had been a museums thing and that St. Stephens had put on a nice show. The colored windows were to help give the feel of how the church looked when it still had all its original stained glass. This took a long to time for me to even begin to understand how this church looked when they had the original windows because I had only seen it with its light windows and like I said, the church now looked like it had been converted into a club.

After class and rechecking my e-mail when I stopped by the institute to get my stuff, I headed back to the apartment. Anna was heading to the Museums Quartier so I just went down the street to my favorite little pizza restaurant and worked on my art journal while I ate my margarita (cheese) pizza and drank my cola light. I then walked around by all the little shops set up near St. Stephens and continued walking till I got to the Horse Stables, where I sketched a picture of the walkway beside. For some reason sketching had my attention and soon enough I ended up at the Albertina sketching a bench. Two guys asked me in German if I wouldn’t mind taking their picture and with their motions I didn’t even need to ask if they spoke English; I was very proud. After my sketch I just kept walking until I got to the Museums Quartier where I sat on one of their cool benches and just took in Vienna. I left about 9:30 to go back to the apartment to work on my personal journal before going to bed.