Friday June 29, 2007
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
Six Passport Stamps Later

I scarce can even type for the overwhelming number of adventures I need to relay to everyone from the past several days! As silly as it sounds I’m almost dreading starting to type because I am so afraid I’m going to forget one of the many thoughts I’ve about what I wanted to type in here for everyone to read. Don’t let me forget to tell everyone about Hungarian toilets.

Ok so where to begin?
How about right now. I am currently sitting in a rather modern style hotel room (hence the first internet access) in Munich, Germany with my Dad. Well actually, he is in the bathroom brushing his teeth, but in typical weird European fashion, there is definitely this glass panel looking from the room into the bathroom toward the shower so I could in theory see him doing that. Talk about awkward and lack of that infamous German ingenuity. We rigged up a towel to avoid what would otherwise make for some awkward turtles. I’ll post a picture soon, because to our American minds this is just dumb and we can’t picture it.

Before I get too into this, I wanted to post a “shout out” to Shirley, Ms. Shay, or whatever I should call her (lol) because it is her birthday and they are currently celebrating back in Texas. If I knew German I would say it Happy Birthday in German, but I don’t speak German, so Happy Birthday never the less from Munich.

So, Saturday. I woke up early and went to pick up Daddy at his hotel. Happy reunion. Apparently my parents thought it best to wait until like we were walking down into the U-bahn talking about randomness to spring “oh, you know Rosie [our miniature schnauzer] died last week.” Instead of telling me serious news of any kind right off the bat, they like to wait and just jump it on me so the delivery startles me more than the news itself. One minute I’m talking about breakfast and next thing I know our dog died. I have learned to find humor in their delivery. But for everyone else, Rosie died in her sleep after playing a hard game of ball, her favorite past time, so I cannot imagine a better way for a 13 year old dog to cross the rainbow bridge. Her barking will be missed? No, but we will miss Rosie.

Anyway, I kept us on a tight regime throughout the weekend. We started at 7:30, despite the fact my roommates were using this past weekend as their final shebang in Vienna and were awake at all hours of the night so I didn’t get any sleep. Our first stop was the Naschtmarkt, where we walked around the farmer’s market and bought fresh fruit and bread for our snacks later in the day. After that we headed to Schonbrunn, walked the extensive and beautiful gardens but missed out on tours because of the spawns of satan known as Austrian tourguides bringing their swarms of soulless tourists. Oh, we also did the Hedge Maze I had never had time to do. It was fun, yay.

So we headed into town, I showed him all around Karlsplatz, Kartnerstrasse, Stephansdom, and we had a traditional Austrian lunch. After that we checked out St. Michael’s crypt and while he got the tour I got to hear an impromptu organ concert.

Oh, and before lunch we were crossing the ringstrasse just as the funeral procession (and remember funerals are a huge deal in Viennese culture historically) for what I believe [excuse my lack of knowledge here] was an Austrian President and former Nazi! We got to see the procession go by on the way to the central cemetery! Our timing couldn't have been more perfect! 5 miles and 300 sets of stairs later, we got ready for the opera and went to see Lohengrin by Wagner at the Staatsoper. Our seats were the worst I’ve ever had, but that’s a Saturday in tourist season for you. The music was still phenomenal, and just absorbing the atmosphere was well worth it. I was so tired after that I could barely walk home.

Sunday. Whoo hoo. Woke up and beat the swarms of zombies to Schonbrunn so Daddy could have a tour while I read in the garden. Pleasant indeed. Afterwards, we went to Café Landtmann (Freud’s Café) for brunch and to take part in the Austrian tradition of being slothful. I will miss that.

Next stop the Freud Museum, which totally blew my mind [again]. NERD alert: I am so in love with Freud, his work, his passion, his old fashion brain slicer (animal not human!), and most of all his no-nonsense attitude that I bought a poster of him to hang in my dorm room. : )

Freud Story: Freud was Jewish. When the Nazis took possession of Vienna, they were sent to Freud’s apartment and practice to look for “incriminating” evidence. When the Nazi officers got to his door, Freud says he gave them his “Moses” look when he opened the door, and glared down at them over the tops of his spectacles with eyes that said “I don’t think so” and the Nazi officers were so scared they ran off without searching. Shortly there after Freud left for London.

I could go on and on with Freud stories. His fluffy chow named Paula and his Pekingese named Jumbo, his humor, ahhh! One more because I can: Freud had mouth cancer from all his smoking and chewing tobacco in his old age, and he said they kept telling him “oh, it’s getting better, the carcinoma is shrinking, the pain will end…” and his comment was something along of the lines “their exaggerations do not make me feel better and I do not appreciate it.” I walked around the museum basically with this enormous, uncontrollable grin on my face even though I was only there a few days ago. I read every caption and quote they had. All it takes is something related to the brain to make my day. Since we had to check our bags, I was forced to be like Freud's patient the "rat man" and carry Gulliver, my rat, around the museum for picture sake. More on that later. After that we picked up some Austrian Diet Cokes and sat in Freud park.

We then went and walked around the Belvedere gardens and then went out to the edge of the Vienna woods to a heurigen for dinner. At the Belvedere, Daddy ran to go get in the shadw while I took pictures. See above for proof.

After some wondering around, we stumbled upon this charming little local place that had the tastiest food I had had in four weeks. The lack of any spice whatsoever finally got to me. We split a giant meat platter and had “BBQ” sauce, which was mild but surprisingly good! We devoured it. As you do at the heurigen, we ordered wine. For the entire trip I have not once encountered a problem where the wine/alcohol was too strong for me and I wasn’t able to finish my glass. Well of course, the exception comes with my dad. I couldn’t even finish my glass of wine [although he admits, he had a hard time with his too] so now he thinks I’m just a light weight who orders alcohol I can’t drink. This is me being sad he now thinks that.

It was the best end I could think possible for Vienna.

After that I packed like crazy, and thank goodness Dad was here to carry my gianormous suitcase down the 5 flights of stairs. I would have otherwise been tempted to throw it out the window and call it a day. My roommates were up most of the night to prepare for their various flights, so I didn’t get much sleep unfortunately.

Monday

I put all my stuff in our home base hotel in Vienna and we took a 7 a.m. bus to Bratislava, Slovakia for 10 euros a person roundtrip. I was sad that the Slovakian boarder patrol came by and checked our passports but didn’t bring a stamp, so sometimes it’s just hit or miss there. We got into Bratislava and on the drive in you pass by a lot of Soviet style, ugly, apartments and you definitely get an Eastern European vibe. The bus just dropped us off at the bus stop and we found our way to the old city center. The buildings had a prettyish old feel to them and even though tourists were there it wasn’t so mobbed that it was uncomfortable. We went into the big church they had there and walked around, saw the now shrunken, mummified body of a Saint, which really is more awkward to look at than it is holy. It was in this hanging, or “floating” gold and silver, GLASS coffin behind bars at an alter. How does one respond to that, I don’t know.

Ok, I’m tired, time for bed. I will maybe update more in the morning, otherwise tomorrow we’re headed off to Dachau to see the concentration camp memorial. This is TO BE CONTINUED. Sorry I didn’t take the time to re-read, but I’m exhausted.

*Elaine

PS: Can anyone say racist?

Sign in all the U-Bahns.

It says "I am a horse" on the Stable there in English. This was outside the Leopold. My family knows what I'm talking about here.

Friday June 22, 2007
Can’t believe it’s over

Wow.

I am in disbelief. Vienna will be over for me in two days. Today was full of goodbyes and a bitter reminder that most of us would just stay if we could. There are a few people in the group already applying for various jobs here so they can move as soon as they graduate. I think the only thing keeping me from being senseless with grief is that I am just so happy that it happened I don’t resent that the end was inevitable.

Let’s just start with Wednesday.

“I’m the green fairy”

So you know one of the opening scenes of Moulin Rouge, where they drink the green alcohol and start hallucinating about the infamous green fairy played by Kylie Minogue? That would be Absinthe, real wormwood Absinthe which has only been legal again in most of the EU since 1998 and still is banned in the US and France. There are several knockoff absinthes they sell to tourists who don’t know the difference, but guess who had the real one?!?!?!

Van Gogh, Manet, Gauguin, Oscar Wilde, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, and Hemmingway all drank absinthe because of its “creative” effects.

Definitely had the real one. It was just about the strongest thing I’ve EVER tasted in my life. I must admit, I preferred the absinthe chocolate bars.

So Wednesday morning our class met at Café Landtmann, “Freud’s Café”, to discuss Freud and a few other things. We had a nice round of coffee and then all headed to the Schnapsmusuem, a locally owned and run company since 1875! Our tour was sooo neat. We learned all about the various types of Schnaps, including the four different types of spirits which are as follows:
1) Traditional Schnaps
2) Liqueurs
3) Creams (the only ones I could handle)
4) Bitters

Our tour was given by the Great Grandson of the founder as a special favor to IES. We learned all about how they make Schnaps, how to taste and test to see if it is an authentic Schnaps, and many other useful things. Afterwards they set up this huge tasting for all of us, and beside the absinthe and a few others I also had Schnaps that had gold floating in it (no I’m not talking Goldschlager, they would scoff) that is a premium Schnaps they often mix with Champagne. It was the best, and everyone made lots of purchases in the store. For the absinthe, since technically the real wormwood is banned, the company just gives you a note for customs saying that it isn’t real (even though it is) since customs has no way of testing. lol

I don’t think anyone actually could handle the taste, but since it has such a forbidden fruit status many are taking it back to the states. I’m serious, my head whirled and I couldn’t breath for a second. Strong stuff. I’m glad I can say I tasted it, but I’m afraid I will never be a Picasso.

So after that, it was so hot we were all dying. We came back and tried to cool off before we went and had class and a guest lecturer again with Dr. O. We went to the art museum in the Belvedere (Prince Eugene’s Summer Palace) and saw some biedermeier and the art piece that shares the same status as Mozart in Vienna, Klimt’s “The Kiss.”

Insert a bunch of ooooooooooooooo-ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhsss here.

Thursday

I felt like the clock was ticking. We had the morning off, and then our class met at the Leopold Museum with Dr. O again. We saw more Klimt and spent a lot of time talking about Egon Schiele, which disturbed me greatly.

That morning it had been unbelievably hot. Before the museum I had gone to get a Kebab sandwich for lunch, and walked around.

So look at these pictures, beautiful but hot day.

Well after the museum, I went outside and noticed some grey clouds in the distance. I went and sat with two other girls who had put their feet in a fountain because it was still hot. The next thing we knew, this giant, and I mean GINORMOUS gust of wind swept through the plaza, blew sand in our eyes, and wiped out a complete patio café. You can see in that picture that people were scrambling to pick up all the tables, chairs, and dishes that blew away. Running maddness!

At this time we were all like “what the crap” and started putting back on our shoes. Everyone was running around confused and people were screaming as the gusts of winds took over. As a Texan, my first instinct when the weather gets this bad is head for shelter cause there’s a gonna be a twister. However, the logical side of me knew better here in Vienna. So we set out to find a U-bahn station, and on our way the wind and rain got so bad these huge chunks of trees were flying all around us. We ducked in for shelter in this travel agency, and then ran for the U-bahn in the wind and the rain.

We found out today that it is one of the worst rain/wind storms Vienna has ever had, which was apparent just be looking at all the fallen branches today in the park.

After that I had to get bundled up for the Ballet, Romeo und Julia (Romeo and Juliet) at the Staatsoper. The performance was breath taking. The scerery, costumes, dance, and music blew my mind. Loved it.

Funny commentary from Viennese Culture, and one of the things I’ll miss, or maybe won’t. After the performance, all the groups of performers start to come out and bow, group by group, then they do the group bow, lots of cheers and applause, then they will without fail, do it all again, after that they will make more bows and take the applause and at this point you’re getting ready to go, so they shut the curtain.

But wait, there’s more! They will then come out group by group outside the curtain, not once, but twice. It’s starts to get awkward at this point because people are leaving and the moment’s over. All of this, yet, never a standing ovation like they often do in the US. Fickle people.

All of this went down as usual but when Romeo came out, they had men in black stationed in the balconies to throw down about 10 giant bouquets of flowers. Then Juliet came out, who was equally fantastic, they threw one tiny bouquet. Talk about politics.


Friday
The End.

This morning our class met at the Staatpark, which is filled with monuments to famous composers. We all sat and presented our final projects. We were assigned to talk about something on this trip that has personally struck us or that has changed us in some way, without any guidelines. We had an amazing like 4 hour discussion.

I talked about how I came to Vienna to escape the noise. To get away from the pressures and just “noise” I encounter everyday, and overwhelmingly so for the past several years. Whether it’s the media, friends, family, myself telling me what I “should” be doing, and even though some of it is good and helpful it is still overwhelming and deafening after awhile.

I came to Vienna to escape that. This laptop is my only link to anybody in the US and I’m not really around it a lot. One of the first things about the city that struck me was how the city itself is so quiet. We always have our windows open yet hardly ever hear the city noise. On this trip I remembered how to listen. Listen to countless operas, concerts, street performers, fellow students who are nothing like me, and above all to listen to the part of me that I normally drown out. I’ve rediscovered a lot of my more simple passions and things I want aside from the big things I’ve been pursuing so hard the past few years.

After that we went to a place in Northwest Vienna and had a huge dinner with wienerschnitzel, various salads, and strudel. It was so good, but I’m totally not used to the fried food. Wienerschnitzel is basically like chicken fried steak, it just is made with pork instead. We had some sad goodbyes, and as we left another rainstorm blew over Vienna. Vienna is in mourning.

This is duh, me, with Prof. Hoelscher's kids, who are by far the sweetest young ladies I've met in a long time. I think if you asked anyone on this trip they would be more than happy to take them home with us. Everyone has just adored having them go on some of the trips with us, and we are all just in love with them.

My day starts at 7:30 tomorrow when I go and pick up Daddy at his hotel and we go through our first big day in Vienna! I have tickets for us at the Opera to see Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin. It should be very exciting.

For those of you unsure of how the rest of the trip is going down, here’s the 411. I will spend the next two weeks with my dad. We are spending the weekend in Vienna, and then are traveling all around the Bratislava, Budapest, Slovenia, back through Salzburg, and through Southern Germany and ending up where we will fly into London together and then I will start my program in Oxford. Yay.

Ok, Goodnight everyone!

Love,
Elaine

Tuesday June 19, 2007
Less than a week to be Viennese

I am absolutely floored my time here in Vienna is almost over! Part of me is so ready to move on to new places to explore, but at the same time I’m going to miss all the things I’ve grown accustomed to here.

Well I better get down to business because I have a lot to update everyone on!

Amazing trip to Salzburg
Friday
We all took the train to Salzburg, and this time there was no drama getting seats because I wasn’t having to lead the way, it was all taken care of for us! We had a reserved cabin and I read and slept the whole way there. Once we got there we went to our Hostel, which was really like an economical hotel. We got our lunch at the hostel, which was like Austrian cafeteria food, but we were so hungry we scarfed it all down, but it wasn’t too bad. After that we took a three hour, not boat tour, but a three hour WALKING tour of Salzburg. I’m really hoping all this walking will counteract some of those pastries! So we walked a ton, and got to see a few of the sites from the Sound of Music, which basically consisted of me making random arm gestures and being awkward in front of the camera for lack of anything better to do at the sites you feel so obligated to take pictures of.

At one of the places we went, excuse me for not knowing the name, but it is the place were they have the steps they sang “do a deer” on and a fountain they danced on, the gardens also had this dwarf garden of about 20 dwarfs statues. Apparently they don’t know why they are there, but it was unusual to say the least. There were both men and women, and they were just doing random things. All of us picked a favorite.

Salzburg, while very touristy, had a really quant feel to its city center. We got to go by the house were Mozart was born, and I’m serious, Mozart has a larger than life presence here in Austria. They even have a special Mozart chocolate that has marzipan in it, most of the other kids didn’t like it, but I thought it had a really nice texture, but it definitely best when kept in the refrigerator.

This whole trip was included in our program fee, so the only money I spent all weekend was on souvenirs and a few other things. For dinner they took us to the historic Stiegelkeller 15th century brewery. And yes, I had a beer. I actually enjoyed it, although I did have a small one. Our view from the brewery was amazing because it was up on the hill that led to the enormous castle. We got to look out over all of the city and lower alps and ate a feast of Austrian food, which again, isn’t that notable, but still good.

I was finally over my cold, but there is something in Austria that I am allergic to, because I think between that and possibly the beer I did not sleep well at all. I tossed and turned, wheezed, heard people walking up and down the hostel, so that was no fun.

But the next morning breakfast was good! Tons of bread and jams, and I’m totally back on a milk and cereal kick for the first time in years.

Side note: I have come to the realization on this trip that the inevitable has happened. I’ve turned into my parents. Being around other people has made this blatantly apparent. I get up early to go exploring more, I allow more than enough time for the train, I now prefer breads that have lots of grain and seeds, and I’m the go go go traveler. I used to really grumble when my parents got up early on vacation to “allow extra time” but now I totally do that. This is one of the reasons why I’m looking forward to being with my dad this upcoming week. I get to finally be with my own kind!

So back to Salzburg. I got up early with Laura, one of two adults on the trip who went back to school and came with us. Laura is in her 30’s and has a daughter back at home, but is an Art History major and went back to school to get a degree, so I’ve found that she is the one on this trip willing to go to an extra museum or two, or get up early to go do things with, so we got up early and met up with two of the boys and went to explore and look for souvenirs. Most places weren’t open, but we came upon this cute shop and the shopkeeper was so nice and talked to us about where he’s been in the US and about Texas. This was a first, soon to be followed. He said, “oh everyone knows Texas because of Bush” and we all groaned and frankly braced ourselves, but he laughed and said “eh I don’t mind him.” We all enjoyed talking to him.

So we loaded up the bus and went to Hellbrunn, a hunting lodge built by the bishop of Salzburg (wasn’t a part of the Habsburg empire) hundreds of years ago. Apparently he had a sense of humor. The entire place was filled with water works that sprayed you as you walked by. We had a young tourguide, so as you were walking around looking at all the mechanical fountains and figures run by the water she would turn on the spouts in the doorways etc. and get you all wet. It was SOOOOOOOO much fun. At one point, Katie (one of my 5 roommates and I) went and stood out in the center because we wanted to get wet, and the girl absolutely let us have it! She didn’t just turn it on, she turned it on and left it on until we were drenched! We asked for it. Check me out, all wet.

To show us generally around we had a “professional Austrian” tourguide, who wasn’t allowing actually in Hellbrunn because of her status, but she showed us around everywhere else. This tourguide was nothing like the one I HATED from Krems. She spoke perfect English (she could have been mistaken for an American) and was full of sarcasm (unusual here, Austrians definitely are not known for their humor) and she would randomly break into Sound of Music songs when we would go and see somewhere from the movie. She was full of spunk, and told us stories of how she almost married an American but decided she couldn’t move to California and stayed here. I liked her.

So after that we looked around the hunting “lodge” or rather mansion, and then had this wonderful three course lunch at the place.

After that we had time to walk around Salzburg again. This time I was able to actually go buy souvenirs since more stores were open, and then I began the trek up to go see the castle. That consisted of steps, more steps, and then a really, really steep climb up a hill. If I had been invading that castle I would have seriously been like “screw it I’m going for strudel, see you at the bottom.” I could have been not cheap and taken the train up there, but alas I didn’t. My calves I’m sure thank me.

Once we finally got the top, there was a medieval festival going on. The views were great, and the castle was really old, but most of the actual castle was closed, or it cost more to go inside, so I just walked around and listened to the music, one of the only free things, at the top! About the time I was up there to sit down, this female punk bagpipe (continental bagpipes, not Scottish) group of women over 40 started playing. They put on this big show and made all these faces at each other and got really into it. It was so entertaining.

After that we went back, and got ready for dinner. I felt like I was back in my USSYP days. We were treated like kings, or queens in my case. They had gotten us tickets for a Mozart quartet dinner concert at St. Peter Stiftkeller, which is really old obviously and cut into the side of the mountain with the castle on it. We went into this big grand room and in between all the courses they placed selections from Mozart’s operas and symphonies. The music was amazing, and so was the food, except we didn’t really eat until 9 which totally sucked since I hiked up to the mountain and all. The dessert was so good, it was this semi frozen custard with caramel and strawberries. Wow. I mean wow. Our waiter at this place was apparently Italian, very opinionated, and liked to talk and just keep talking. He told us how he loves Americans, he likes Bush, he apparently loved Kennedy and Reagan, blah blah blah. It got to the point we were like “um, thank you, bye.” And he would keep talking. Funny guy.

Sunday was a big day. We left Salzburg, traveled to Linz, and then took a bus to Mauthausen Concentration Camp, one of only two camps in all of Europe labeled as Grade III by the Nazis, meaning it was the worst of the worst. Mauthausen was a labor camp especially made for “incorrigible political enemies of the reich,” made specifically for the intelligent and educated members of the higher social class. This included more than just Jews, but any political prisoner, members of the Catholic clergy, homosexuals, “asexual people” or basically anyone who just didn’t look right. Mauthausen is estimated to have killed between 122,000 - 300,000 people, and had around 85,000 prisoners at the time it was liberated.

We arrived and got a tour of the camp by a young Austrian completing his year of civil service. Mauthausen was built beside a huge quarry. The prisoners used to have to climb the “stairs of death” with stones that weighed over twice their weight and were often times either pushed off the cliff or pushed down the stairs, resulting in multiple people getting crushed to death.

None of us wanted to talk or look at each other while we were there. We all silently went through the various medical experiment labs, incinerators, and gas chambers in complete silence. I don’t think there was a single person who made it through without crying. Some people had to go off by themselves for awhile because the stories of evil torture these people went through was so bad it made physically sick. I have never been so sick at humanity. People were burned alive here, left out in the cold to stand naked until they froze, tested for how long it takes to starve people on a piece of bread a day, given various types of euthanasia to “see how it works”, just horrid, horrid, horrid suffering. One of the cruelest ironies of all is that Mauthausen is placed in the middle of some of the most beautiful Austrian farmland. I really didn't take that many pictures of the camp because I just didn't feel right doing that.

While we all know how horrible the Nazis were, there are so many jokes about them anymore it’s easy to forget just how maliciously evil they were. I guess this is how we all cope with living with such a memory. I’ll give you a for instance that really struck me. At the beginning of the war the Nazis wanted to test how to make a gas chamber, so they stormed a convent in I believe northern Austria where the nuns took care of handicapped and mentally retarded children. They took all of the children and probably young adults who couldn’t care for themselves and used them test death by a gas chamber. Can anyone say Satan?

The part that got me the most was at the end of the day, after walking the stairs to the quarry and back, and looking at all the memorials they had set up, a group of us congregated and went to watch the movie they had showing about Mauthausen. The movie was made in the early 80’s. The whole film was in German and has been translated except for the last part, when a man in his 60’s who had silver hair and a beer belly started talking. Mauthausen was liberated by Americans. The 11th Armored Division, 3rd US Army to be exact. This man started talking about the day they walked in, and suddenly broke into gasping sobs and started talking about how horrible it was, and how all of these grown men were walking skeletons, and people died right in front of them. He continued to sob and kept saying “we buried over 2,000 people in two days, it was horrible, it was hell on Earth.”

I looked around the theater and not one of us had a dry eye. It was so emotional. On the way back to the train station our bus didn’t have air conditioning and the windows didn’t open, but nobody dared complain.

So on a lighter note, on Monday I went rafting down the Danube River. UT got a special tour of the Danube National Park by a group of both working and retired biologists and geologists. We rafted down the river, stopped and had lunch, took a hike, came back, and rafted down the way to dinner. We stopped right on the edge of the Austria/Slovakia boarder and went up to a hill top this fabulous view of everything. We were so close I could see Bratislava just on the other side. After that we went to another wine tasting. There aren't any pictures because I didn't take my camera for fear it would get wet. I realize this means some of you may not actually believe I did it, but you'll just have to take my word.

Hopefully this story is an uplifter after Mauthausen. Well we were all ravenous with hunger. We sat down and drank a bunch of water because I knew I was dehydrated. Well they brought out the wine, and so far on this trip the most I’ve been has been maybe buzzed, so I think I got a little over cocky on my alcohol handling abilities. I wasn’t feeling anything from the wine, so I suppose I was drinking pretty fast.

Lesson learned. Drinking anything on an empty and dehydrated stomach hits you pretty fast after about 5 minutes. Someone pointed at a tree and I turned to look and all at once the outside landscape “wobbled.” So I was like, “oh jeez.” Next thing I knew I couldn’t look anything straight in the eye, and there were about 5 conversations going on at once and I could only focus on one with a 10 second delay on all the words. What’s worse, is everyone else can handle their alcohol. They all know me pretty well, and were laughing, and tried to put wine in my now water, and laughed as I just slightly slurred my words. Thanks guys. lol All I kept thinking was “oh crap, I have to go get on a bus in a little bit. This may not be pleasant.”

Luckily, the food started to set in, and 5 trips to the bathroom later and a 20 min nap on the bus ride home I was fine. Never falling for that again.

UGH, now Tuesday.

Ok today we went to Freud park, and the Freud Museum. It blew my mind. They even had a very primitive brain slicing machine, which looks nothing like the one in the lab today, but it got me pretty excited. After that, went to the funeral museum, it was cool but the temperature was hot, and then after that I can home and rested before going grocery shopping and writing this.

Ok, finally done.
*Elaine