August 20

In class we talked about the “The Magic Flute” opera that we went to the night before. We also discussed the Congress of Vienna, which took place from September 1814 to June 1815. The main point of the congress was to wipe out the effects of Napoleon and the French Revolution and to reset the French borders to their 1792 locations. The main negotiators at the congress were France, Great Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia. The Austrians ended up losing their original lands in Switzerland and the Netherlands during this conference.
After class, I went exploring with Stephanie. We ended up going to visit Karlskirche, which first went under construction to be built in 1716 by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach. It was ordered to be built by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI as a monument to the patron saint, Charles Borromeo, who was a healer for plague sufferers. The church is located in Karlsplatz, right off the Ringstrasse, and it’s famous for its large dome and two flanking columns. This church actually was one of my favorites because I loved the architecture. The outside of the church reminded me of something I would see from Roman times, but it was also very baroque-looking. The inside was very beautiful as well. The extensive use of gold to decorate the inside definitely gives it away as a baroque church. The interior of the church was actually getting work done on it, so there was scaffolding that led all the way up into the dome. Visitors were allowed to climb the scaffolding, so Stepahnie and I climbed up to the top, even though I was a little hesitant because the scaffolding got shakier the higher we climbed. I made it to the top though, and I took pictures of all the artwork on the walls as I climbed.
We spent a good while in the church before we decided to go visit the graveyard that is located not far from our dorms. We actually entered the grave yard at one of the smaller entranceways, so the first rows of graves that we saw were more overgrown with greenery that the main part of the graveyard. Once we started walking through the rows of elaborately decorated gravestones, I realized how big the cemetery actually was. The place was huge and filled with thousands of fancy and intricate headstones. However, many of the Jewish graves that were here were less elaborate. These gravestones were mostly small and rounded with a Jewish star on the front. We eventually made our way to the center of the graveyard, where the more famous people are buried and where the main church is located. We went inside the church, which sported a huge dome that was painted blue on the inside. The rest of the inside of the church was a little less fancy than many that I have seen on my trip so far. After going inside the church, Stephanie and I headed over to Beethoven’s grave, which she insisted on touching in order to perhaps gain some of his musical talent.
The German word of the day is gesund, which means “healthy”. Many people use the phrase “gesundheit” to wish good health on someone who has just sneezed.