For lunch they dropped us off at a market! You could buy pretty much anything you wanted to eat. Next to the food market was a flea market. Every Saturday it is set up, so we spent most of our lunch break looking at stuff from the flea market. I wish we’d had more time, but we had another tour of
That night we got to experience our first Christkindlmarkt or Christmas Market. It was fun! There were a bunch of booths set up with different foods and Christmas style presents. We walked around and looked at everything while singing “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.”
Sunday was a free day for us. We could choose what we wanted to do and see. I started the morning off by seeing the Lipizzaner Stallions. I didn’t actually see the performance, just the horses, but they were still cool. Next I got to see the “Beauty and the Beast” library reincarnate. It was incredible! It was two stories with beautiful balconies and it was filled with books. I was with a few other girls and we sang Disney songs and took tons of pictures. We all decided it had to be possible to bring the library home. In the afternoon Me, Ruby, Anne and Kara went to a coffee shop to just sit and observe. Coffee shops are very popular in
Monday consisted of a few more field trips. We toured the Parliament building and the tour guide was by far one of the best we have had. She was direct and to the point and made everything very clear. This was one of the better tours we took. The boys had started this game to keep themselves entertained while on tours and it carried over to the rest of the group for the day. What you do is try and catch someone else while they are not paying attention and if they are walking you trip them up a little and if they are standing still you hit the back of their knee so that it gives out from underneath them. So the day was filled with laughter as we tried to “get” each other. It definitely helped pass the time when we were walking from one tour to the next. The next tour of the day was with a section of the government that helps immigrants integrate into the Viennese life a little better. They set up class to help them learn German and they help with loans and finding houses. It was really interesting information, but way to long. Our professor was even falling asleep. Then lunch and another tour. This one was over the resistance movements in
That evening a few of went to an opera. It was called “Der Sauber Flöte” or “The Magic Flute.” It was one of Mozart’s operas, so it was all in German. Each person had there own screen to look at so you could pick what language you wanted your subtitles in. I picked English, because the woman in front of me had hers in German, so I could listen to the German and read the German and if I didn’t know a word I could then look at my screen for
the meaning. I enjoy hearing German even if I don’t catch it all. The opera in
Overall,