August 5

Today was the second day of class, and we mainly talked about various Habsburg rulers, and how they set up strategic marriages for their children in order to gain more powere and prestige. One such marriage was set up between Maximilian I and Marry of Burgundy in the 1400s. We also talked a little about the Reformation, which was started by the Augustinian monk,Martin Luther, and his 95 theses. After class, a bunch of us went to the Sisi museum because we thought it sounded like a fun museum to visit. The tour package we bought gave us access to tour the Imperial Silver collection, the Sisi museum, and the Kaiser apartments. The collection of silverware was massive. The museum was full of all different types of silverware, cups, plates, and beautiful centerpieces that were all mostly given to the imperial families as gifts from other great powers. The collection of pieces was passed into the ownership of the Republic of Austria after the end of the Habsburg monarchy. I liked to look at all of the elaborate center pieces that were used by the Habsburgs because they were so elaborate and over the top. These items gave me good idea of court life for the Habsburgs. The Sisi museum was interesting as well, because the display captions discussed all of the aspects of Elizabeth’s life, especially how she progressively slipped into a state of deep depression. Nobody called it depression back then though. They only called it melancholy. I also learned about Sisi’s obsessive dieting and strict workout regiment. She had an 18 inch waistline! The famous portrait of Elizabeth when she was wearing the star-shaped jewels in her hair was alsohoused in the museum. A couple of the girls that I went with to the museum had bought fake copies of these hair clips in the gift shop. The tour of the Kaiser apartments in the Hofburg was my favorite part of the whole tour. I loved seeing where the royal members of the Habsburg family lived. The Habsburgs used the Hofburg as their residence for over 600 years. During the tour, we got to walk through several private rooms used by Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elizabeth.
The German word of the day is wirtschaftlich, which means “economical”. “I am looking for an economical situation” is “Ich suche nach einer wirtschaftlichen Losung”.