Museums, Cafes, and Pizza Parties...

Wednesday We had Humanities class in two different museums. The first, The Museum of Natural Hisory houses the Venus of Williandorf, the oldest known artwork in existence. It is 25,000 years old and is a carving of a rather large woman. She was so cute in person! She only stands a few inches tall because of the nomadic lifestyle of the people who created her. After taking a few minutes looking at her, we went to the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Here, we looked at ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman artifacts. The Egyptian section was unbelievable. On display were actual mummies, coffins, and carved sculptures. It is fascinating if you imagine where these things have been, who has touched them, and what their purpose was for. The Greek and Roman statues were the same way. Who knew you could tell so much about a culture by the way they positioned the bodies of their human sculptures.

After "class" I had lunch at Cafe Central, Vienna's oldest cafe. It was built in 1868 and became a watering hole for intellectuals and still is today. Some of the cities most prominent writers and artists frequented the place. It is BEAUTIFUL. Forget whatever "cafe" you are thinking about right now and imagine having lunch in more of a museum setting. I had a warm ham and cheese sandwich, lame I know, and tried the famous apfelstreudel for dessert. Let's just say I was imagining American apple pie, and it was not. Almost all of their desserts are not nearly as sweet as ours, but we have found some good chocolate!

For dinner I had a good 'ole peanut butter sandwich with bread from the local bakery down the street, Anker. Later, most of us met down in the courtyard to have a devo. All I can say is I am on this trip with some amazing people who continue to lift me up daily.

Today was not as productive as the rest of the week has been. We got out of class at 10 so the other half of the class could go to the museums. We were supposed to take the time to work on out thesis, but I took a nap instead. It was ffor the first time the whole trip which is extremely unusual, so I think I deserved it :) When I woke up I fully intended on doing some journaling for class, but a group of us was called up to the Hortons' room to discuss fall break. There was some confusion as to when fall break was, and a group of us booked flights for the whole week. What a bummer. A short meeting turned into 5 hours of grilling our two femal faculty on love, marriage and everything in between. Then that turned into a pizza party for the whole group! It has been a fun night!