August 5-6 St. Stephen's Cathedral

August 5 Wednesday

Sleep last night was the worse its ben so far, I am struggling immensly to find ways to cool off. It says at least tomorrow will be the last day of the heat, and we may even receive a couple days of rain after that. I was fortunate today that it was our day with out class this week (Prof Stuart had to stop having class the day after the Weinhof, i wonder how many went to class hungover or skipped it all together in the past. With this morning free I was able to spend a little while longer in my bed trying to rest my legs a little more and get some hydration today. We had been meant to meet at the Stephenplatz at 2 for a our Gretl-guided tour of Stephensdom but this was postponed an hour allowing me a little more rest

The tour of St. Stephen's was magnificent. I mean the inside of the church is truly spectular in both design and scale. From the moment yo approach the giants gate on the wester n front of the cathderal it is evident just how truly inspired this dedication to God is. In entering the cathedral the scale strikes you immeidatley, massive vaulted ceilings high above overhead and the large corridors of the church emphasize the passion and talent of the many craftsman that gave their time to the constructions and remodels of the cathedral.

After the conclusion of our tour we were set on our seperate ways and myself along with a few other friends made our way to Bockshorn nearby. Austria's (self-proclaimed) oldest Irish pub with a cute and homely interior that I actually found to be quite cosy. The pub itself is tucked in at the back of a small alley just about a block off of Der Graben and only about a minute walk from the cathedral. After our Irish pints at an Irish pub deep in the heart of the Austrian capital we celebrated the American tradition of locating the nearest McDonald's as if it were some kind of save point. I do have to say however that I found the quality of the chicken to be superior to that at McDonalds in Ameirca but I did find the fries much worse. The german word for today was das fieber, or a fever, apt as durche die hitze fuhle ich mich, als hatte ich fieber.

August 6 Thursday

Last night was yet another awful evening of sleep. I find myself waking in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and having kicked the covers to the floor. At times I feel dehydrated and confused but I'm doing my best to have plently of water and time in the shade as I manage my health while trying to really enjoy Vienna. Today began with another lecture on the Catholic counter-reformation and the 30 years war. We also covered the HREs from Maximillian 1 (1508-1517) to Leopold I (1658-1708) and the tulmutous period of the formations that washed over Europe. I had in the past studied the 30 years war but I had no true idea of the total devastation brough to the German-speaking regions of central Europe. I suppose I should have infered from a 30 year conflict that the land would be ruined but I could not and had not grasped that the conflict resulted in the deaths of up to 40% of the populations. This devasation totally kneecapped any hopes of German unifications, explaining why it was not truly unified until 1871 and although this is the same year the kingdom of italy was formed it was still hundeds of years behind the unifications of France or Germany.

The other major activity for today beyond lecture was our Gretl-guided tour of the Kunsthistorisriches Museum Wien (Art-History Museum of Vienna. The museum and its interior I found to be truly magnificent as it as its many display halls to be containing some of the most wonderful pieces of the Habsburg collections. The museum was deeply interesting, I will admit to unforntuately missing some parts of the tour as I was experincieng a sort of heat induced nausea and had to spend at least a little while sitting on a nearby bench. I will say the fews minutes I took at the end to admire the many busts of Roman Emperors within their antiuity sections did put a shine on an otherwise dreary day. The word for today is illness, frustratining ironic as the word yesterday was for cold and the day before for fever. Ich habe mich noch nicht von der hitzebdinten kronkheit echalt.

David and Goliath