Thursday, March 29, 2007

Had breakfast at Starbucks. I got an apple cinnamon muffin. We met Erica at the University. Really cool building with statues of the ex professors. We went and looked at three churches Peterskirche, Franziskanerkirche and Karlskirche. Very neat stained glass. Altars with pics of saints. They all had a place where you can light a candle in remembrance of someone. We had lunch at a random cafe. We also walked around the Hofburg, a palace. We didn't go in but it was impressive looking. The trams run on wires and rails here. There is also an underground train. It was pretty cold and misty out today. We spent the afternoon in the Art History Museum. So cool. Lots of paintings by famous artists Rubens, Velazquez, Titian, Raphael, Rembrant, Vermeer, Van Eyck etc. Good review of the Western Art History class I took. I kept recognizing painters names. There were paintings of people made up of fruits, and objects by the same painter (Archimboldo) we saw in Paris who did paintings of men representing the 4 seasons. It was an amazing collection but got a bit overwhelming after a while. Lots of huge paintings. Lots of portraits of people. Amazing facial expressions. Some pictures of flowers or still lifes. There were a couple of fish markets or animals from the hunt that were not so nice. Most of it was oil painting. Some themes kept coming up like madonna and child and judith and holephernes. Many of the paintings were HUGE! There were great comfy benches to sit down on in the middle though which made it nice. There was also an ivory carving collection that we looked at. Very intricate and beautiful. We went into a hotel that had these cool old fashioned elevators that only fit one have no door and continually keep moving. We had dinner at this american style diner that Erica recommended. I had a chicken sandwich and we all got rootbeer floats.

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