August 6

After class today, we ate lunch in the park by the Mozart statue. It was cool because there was a tv crew there videotaping a musical group of some kind. The group consisted of a beat-boxer, a violinist, an opera singer, and an accordion player. It was interesting to hear them all play together because that is not what a musical group usually consists of. We later took another tour with Dr.O, but this time it was of the Art History Museum (Kunsthistorisches Museum). This museum is located across the street from the Hofburg buildings and is also right across from the Natural History Museum. These two museums mirror each other. They look exactly the same and are both built in the baroque style. The buildings aren’t as old as they look, but they are both very nice to look at. The inside of the Kunsthistorisches Museum is very large and beautiful. The entranceway and staircase walls are covered in paintings. At the top of the stairs was a huge sculpture that I thought was really cool. It was of Theseus defeating the Minotaur. On the tour, Dr. O showed us many paintings by very famous artists, such as Rembrandt, Durer, and Rubens. I especially liked some of the paintings by Durer, who was influenced by many of the Italian Renaissance painters yet he had his own unique style. His painting of Emperor Maximilian I was especially intriguing because the emperor looked almost dead. Durer painted it the year Maximilian died, and many people believe it might have been painted after he died. After the tour, Stephanie, Jennifer, and I decided to stay and see the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman displays on the first floor of the museum. I was particularly excited about these exhibits because I am most interested in ancient history. There were many statues, carvings, and jewelry from all three of these ancient civilizations here. The coolest thing I saw here was a mummified alligator in the Egyptian display. When I got back to the dorm’s after the day’s excursions I decided to watch a little CNN, partly because we had to and partly because it was the only channel in English. I was surprised to find that the Daily Show was on. I just caught the end of it, but I don’t think that CNN plays Comedy Central’s The Daily Show in the U.S. I also noticed that there are less captions and little side-screen and bottom-screen news boxes here than in the U.S.. In the United States, there are usually lots of bold letters and blinking news reports that cover part of the screen on CNN. Here, there is much less of that. Also, since I have tried watching CNN multiple times since I have been here, I noticed that they have played the same special multiple times. I don’t think that they show a lot of repeats on CNN in the U.S.
The German word of the day is bereit, which means “ready”. “Ich bin bereit” means “I am ready”.