Like a bad penny...

Gee. Two busy days. It’s been good. I’ll start with yesterday: Got up fairly early and got to the Institute where we did homework and played around on the internet until class started at 9:30. German class for an hour and then our European Fine Arts class. For Fine Arts our teacher took us to Karlskirche, a large cathedral here in Vienna. I’ve been to several cathedrals all over Europe but this was much different. Most cathedrals are gothic style but this was baroque. Baroque style is much warmer, using oranges and reds and natural light to give the impression that one is arrived in heaven on earth. The coolest part is that they are redoing the inside of the dome in Karls and have a scaffolding up all the way into the top. They have an elevator and allow people to go up into the dome. Very cool. To see the paintings on the ceiling up close and go into the dome to see the sight of the city was quite worthwhile. I’ve really enjoyed the fine arts class so far, even with my limited background in art.

Talked to my lovely sister for a bit...she's moving. (Boo! Booooo!!!)

After this we had our “experiencing Vienna” class at the outreach center. Kind of a boring class, but that’s ok. It gets a lot of the administrative stuff out of the way for our trips and such and sometimes we get money. Never a bad thing.

Several people in the group left the outreach center to go climb the tower of Stephansdom cathedral and I decided to go with. The tower is about 350 steps in a spiral staircase to the top. Bit of a grunt, really. I went with Emily, David, Andrew, Stephanie and Ellen. The view was actually not so spectacular after Karlskirche but the climb itself was fun and it was good to get out with some folks. I’ve really been trying to figure out who I’m going to hang out with for this whole trip and it hasn’t been easy thus far. We ran to a café after the climb down and the girls had ice cream while we watched a clown run amok in the town square and basically terrorize unsuspecting passers-by. He was quite good. Everyone either loved him or hated him and I suppose that’s the measure of a good clown.

Later that night we were all going to a very old church, built in the 1100s, called Ruprechtskirche for a concert of old instruments. Andrew and I headed over a bit later than everyone else and found that everyone had bailed. Turns out the concert that we thought was free was actually 11 euro ($15.50). Taylor showed up and we decided to abandon our reservations about cost and do it. They concert consisted of a Theorbe, a Cembalo, a Harpsichord and two Viola de Gambas. It was very, very interesting to hear the old music played on the original instruments. It was crazy to sit there and realize that I was sitting in a 1000-year-old church listening to 1700s music being played. Wow. The last piece was one of the coolest things I’ve ever heard. Very much worth the 11 euros. I’m going to try and find the piece on the internet somehow.

I was anticipating today. We went down into the Danube valley to ride bikes along the river. Cool, eh? We had to get up at 5:00 AM. Not cool, eh? We met at the institute at 7:00, boarded a bus and rolled out to Melk. We first visited the Babenburg palace-turned-monastery there. It was cool. These people sure knew how to put together a fancy building! Then we headed down to a hotel to pick up our bikes and get on the ride. I was basically by myself for a while in the monastery until Anne, Allyson and I started hanging out. It was raining when we got our bikes and I was a bit skeptical about riding 35-40 kilometers in the rain. We started to ride, however, and the rain cleared up rather quickly. The weather continued to improve all day leading to a glorious afternoon.

Did I mention that the Danube valley is unequivocally the most beautiful place on earth? Yeah. Better than Montana (*gasp* Blasphemy!), better than Southern Spain (Is that possible?!). Completely, absolutely and totally breathtaking. It is a huge fertile valley chock full of picturesque villages, terraced mountainside vineyards and lush fruit orchards. We had to stop every few KMs to buy fruit from one of the locals. Wine grapes, fresh plums, apples, we ate it all. Allyson, Anne and I took a very leisurely pace and just wandered around the little towns stopping to take pictures of everything. The entire valley is one big postcard, I swear. It was like walking around in a dream. I can’t adequately describe it. Toss in the beautiful flowers and landscape and the authentic and fresh bakeries and we basically spent the day in heaven. Take dinner as an example: Dense rye bread, cheese and herb spread and ham. Yum. Perfect weather, perfect scenery, perfect transportation, perfect food. PERFECT!