This last spring break, February 22nd-March 3rd found me in Vienna, Austria with the Max Kade German Haus at the University of Michigan. We spent the semester researching things to do in Vienna and built a schedule for the week. This schedule included museums, operas, concerts, lunches, dinners, and everything that we could possibly want to do.

The week started out with a 12:00 boarding time for the UM bus that was to pick us up outside of our beloved Thieme House in Baits 2 and take us to the airport. After a relatively uneventful ride, we arrived and had lunch at one of the restaurants there and went to look at the tunnel constructed between the terminals under the tarmac as well as at the fountain that plays in the McNamarra Terminal. Eventually, they called our seats and we boarded the plane for our 8.5 hour flight into the Frankfurt Airport. We arrived at Frankfurt before the sunrise and after getting a chocolate croissant with my friends Melissa, Dan, and Chris, we boarded our next plane and flew to Vienna, Austria.

After arriving at the airport and grabing our belongings from the baggage claim, we bought the train tickets to take us from the airport to the Youth Hostel. After getting our group of 30 people complete with luggage into the U-bahn, we took this trip to the stop at the Volkstheater. Along the way to the Volkstheater, we passed the Borealis Chemical Plant. It looked really cool, especially since I was able to name some of the equipment installed there. After getting off the train, we walked the 3 blocks to the youth hostel and got our keys. Below is a picture of our room at the youth hostel.

After checking into our rooms at the youth hostel, we went for our first walk around Vienna. We walked past the Natural History museum and the Museum of Art. Both of these buildings are built as a pair of buildings facing each other across a mall outside the Hofburg. After this area, we walked past the Hofburg and then past the City Hall and down some of the other streets in this area.

After having dinner at the youth hostel, Melissa, Chris, Dan and I went to Mass, and then for a walk with some other members of the house through the streets of Vienna. For the first day, that is pretty much all that needs to be said.

DAY 2

This day started out with a walk from the youth hostel toward the Votivkirche. This trip took us past to the parlimentary building where they had a statue on one of the ocrners being renovated. It looked really cool because from the street all one could see was what looked like a house on top of the building.

The Votivkirche is a church of gothic architecture with two dazzlingly white towers. It was this church that Chris was telling us his high school orchestra held rehearsal in for several hours on his senior year trip to Vienna.

After the Votivkirche, we headed toward Stephansdom and on the way there, we found something quite interesting. It was 5 busts of Beethoven, each themed to a different musical work/works of his.

From here we wandered around in search of a bakery. We did eventually find one and had breakfast. From there we went and accidentally found the Jesuit church and then Max Lueger Platz. From here we had no idea where we were so we took several minutes trying to find out where we were. By the time we found where we were, we realized we had 10 minutes to cover a 15 minute comfortable walking distance to the Emperor's Apartments at the Hofburg. From there Melissa, Dan, Chris and I split from the rest of the group and toured the musical instrument museum, and the armour museum. The Music museum was really cool because, well, let's face it. It was music. And they also had two early versions of the harpsicord that were available for guests to play so I took the liberty and played them. It was loads of fun.

The armour museum had many interesting pieces of history. They had the entire history of armour from the earliest roman times to the Middle ages and then eventually to the latest uses of armour. They had horse-armour displayed on lifesize horses and kid armour displayed on life size kids. It was really cool. But what was even more interesting was the demonstration that was beginning to form in the front of the Hofburg. This demonstration was against the formation of Kosovo. They had flags burning, pirate flags, angry people screaming into microphones and etc. It was interesting to watch.

From here we went and found a place to sit down and had the lunches that our youth hostel had prepared for us. These lunches consisted of 2 hard rolls, some wurst, fruit and a piece of candy, and some kind of juice. They were good lunches. After this, we went and toured St. Peter's and St. Michael's churches. Both of these were very beautiful churches. At this point we headed back to the youth hostel by way of the city hall and the Votivkirche again. I managed to get several good night time pictures of both.

They were having a winter event in front of the city hall while we were there that they called "Winter dreams". It involved several ice rinks and ice trails surrounding a boardwalk type food concessions area. It also involved multi-colored lights being shown onto the city hall. This made a really cool effect on it.

One of the other really cool parts of this trip that I thought was the Music Mile that they had installed throughout Vienna. What this was, was a series of Stars imbedded in the sidewalk for composers, or musical groups that had a serious impact on the world of music. This night, we managed to find the one for Leondard Bernstein on our way back to the youth hostel.

DAY 3

This day started out at the Haus der Musik. Naturally, a load of fun. Since Melissa, Chris, Dan and I had decided to not purchase the week pass for the U-bahn, we had walked there and arrived a few minutes before everybody else. They had a grand yamaha piano in their lobby with a sign saying "If you want to play, ask at the desk." So I asked and they gave me the key. I went through and played Prelude in C# Minor by Rachmaninoff, Toccata by Khachaturian, and the Prelude from Pour le Piano by Debussy. At this point, the rest of the group had arrived so we got in line for tickets. We then started our tour of the museum. They had an entire 3-4 rooms devoted to the Vienna Philharmonic, including a movie theater showing clips from the 2008 New Year's Concert. After this, we continued through various other exhibits on the nature of sound and ended up in a series of rooms, each one devoted to a different Viennese composer. There was a room for Strauss, Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, Mahler, and Schoenberg. Each exhibit had its perks and in general, they all were very interesting. For instance, Beethoven managed to live in 68 different apartments in Vienna because he moved almost every 6 months. From there we went up another flight of stairs and found a stand where you could virtually conduct the Vienna Philharmonic. It was really cool. They had the Radetzky March, Ein Kleines Nachtmusik, An den Schoenen Blauen Donau, and another one that I'm forgetting. Unfortunately, with the way the baton and the sensor worked, you were limited to the simplest of up and down motions or else it would get confused and either go twice as fast or twice as slow as you were intending.

After the Haus der Musik, the entire group went to the Naschmarkt. This is an outdoor market place where you can buy close to anything you want. We went and found a wurst for Dan, because he didn't have one of the sack lunches like Melissa, Chris and me from the youth hostel.

From here the plan was to go to the Hundertwasserhaus (a house built with no straight lines). So while the rest of the group headed to the Hundertwasserhaus and the Kunst Haus Wien (a modern art museum) on the U-Bahn, we walked for about 30 minutes and arrived there just before they did. We first walked past the Karlskirche, (which will be explained later) and then we found a Soviet War memorial and a huge water fountain commemorating the installation of a water system in Vienna.

Eventually, after wandering a few more streets in Vienna, we found the Hundertwasserhaus. Of course, it was difficult to miss.

From here we went to Otharskirche. This was another church in the area that we had seen on our walk toward the Hundertwasserhaus. We didn't get to go in because it was all locked up, but it looked cool from the outside.

Thankfully, Dan had found a book on all of the forgotten sights in Vienna at the UM library. So we used this and wandered back to the Youth Hostel by way of some old Roman ruins near the US Embassy.

DAY 4

This day, we started off as an entire group to visit the Karlskirche. This church was really cool. From the outside, it looked very similar to other churches except for the two towers on either side of the central dome. This church had a really large pipe organ, which looked really cool.

they were in the middle of touching up the fresco on the dome of the church so there was a large platform and scaffolding constructed up to the dorm. They had an elevator up to the large platform and then a set of stairs up to the upper level in the very summit of the dome.

This platform was very tall and very wabbly, but once up top, it was an amazing view all around. And the Frescos that they were working on, were absolutely amazing.

From here we went back to the Hofburg to find the National Library. This Library was absolutely amazing and absolutely huge. The main room was easily 150 ft long and about 50 ft tall.

After visiting the National Library, we headed to the Staatsoper to purchase tickets for that evening's performance of Verdi's Nabucco. Along the way, we made the decision that Melissa and I would wait at the Staatsoper and eat dinner while Chris and Dan went back to the Youth Hostel to change into dress clothes for the opera. This plan worked until we found out that once you are in line, you are not allowed to leave. And then the line moved inside. At that point, we kept watch for Chris and Dan to come back. When they did we explained to them that, after talking with the lady in line behind us, it would be best to look for a standing place on the uppermost balcony in the center. We found out that it wouldn't be totally against policy for us to go in dressed as we were minus the sweatshirt Melissa was wearing. Therefore, when the time came we purchased our tickets and went into the opera house. Our path took us to a stair at one of the back corners. There we waited for one of the ushers to give us the go ahead. When he did, he started walking up the steps very slowly while the mass of people who had purchased standing room on that level followed anxiously. Once we got to the top, he told us to wait while he stepped aside then he told us we could go, and thankfully, we were warned before this, everybody started running toward the auditorium so that we could get the best "seats". Each place had its own monitor that could be set to either English or German that displayed the libretto throughout the entire opera. From our places, we could see the entire stage and all but the right-most end of the orchestra pit. They were really good places to watch. The opera was really cool. The chorus was amazing and the acoustics of the hall were really well designed.

After this performance, we returned to the youth hostel.

DAY 5

This day we went to Schloß Schönbrunn. This marked Melissa, Chris, Dan, and my first time buying a ticket for the train other than for the airport. This castle was very yellow on the outside and very white on the inside. This day was very windy, so after the tour through the castle, we went outside to the gardens and grounds. The rulers had installed their own set of fake ruins. And several fountains and all the trees were planted in lines that crossed the entire property.