The Third Man

Taking the street car to a Vienna movie cinema was fun. I love movies and almost chose a major in film. Before leaving the states I watched 'Citizen Kane'. Orson Wells was a genius and I was confident going into the movie that I would love it. Throughout the movie it was so strange to see bombed out Vienna and recognize places they spoke of. This movie was an instant reminder of the history that these streets had held at one time. The divisions and the meaning of every statue I have passed in my wandering. I had not actually placed in my mind the meaning to the actual people living in Vienna that the divisions based on nationality would mean. I wish that there were more movies accesable about this city that would illuminate more to me. I will have to look into this.

Mauthausen Memorial

I have taken a while to process this trip and part of me still doesn't feel like I should talk about it. After reading the Ruth Klueger book part of me felt like going here was against the survivor's wills but I really believe that going is important.

On the bus ride there I felt mixed about this trip. I was having fun chatting with people that weren't sleeping. It seemed like everyone was trying to sleep and not think about where we were heading.

When there at first it didn't hit me until we were standing in the room where they burned the bodies. The scenery was so beautiful with rolling hills and trees dotting the landscape had been able until this moment to distract me from where I was. It just seemed so unreal and I couldn't imagine just tossing several bodies in at a time. The second room after this was a plain room and we were supposed to stand there and wait for the rest of the group to finish looking at the memorial photographs until the tour moved on. But as I stood there something in that room made me panic. It felt different than the others. It seemed angry and unsettling. The empty room had held something at one point that was communicating to me somehow and I had the sudden urge to do anything to get out of there at once. In a few minutes our guide told us that this was where they would stack the bodies and store them until they were to be burned.

An important point that was made about the holocaust was that it was not done by crazy people. They were normal people that under particular circumstances used incredible creativity in tormenting other humans.

The stairway of death really made an impact on me. It was really disorienting to walk down them and almost impossible to walk back up them. I could never had carried a rock up them. How these people survived as long as they did is incredible.

The Leopold Museum

The Leopold Museum is one of my favorite museums that we saw in Wien. It is so hard to comprehend that this was one man's collection. The building itself is a work of art. The oddly placed windows that give us a view to another room or several stories down is a nice tie in with the revolutionary art work that is held within the walls. The artwork was top rate and I enjoyed broadening my artistic knowledge about new people. The picture "Death and Life" by Klimt was particularly surprising. I was thinking that death seemed rather sneaky and waiting to pounce but it was really nice to have a group discussion about what we all saw in the picture. I wish we would have done that more. It was good to see Klimt's later work and compare it to the earlier ones in the Belvedere.

The cafe inside the Leopold Museum had the best breakfast! Perfectly cooked bacon, delicious bread, sausages, melange, and so much more...I am coming back just for breakfast if I have to.

The Murderers among us film was very tough to watch, but was very well done. It highlights the way that a city and its people may not want to remember themselves or their actions, but really needs to deal with. This movie really made me think and I went on a walk later that night around simmering. What happens to the people that actually supported vehemently the Nazi movement. So many history lessons and movies seem to act like after all the concentration camps were closed these people and their opinions didn't matter anymore; but they were still there and as this movie showed many of them were not punished. How many people were they able to influence and convert to their way of thinking? Wien today needs to deal with its past and perhaps make some more reparations in ways of museums and official acknowledgements of the part it played in antisemitism.

Tram Excersise

The readings for today about the formation of the Austrian monarchy really interested me. The intricate web of marriages seems to necessary but cold. The tram exercise was fun but a bit frightening. I ended up near the hospital and the different types of people I saw was surprising. There were more younger people and professional folk all in a rush to get wherever they were going. I got off the tram and walked around to get apple ice cream and a salami sandwich from a small cafe and found the university so it makes sense that there were younger people. There is really a difference between taking the underground subway and taking a surface street to get where I'm going. I get more interaction with people and am able to see where we are going and the path to get there. I will make an effort from here on out to take more surface streets instead of just the underground way.

The Jewish Museum

I was rather disappointed with this museum, but at the same time it made me painfully aware of the history and lives that were stolen from the Jewish people. What I was most impressed with in this museum was how there was so much stuff just shoved in a corner. There were many donations of ritual equipment and they were poorly labeled and piled on top of each other. This really gave a feeling of a warehouse that was just holding these objects until their owners came back. I got to thinking about all the people's stuff that was taken from them during the holocaust and how it was just piled and thrown aside to gather dirt.

Upstairs there was a section dealing with what it meant to be a Jewish woman and I really felt that this exhibit was one of anger. It seemed that the women shown were unhappy and trying to reclaim a part of themselves that had not only been taken from them from the war, but also by the men in their own communities. It reminded me of a book I read in another history class called "The Memoirs of Gluckel Hamel". She was a rare woman as her husband made it so she could run the family business in a time when a woman was never in a position of power. I think that there must be serious issues within some Jewish communities where women don't feel appreciated or respected.



On a happier note we went to breakfast today at the Naschmarkt and once again enjoyed the bustling crowd and lively people watching. I have become much more comfortable reading a menu and ordering. I think this new confidence stems from the familiarity of Vienna at this point for me.

4 days in Prague

Going on the tours of each part of the city was so interesting. Each of the four parts had such a different characteristics. I am glad that I read the Metamorphosis, Kafka is fantastic. Very odd and fragmented but very good reading. His melancholy tone matched some of the history we were learning about in Prague, especially all the troubles that the Jewish population had to endure through time. His feeling of not belonging anywhere and being disconnected from a community permeates the short stories I read where there is a very definite obstacle that keeps him from his one happiness or requires him to make a very difficult, but necessary decision. The short story about the torture/murder devise was something I could not get out of my head when I was walking through the torture museum in Wien and Cesky Krumlov.

The clock that we saw in the main square was very telling in how it incorporates so many different calenders and ways of telling time. Prague as a city was diverse and did not disregard its past.

I found the picture signs in Prague that would denote which house was whose to be very clever and showing the importance of a name or craft in shaping a communities view of a family or person. The peacock showed that this particular location was a brothel and it was supposed to bring ideas of beauty and something rare.

As we were walking across the Charles bridge there were many statues with very specific meanings and reasons for being located where they were. One particular one was supposed to give a person better health if they touched it and when looking at it we can see that it has been worn down through years of touching.

Prague was very mixed having a clock with Zoroastrianism references, a Jewish section, and very christian statues sprinkled through the city. Another thing we noticed on the tour that reminded me of our readings and class was this church that is protestant. Instead of an ornate Gothic or baroque exterior it is a simple white. No frills or anything to distract from god and hard work. I was reminded of the religious wars where there was outright fighting in the streets and how protestants would destroy catholic churches by throwing statues to break them and tearing down all the decorations inside. All these extras they felt were distracting from god and tied to anger about indulgences.

One of my coffee breaks was in a tiny underground cafe. My coffee was delightful and i was pleased to see modern art decorating the walls. Figuring out all the different currencies is fun but I feel like no matter how carefully I plan the tip I'm not giving enough.

We went to a very nice place for dinner that was a traditional coffee shop. The chairs and the decorations held very closely to what I can imagine the original place to look like. I enjoyed the most amazing lobster bisque I've ever had and felt like I had been transported back in time and allowed to eat at a very elite location.

Going to the castle was one experience that I would definitely recommend if a person found themselves in Prague. It became very clear that this was a fortification for military purposes at first and then over time when the threat of invasion had disappeared the entrance to the castle had been permanently changed. Seeing the giant walls that were insurmountable and walking in through the moat really gave me the feeling of the castle from the bottom up. It was a fairly easy walk from there on out but still rather steep. All the vegetation was nice and I realized in this moment that I had been spending all my time in cities and had not seen the countryside at all. I wish this program had offered another week and we had gone to the Austrian countryside.

When we reached the castle there were gates with the signs of the zodiac on it. This surprised me when I realized what they were. I was expecting on the gates of the church to see mini pictures of the saints or the passion of the cross.

One of my favorite things about castles is that they are always located on a high point and give a great view of the city. This was no different and the view showed the very particular roofs that Prague has. The tiles stand out very clearly in my mind as I think of the city. I am still surprised to see so many places that grow wine nicely snuggled within the cities. In Wien we had to travel a bit to get to the hurtigruten but just from looking at this view and the professors comments we could see they existed here in Prague as well.

We went to several Jewish museums and memorials. I was particularly touched by the presence of children's drawings from the concentration camps. Its an interesting perspective to view history through and to think of any time period and what it would be like to be a child at that time. What would you understand? What would those surrounding you tell you was going on? In one picture in particular there stood out a man in a uniform (I'm assuming that this man was part of the SS) and he was pointing with a very pronounced arm at a Jewish man and a child. I know they were Jewish because the yellow star was drawn on their coats and the man had the traditional hair/beard. The child had drawn this picture making the man pointing very large and above them with an angry face and the two people below huddled and almost not even fitting on the paper. This picture to me showed the shame and confusion that this child felt being thrown out of her/his home. The book Still Alive touches on this and how a person felt losing the place of their youth. While Ruth remembers Wien with anger as the place she learned language I wonder what this child if they were still alive would remember of Prague.

I had not realized that there were such elaborate ritual objects in Judaism. The shield for the Tor rah and the crown were two objects that particularly stood out and upon further museum investigations I made note of their presence. The synagogue's decoration with use of pattern reminded me of the mosques I visited in the south of Spain.

Comparing the Jewish cemetery to the one we saw in Wien was very different. While there was a Jewish section in the Wien one this was totally different. Besides seeming older, this cemetery in Prague was very uneven and the tombstones were tilted and on top of each other. The one in Wien, while in disrepair in certain parts all were very carefully lined up and organized. Here in Prague it seems like they ran out of space and just kept putting people in.

One of the most memorable dinners we had in Prague was at a very nice (and pricey) Indian restaurant. The food was fantastic and I couldn't help but wonder why we don't have such good food in the states.

Budapest

We took a weekend excursion to Budapest. I was intrigued to learn that this city was at one point two cities. Buda+Pest I think and they were separated by the Danube, but through time they became one. Stepping off the train my first impression was that these people were much less assuming and laid back in in their clothing choices. Everyone was very helpful with directions and advise and much warmer and hospitable than the people in Vienna. I truly want to come back here and spend a lot of time. Everything moved slower here in a relaxed state. We walked down the Danube and crossed several bridges back and forth to find a little street fair on chain link bridge. The smells were amazing: fresh vegetables, sweet bread, walnuts, cinnamon, and other spices. People were walking and enjoying the music, food, and crafts that artists were selling. We took a tram to the top of a famous hill and wandered around seeing several impressive views and visited a cave church but i would have to say that my favorite part of this trip was the bath. We went to the baths and it was so relaxing. The visual experience and interaction with people was fascinating, it was so diverse and an experience i would truly recommend to understand a part of tradition and culture. There was a clear division between the two parts that once were two cities. Buda was so green and built up with beautiful castles and art works while the pest part was more industrial and older bulky feeling. There was construction everywhere and it seemed that there was an effort to improve the streets as i witnessed several street cleaners. I fell in love with this city and will return.