Saturday

Saturday was our first full day in Vienna, and already Dr. Hemenway had a lot planned for us. Since we needed to be at the institute by 9:30am, we decided in order to make it to the flea market (a reccomendation by Doc) we would need to leave the house at 7am. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but the Hartmann's live in the 23rd district of Vienna--in other words, out a ways.

We were of course nervous about taking the U-bahn into the city by ourselves, but before we could even think about what we were going to do, Helmut offered to ride the trains with us. So Saturday morning at 6:30am, the four of us plus Helmut and Edith ate a wonderful breakfast of sweet bread, homemade jams, cheese, meat, granola, yogurt, cake, coffee, juice, and cornflakes together and we left for the bus station. Helmut helped us get into the city by 8am, and then he turned around to go back home. What a sweet man, it was a huge relief to have him with us since our commute can be confusing sometimes.

The flea market was cool, but nothing out of the ordinary. I bought a great scarf for 5 Euro so that I can blend in with the popular European trend. When we were finished looking around, we left for the instutite. At 9:30am, the Art and Architecture professor, Dr. O., led our group on a walking tour of the city. She knows so much about the city and was able to give us a ton of information--we all enjoyed it a lot. Then we went to see Schonbrunn Palace around 1pm, which was absolutely amazing. The gardens are open to the public daily, so I'm sure we will return there later in the summer.

The flea market where I bought my scarf. Take note of the decorative flowers on the building in the background!

Some of us at Schonbrunn

When both of these events were over, the girls and I decided to head home for a nap before our evening concert. Sadly, since we had never been back to the house alone before, we got lost on the busses. We accidently took the wrong path out of Schonbrunn, and then got on a bus going the opposite direction of our house. Almost 90 minutes later when we reached home, we realized naps were out of the question. We quickly changed clothes, and headed back for Vienna.

In the evening, we went to see Monteverdi's "Vespro della Beata Virgine" at St. Stephen's Cathedral. Even though we had bad seats, the music was amazing. It fit the scenario perfectly, and the sound beautifully filled each space in the open ceiling. Sadly, there was an older man sitting directly behind me and Michael who fell asleep and was having trouble holding in his gasses. Unfortunately for him, they would slip out at breaks in the music, causing all of the Hope students sitting around him to burst out in silent laughter. It was definitley a story to remember!

St. Stephan's Cathedral

After a long day's tour--in front of the Staatsoper.