If I see one more person taking pictures on an iPad I am going to kill them....

Vienna, Austria. So you know that picture in your history textbook? Yes, that one right there? Well I walked past that today and it was beautiful. The whole city is an incredible piece of art. They do not update the buildings to be modern. They renovate them to keep the look and preserve the history! 

We started our walking tour bright and early in the day with our tour guide Christina who was incredibly smart and very knowledgeable. I don't know how many tours she has given but she knew every detail about every building. EVERYTHING! To walk down a street and see so much history is mind blowing. This building was destroyed in the war, this one houses military documents, this one is the parliament, next the horses home, this balcony is where Hitler gave a speech, this statue is for The Black Death. It just keeps going. I couldn't recall half of the information. 

Even though it was a good chunk of history the one that stood out in my mind was the Baroque Chapel.  After listening to Santi talk on and on about the style of baroque in class, it was amazing to actually see it in person. The church was amazing! Tall high ceilings, black and gold decorations, everything just fit in place. It would have to be one of the most stunning places of prayer I have ever seen.  

After the tour Greg and I split from the group to go explore the oldest temple in Vienna and the Hundertwasserhaus. Temple Bait Knesset was the only temple in Vienna to not be completely destroyed in the wars. It is also home to the current Chief Rabbi of Vienna. The tour was short but very interesting. 

Next was the Hundertwasserhaus. All I can say is it reminded me of Dr. Seuss. The house was shaped and curved in all different directions and composed of homes with 52 different colors. I felt like I was in a Dr. Seuss book. We then made our way inside to an art gallery which was incredible. The walls all curved different ways, everything was bright colors and it was huge! It was definitely something to see. 

Once Greg and I left we hoped on that one bus, that took us to that other bus, that took us to that one subway, where we got off on that one exit. To say the least I couldn't even begin to pronounce the names of the stops. We had to have someone write them down so we could just look to see if we were at the right place. Everyone here is so nice, even the people who couldn't speak English went out of their way to help us find our way. Eventually we made it back to the hotel. 

After a quick nap we left to go to the Mozart opera. Just before it started Meghan looks at us and says, "If I see one more person taking pictures on an iPad I am going to kill them". Less than thirty seconds later the person in front of us took out an iPad and started taking pictures. Meghan wasn't very happy... Seeing the musicians and everyone perform together was really cool. I enjoyed listening to the two hour performance that was filled with all of Motzart's classics. I did recognize some of the songs from my Art and Technology class, but it was really cool to be hearing and seeing it in person. I do wish we had closer seats. We were in the last possible row of the house and it was kind of hard to see. All in all we just listened to the beautiful music. 

It has been a long day, but I learned more today than ten years of history class could ever teach. Now to figure out something to do to stay up late. We have a ten hour train ride tomorrow and I'd like to sleep as much as possible on that.