After the tragedy that was Friday night I am so glad that I had an AWESOME!!! day on Saturday. Anna, Kerri, Jamie, Erika and I all met up on Saturday in the first district to wader around and take pictures at our own little pace. We met in front of Stephansdom at about 12:30 and went straight into Stephansdom for the very first time. It was absolutely amazing! The walls had all sorts of different places to pray at, lit candles and even a TV (it wasn't turned on but it was there). I tried out my panoramic option on my camera too and I think that it worked out rather well for my first attempt! {As one can clearly see below (: } Then we made our way down to some of the
local souvenir shops to see what we would want to get for our selves or some possible family members (not going to tell what you are getting though so don't ask! ;p). I was surprised though as some of the things I was looking at were cheaper than I was expecting them to be. *BONUS!!!* :D
After some time of doing that we went and visited the local Jewish memorial. It was a memorial built to remember the over 65,000 Austrian Jews that died in WWII. It looks like a giant block that has lines of books facing with the bindings against the wall (so you see the side of the closed books that shows the pages). And then along the bottom ledge all of the Concentration Camp names are written to show where the Jews were killed. (Thank you to Erika for taking this shot for me :) ) One of the great things about it was the fact that it had the original description of the memorial carved in Hebrew and then it had the English and German translation |
in it as well. After that little excursion we were cold so we visited the local Aida and had some hot chocolate and I had a Krapfen (a special Viennese "doughnut" thing filled with apricot jelly that is only made during certain times of the year). Then we all decided that we should head back to my and Erika's place and visit some more over there. So, back on the handy-dandy 38 street car we went and headed home. The girls stayed until about 8:30 after some talking and some good pizza. Today was another fun filled day with a visit to a Saint Augustinakirche with our lovely teacher Ute (Holocaust Literature teacher). where we will hear an organ piece by Mozart and then we will make a trip to a famous cafe house that the Emperor is said to have been in. I think I am going to splurge a little bit and get a cake and coffee for myself. Bis Später!