August 3-4

August 3 Monday

Today we had our first course section. We primarily discussed a brief overview of the history of Vienna since the days of the Roman fort at Vindobona. Something in particular I heard in the course today was related to the sharp decline of literacy in Europe after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Class today would suggest that there was a sudden and major dropoff in the literacy rate of Western Europe but it had me thinking about how much literacy would have spread in regions subject to Rome and if it would have largely been restricted to 1st class citizens in those regions or to what level literacy spread amongst Roman citizens outside the heartlands.

It's hot and miserable today, my body has felt sick as more than a few of my medications effect my bodies ability to properly manage heat but at least back at home I have fairly reliable access to air conditioned environments (particularly my bed room for sleep) so it feels like it's been a very long time since I've properly been able to cool off. I find the grocery stores are a pretty good place to good for their air conditioning but it does feel weird to linger for too long,

To beat the heat a few of us took the train out the Danube after class today; Harper, Hazel, Ellie, Yuhan, Dory, and myself. Taking the train for 40 minutes and two switches so soon into the trip felt a little stressful but Harper had it figured out pretty well so we did okay. The river itself was much cleaner than I expected, we walked down onside of it for a bit and a little back up the other before finding a nice place too go in. It felt wonderful climbing in (besides slipping and bruising my ankle) the water just felt so magnificent after the 3 day of 100 degree heat. We made our way back to the apartments later in the evening and after that we got to go to a karoake bar! It was really so much fun, about 10 of us went and it seriously just an awesome experience to have met these new people and to be making friends so quickly.

August 4 Tuesday

Last night was another fairly awful night for me, I did get to go to the Karoake bar with a few friends I made from the class but getting home late and trying to sleep in the heat was absolutely brutal. These past few days I've felt like I'm lingering on the edge of some kind of heat sickness, and on a fun side note today was the historic heat record for Vienna (101*) and while that is still less than it is going to be in Sacramento today (103*) at least in Sacramento I have cool places easier to escape too (moslty important my room so I can get some rest).

Today we had two required things on our agenda, the first being our regularly scheduled lectures for the course. Being such a condensed course it is understandable we would need to cram so much info from across a millenia, from Charlemagne to Karl I, into a single course today. To say that the Habsburgs and Austria have have a rich and deeply complicated history would be an understatement but it is a testament to Prof Stuart's lecturing prowess to be able to cover so much so swiftly.

The other major activity today was our bus tour of Vienna. Leaving from Maria Theresa Square the first part of the tour was along the ringstrasse, where the many old and famous buildings of the ringstrasse era of construction are, including such buildings as the theater and the parliament, as well as the rathaus. The most remarkable, in my opinion, that we stopped at was Belvedere palace. Originally the home of Eugene of Savoy, he was awarded the right to purchase and develop the property after displaying great personal prowess in relieving the siege of Vienna (1683). Smaller in comparison to a palace like Schoenbrunn the palace still possess a large fountain and garden in the front as well as a massive topiary garden in the rear separating the Upper and lower Belvedere.

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After our bus tour and a stop at a scenic overlook our last stop of the day was a much needed soiree at Weinhof Zimmerman, located near the N/W edge of Vienna. For the sake of brevity at this point I will renege of sharing more details of our evening and allow for the imagination of the reader to create a most picturesque evening of wining and dining in the foothills of Vienna. The world for today was cold, die erkaltung, ironic as ich habe das gefuhl eine erkaltung zu haben.