settling weIN

Interior of Stephansdom - lots of history buried here.
Exterior- really shows how enormous this church really is.
Interior of Jesuitenkirche- amazing Baroque architecture compared to Stephansdom which is early Gothic because it was built during the Habsburger Monarchy. I Love this church out of anyone I've it is the most over the top ridiculously decorated place of worship. Pink and green marble, a fake optical illusion dome, gold everywhere and a steeple that is never preached from; it's only there for looks.
What is even more amazing is that this is the outside, the typical Baroque large flat facade.
This is Augustinerkirche, where I usually attend mass. If you head to the right there's a tiny chapel where the Augustinian priests and monks say daily mass and sing vespers. They are really great guys but I believe they think I'm a creep. People love this church because Sissi and Franz Joseph were married here. Another creepy fact is that the hearts of some of the later Habsburger Kings and Queens are buried here. And then their bodies in Stephansdom. To the right side, up mid way on the wall, you can see windows = where the Habsburgers and royalty watched as mass was conducted, a place away from the common folk.
This is the famous Prater. It's a carnival all summer long. I went there with a buddy when he visited to check out some of the rides but all we did was go cart racing. I was too scared to do any of the others = one childhood fear that hasn't left.
This is from the Play bill from "Ich habe King Kong zum Weinen gebracht". An experimental piece about Fay Wray who played Ann Darrow in the original King Kong.
The latest location of the famous Burgtheater on Opernring. It started out as a part of the Habsburg entertainment court because Maria Theresia loved that theater. Then it was extended and then finally relocated to this spot. I saw Arthur Schnitzler's "Reigen" here. Directly across from this theater (though the Rathaus is technically in the way) stands the Volkstheater which was built in opposition to the Burg. The (not so rich) People of Vienna wanted their own theater = Theater for or the people by the people. But now, thanks to Claus Peymann (sound familiar- he's the guy who put on the Dreigroschenoper I saw in Berlin because he is the Intendant of the Berliner Ensemble now) tickets are big time reduced for students and every body goes to any theater they want. Quite a theatrical Utopia hu?
Akadamietheater where I saw "Ich habe King Kong zum Weinen gebracht".
Kunsthistorisches Museum located in the Museum Quarter.
Karlskirche yet another Baroque church. Center of Vienna well so they saw because excavations found graves of Roman Soldiers from the antique Roman Empire.
Wo ich mein kleines "Workouts" mache = Where I get my swoll on. I find it uncanny, that there is a mirror in the Fitness Raum.
This is the hallway leading to the spa and sauna facilities... ... Actually leading to the Fitness Raum. What's great is that this cellar and the first two stories of my building are shared with a japanese/sushi restaurant, so everything smells quite fresh and springy, not like dead fish, mold and rot... .... Was fuer gemuetlichkeit! Wir brauchen nur einen Kachelofen.

Where I'm supposed to "clean" my "dirty" Laundry.

Anyhoo-

I'm starting to get into a 'more scheduled-like week'. Monday/Thursday I have class at 2:30 to 4:30. Tuesday/Friday from 10:30 to 12:30. Wednesday from 5 to 7pm. and then an extra on Friday from 2 to 4pm. Throw in a couple nights at the theater, tours around Vienna, Museum visits and trying to stay in shape in between and you basically have my week. It's nice to start feeling settled again. I never realized how comfortable I felt at Macalester and in Page and in Woodstock haha until I came to Berlin and Vienna. Living without a schedule is quite chaotic but leads to interesting discoveries and experiences nevertheless.

We've been going to some great plays and will continue to do so until the end of the semester which is surprisingly coming quicker than I expected. The last two were experimental pieces that were pretty off the wall but comical and entertaining at least.; they weren't too far off the wall.

Prague, quite the delay = a long post

Waiting for a ride back to Austria
Random picture from our wine tour at Klosterneuberg
Just preparing myself for THREE hours of Opera...
Waiting for the start of Don Giovanni. Notice how everything is baby blue and gold? Normally or traditionally opera's are red velvet. But Prague's is special.
Gorgeous theater nonetheless.
Might have been before the Theater, ya know to help with the preparation. haha Actually this is one of our free nights. I was really hungry and didn't want to eat in the touristy part of Prague so we made an excursion out of Wenceslas Square and into the surrounding neighborhood. Luckily we found this place where they served me meat, meat dumplings with meat and more meat. For about six euros! and the Beer wasn't even a dollar!!
Franz Kafka coming out of his shell
Spanish Synagogue. We made an entire morning tour themed Jewish Life in Prague. There were six stops in all ranging from the Jewish cemetery, the Holocaust memorial of Czech Jews that died in concentration camps and throughout the war. An children's art museum, with art from a concentration camp as a form of release from everyday torture of trying to survive. THen Jewish celebrations, and rituals and Jewish life today. Pretty educational stuff.This is the oldest active synagogue in the world. Here we learned about specific symbols in the synagogue, decorative elements and ritual during the ceremony.
I can't read Czech!?
Der Wallenstein! Well I think- I can't remember if it was built because if Schiller's play or if Schiller's play was written after the wall went up? It's supposed to symbolize a wall constructed from human beings. Though I could be totally wrong.
Church in the Wallenstein Square and Palace area. The Church is constantly changing owners; between State and Church. The Church says it should be the rightful owner because it is a house of God. The State says it should be the rightful owner because of all the Kings and Queens (political leaders) that are buried there (over 1,500 plus priests and bishops) and because of it's past State or Political significance.
Hand painted stained glass! Think about it!
Shot of the Cathedral from the entrance.
Prague from the Belvedere ( = beautiful view!)
Walking to Wallenstein Square/Palace
Kepler was a Physicist and the other guy... ... Point is that the first University in Europe was founded in Prague and this monumental founding so to speak, influenced many counter revolutions against communism and state tyranny.
Cubism
Our tour guide said the Czechs liked Stalin so much the hung him out to dry with the laundry. This monument also refers to a student revolution that forced politicians and rich statement literally out of the windows of high buildings to their deaths.
Charles' Bridge. See how the part at the bottom is especially shiny; everybody rubs it and the many other statues on the bridge for good luck.
That's the group, cept for the guy on the far far left in the hat... no body knows him
Vlatava River looking up to Wallenstein Palace

Philharmonic
Baroque architecture
The most famous thing in Prague. At every hour the clock goes off and then the whole coo coo thing happens with the apostles and they spin around and come out for a little bit. It was terribly anticlimatic compared to the amount of people that were there to see it happen. I thought it was going to be grandiose with fire works or something. Nope just a coo coo clock.
Church in the Easter market
I guess the more three dimensional one's art the more modern.
A look out tower part of the old city wall of Prague
Referring to Cubism. It's a restaurant near this building below.More cubism- I think the first modern cubist house ever built but don't quote me on that.
The enormous crowds in Prague. Way too many tourists there, way too many.
A Franciscan church close to where we were staying. An interesting fact is that during the Calvinist and Protestant Reformations many Catholic churches were forced to reform or completely change to Calvinist or Protestant churches. But then after sometime and labor they reformed (reform might not be the right word but in German our tour guide was using the verb reformieren a lot so...) back to Catholicism. This church was an example of this process.
King Wenceslas trying to ride a dead horse. Modern art in a shopping mall!
Erin after we ate too much at a Czech buffet style restaurant!
Wenceslas Square, our Hotel is to the left but ya can't really see it.
Comfy cozy little rooms

First arriving-

So in Prague we toured the tourist part of the city with our tour guide Jarislav. He was quite a character and tried to give us historical info as well as where the best pubs and clubs were. Just for balance ya know. Along with the walks we saw some operas. I hadn't seen an opera before coming to Prague but I was excited to see the building and the music and the atmosphere even if I wasn't excited about the Singing and crowd that went with it. We saw Don Giovanni and Le nozze de Figaro in Prague. Both are Mozart pieces and Don Giovanni actually premiered in the theater we went to and even more amazing Mozart himself was the Conductor for the premier in the very building we saw it in. Pretty sweet huh? Prague was fun. We stayed at a Jungendstil hotel- for any of you who've heard of Art Nouveau, this was it. The Grand Hotel Evropa. the 'v' is really a 'u' but no one in my class believed me. Anyway our Professor referred to it as Faded Glory but wasn't impressed with the Asbestos behind her toilette that she had to show me to make sure to let everyone know that she wasn't lying. But I have no clue what asbestos looks like. I agreed nonetheless. It's a beautiful town and I can say that I did enjoy myself.

Back in Vienna:
Just saw Lukas Baerfuss' (yes Bare foot!) Die Probe. It was very good. It's a modern ethical piece that destabilizes family life. Die Probe as a noun refers to many things in German, but in this context means a DNA test. From there the Drama ensues and tangles and of course twists too. The set was outstanding and constructed with many mirrors and a duplicate set to truly confuse the heck out of someone. It took my at least twenty minutes to figure out what was a duplicate and what was reflection. All in all the performance was really good and it was an opportunity to see another theater in Vienna, The Akadamie Theater.

The classes I'm taking at the Uni Wien are pretty interesting classes. One is in the Philosophy department and it's called (get ready): Natur des Menschen u. Willensfreiheit - Die Auffassung des Menschen im östlichen u. im westl. Denken. (this is the translation Human nature and freedom of will - The interpretation of human being in eastern & western philosophy) It seems overwhelming just from the title but after the first day of class I was truly relieved. The Professor takes the issues very slowly and is not a native German speaker so she makes sure to annunciate. We're reading a ton of Karl Jaspers (One of the foremost Politicians against NationalSocialism and took a large part in the forming of Germany after the second World War) for the first part and the second focuses on eastern thinking, and eastern Philosophers. It's really good stuff.

The other class is called Elfriede Jelinek: Eine Einfuehrung in ihrer Wirk -Elfriede Jelinek: an introduction to her work. She's pretty controversial and is very often compared to another Austrian writer (even though she hates the comparison!) that I like very much, Thomas Bernhard (I've read a couple pieces from him and seen one of his plays). Anyhoo she's a 2nd wave feminist and just won the Nobel prize for literature. Though she couldn't accept it in person because she has a fear of traveling and social anxiety. She seems to be a very interesting person but I'm not sure how I'll like her work, because it's extremely graphic and almost everything has to do with sexuality. We'll also see- I'm also gonna sit in on a Heidegger class just in case I really don't end up liking the Jelinek stuff.So I showed up to the class and it seemed to go pretty good to. It's also in the Philosophy department but seems more of a literature and analysis course to me. Should also be very interesting.

I would like to get credit for both the classes if everything works out. I'll have the entire month of June (Gisela's and the Austrian history course end in May at the Austro American Institut) to work on writing my final papers to receive the credits and I think they'll have to transfer over to Mac. If nothing else they'll be fun.

Oh, what's weird is that I just went to this Jelinek class for the first meeting on the 2nd of april and I'm already trying to figure what my classes are going to be for next semester. It seems so weird, first of all to be a senior and secondly to already be thinking about the fall semester when I've barely had a class or two at the Uni Wien here (though my Austro American Institute classes have been running for a while now... so maybe not too weird). Anyhoo
Here's what my schedule should look like in the fall:

MWF 9:40 - 10:40am German 306: Intro to German Studies (with Rachael Huener)
MWF 10:50 - 11:50am German 363: Romanticism (with David Martyn)
MWF 12 - 1pm Phil 120: Intro to Symbolic Logic
TR 9:40 - 11:10am Phil 362: Philosophy of Mind

Pretty con(dense)d huh? I want to try and see how the double major might work out; Philosophy/ German Studies Double Major sounds good to me. I was told by someone when I was talking about the possibility of double majors, that I couldn't just be a German Studies major. I just responded "sure I can!" But Two for the price of one as they say though I know it's not going to be easy, that's for sure. I'll have two senior seminars in my spring semester but the challenge is something I'm looking forward to strangely enough.

Well that's about it- after fighting a bout of Food poisoning I'm a little pooped out. hahah get it!? uh.. .... ....
Well I guess I'm not sure, but I think I can be pretty certain. I just sat and watched movies and tried to wait it out. I'm feeling much better today though I'm still trying to get my feet underneath me. I need to get something to eat but I'm not too sure what that'll do to me. But enough of the details- It's a beautiful Saturday in Vienna!