Europe Post #20: July 16 and 17

Well I guess you could say things are starting to slow down. After being in Vienna for 3 weeks, we've hit the high points of tourist attractions (or at least we feel like we've had), so for the first time I have:

1) returned to a restaurant for a second time

2) slept in (9:30 instead of 7:00... whoop!)

3) don't plan to pack up and leave Vienna this weekend

Traveling is exhausting!

Random fact: You can buy "African" flavored potato chips. That would NEVER fly in the States. (I tried them... not sure why it's called African but they were yummy!)

Monday:

Slept in, class, tour of the Jewish Museum. Our tour of the Jewish Museum wasn't really a tour, it was just a tour guide telling us a story. Which was actually a pretty nice change from all of the museums we've seen. That being said, it was kind of annoying to NOT get to see the museum. A few thoughts: I think it's kind of weird that there even is a Jewish Museum. I mean, there isn't a Christian museum or Muslim museum or (if you want to think of Jews as a people group instead of a religion) American museum or African museum. The museum had very little information on the Holocaust, which was absolutely fine considering we just toured a concentration camp but otherwise I would have been disappointed. But, when you consider that the whole point of the Holocaust was to completely annihilate Jews (and consequently their culture), it does make sense that very little "artifacts" from that time period survived.

Tuesday:

Hanging out, class, dinner. The culture class had their midterm quiz, so no tour today. We only have a couple of tours left (the culture class wraps up a little earlier to give us time to visit places on our own that we didn't get a chance to earlier), and I'm excited about going with some of my friends to visit "fun" places (i.e. the aquarium, zoo, biking trips on the river, etc). I also have a bit more homework now, so of course I'm allowing time for that. Cafe/ restaurant culture is very big in Vienna, thus we have been allowing a considerable amount of time to basically just people watch. It's great fun. Another side note, the weather here is so crazy bipolar. I really can't reiterate that enough. One day I'm wearing long sleeves, pants, and a jacket and the next I'm wishing I could walk around in a swim suit. So strange.

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