Date: May 9th, 2023
Location: Vienna, Austria
Woke up again around 8:00am for breakfast today! I had more toast and bacon today with a bit of juice. Even though it's such a simple breakfast, it's really nice to have something super fresh and delicious. Definitely won't get something this good at back at school, that's for sure. While I was eating, a bunch of people from my program came down and we all chatted a little bit while eating breakfast. Around 10:00am though, everyone in my particular project group was ready to head out to go back to the TU Vienna building to get some more work done on our project. We didn't get much work done yesterday so we were hoping to get some more idea down before we had a meeting with the teachers overseeing this project at 11:30. And so off we went to go TU Vienna!
It was another 20 minute walk that made us take many twists and turns. But surprisingly, I had already memorized my way there! I think what helped was that there were so many memorable stores. Sometimes, I was able to pinpoint where we were going because I remembered the name of a store or its display case. Some areas where a bit trickier than others but I didn't have to look at google maps at all surprisingly! And that's great because I'm not the best at reading google maps haha!
Eventually, we made it back to the TU Vienna building and went back up to the roof to talk about our ideas some more. For a while, it was just me and the four other people from Penn State in my group talking more about our idea together. After a while, one of the TU Vienna students came up to the roof and helped with ideas. The other four were busy with life and lots and lots of school work so we just agreed to meet with them at the meeting. And after a couple of minutes of bouncing more ideas off of each other and narrowing down our focus, it was time to have our meeting with the teachers! Luckily, it was a pretty short and very relaxed meeting. We asked a couple of clarifying questions, pitched what we had so far, and got their advice on how we should continue. For the TU Vienna students, they won't have to work with this project at all ever again so some of their ideas were great but a bit above our pay grade. Both the Penn State Undergrads and the Grad students have to do some type of continuation of this project after we get back to America so we wanted to keep it within our skill range. Though it's always nice getting to hear new ideas!
After our meeting with the teachers, the TU Vienna students took us to a nearby coffee stand to grab some coffee and snacks before heading off to the fountain from yesterday to talk about our project. With everyone there and a bunch of our lingering questions now answered, we were better able to brainstorm what exactly we wanted our project to look like. We were also able to talk about everyone's each individual specialties and delegated some responsibilities to different members of the group so our project could go smoothly. Me and another girl were put on PowerPoint duty for the project. While I'm very happy that I got to take on this role, I will say that my brain is very much in ultra-vacation mode since every day has been about being a tourist and trying local foods and sitting by the pond to do work instead of the library. I can already tell that this project might shock my system since I just came out of hustle mode for the semester, haha! Though in the end, we finished off our meeting by saying that we would all break for today and try to come up with some actual products to show each other tomorrow.
Once all the Penn State students and the TU Vienna students parted ways for the day, a couple of the girls and I decided to look at a bunch of vintage clothes and thrift shops on the way back to our hotel. It was around 1:30 in the afternoon so we had a bunch of time to kill since it was so early and the weather was so nice. We peeked through a couple of stores here and there and there was definitely some cute clothing in each of the stores. But I didn't want to start buying souvenirs too early- I might not have enough room for everything I want to get! But we took our time with heading back to our hotel, just strolling along the streets until we finally made it back. After that, I decided to sit in the hotel lobby for a little while and to try to get some work done on the project. Though I could only do that for just about under an hour. Because right around 3:30, we had to start heading down to another event planned by Penn State: a trip to the globe museum!
Before I talk about the globe museum, I want to talk about everything I saw on the way! It's not too far from where I'm currently staying. Only about a twenty-minute walk or so but it felt pretty short and relaxing when I walked it. I went with a couple of people from my program and we were going to meet up with some of the TU Vienna students and our professors there. But the walk was amazing! We passed through an area of Vienna called the Museum Quarter and you can already guess what types of buildings were there. Still, there were so many ornate buildings in that same baroque style even more grand than all the buildings and street corners. We also passed by a bunch of statues and peaceful-looking parks too. We even passed by the Spanish Riding School- a place where horses are professionally trained and they put on extravagant shows.
Unfortunately, all the signs were in German so I couldn't read what a lot of the different building signs and statue plaques said. There were a few things I recognized here and there such as "The World Museum." Though that's about it for all the random German I was able to pick up on the trip. But they were just so cool that it's so hard to describe. Luckily, I took lots and lots of pictures so here are some of them now.
Anyways, we got to the Globe Museum and it was definitely a lot of us there in our party. Naturally, it was a pretty small Museum but I was still excited to go because I'm a geography major at heart, and who doesn't love a good globe? Fortunately for us too, we got a guided tour of the museum so we were able to hear all the little facts and details about a bunch of different globes! It was really nice hearing about the history of globes and seeing how they've changed over the years. What makes globes particularly interesting is that early on, people used globes to show all the stars' constellations. But representing the earth as a spherical shape in the form of a globe has been around for a while too. Though as you could probably imagine, the globes of the past weren't always that accurate.
Many different countries have been making globes for many years (Germany being on the big ones). But there are many, many, many globes that predate what we knew about the world's geography. Because of that, you can look at two really, really old globes side by side and notice how one doesn't show as much land as another one while realizing that they're both lacking a lot of knowledge about what we currently know. One of my favorite things was seeing how Africa and its shape and coastlines changed over the years. Of course, I know that globes in the past were hand-drawn and made so human error is so possible. But with some globes, you can absolutely pick out when something was made pre-discovery in a certain area by the globe-making countries. I saw that on a couple of globes about North America!
The museum also had old models and tools from the past. One of them was the Tellurium - Lunarium. A Tellurium is a tool that was used to present Earth's movement around the sun (represented by a candle). But once you add a Lunarium, the tool can then represent the moon's path around the earth and explain why we have seasons and day/night cycles.
In addition to that, the museum also had different types of globes such as "umbrella-like globes" and "folding globes" and that was pretty cool to see just how creative people were with globes. In another room, there was a huge, huge, huge collection of the different types of globes that the museum had such as more of the ones that showed the stars, some old and historic globes, and even a couple of globes that showed moons and planets. It was just so, so amazing!
But one of the absolute coolest things to see was the two Mercator globes that the museum had! If you didn't know, Gerhard Mercator was a cartographer from centuries ago. He made his own map projection (basically an image of the Earth on a flat surface- though it was made through a lot of careful detailing and a lot of complicated math) and that map projection is extremely, extremely popular. In fact, you probably had a map of the world using his projection (the Mercator projection) on your wall or in your classroom growing up. Either way, he's a legend in the cartography world, and getting some of his globes is an absolutely rare find since he didn't make that many and they're all made by hand. The best part is that if you look at his old globes, you'll see that he wasn't even too far off from where everything was on a globe. But considering how long ago he lived (and how far we've come with technology), I'd say he did a pretty good job! Here's a link to a website that lets you get to play around with some of his findings.
Eventually, it was time for us to leave the Globe Museum. Once we all got outside, we all started splitting ways in groups. Some people had plans already. Some people wanted to got back to the hotel. And some people (like me) were just looking to get some dinner before heading back to the hotel. Luckily, a couple of people in my program and I were able to spot a nearby Italian restaurant and we just went there since it was so close by. The place we went to seems to be a chain called Vapiano, but it was very very tasty and had a very nice and relaxing vibe. While there, I ended up getting a Coca-Cola and it was very surprising how similar it tasted to the ones back at home. Of course, it wasn't completely the same but it's not my thing, but it neat being able to clearly taste a strong difference between the two. But I think I was most thankful for the quick caffeine boost because boy was I tired. Though I still had some work to do that I really needed to get done so I knew I couldn't just check out for the day yet.
After we finished up with our dinner, we walked back to our hotel and took our time enjoying all the sights we passed by on the way. Once we got back, I decided that the only way that I was going to get the work I needed to do (including writing this journal) was to sit in the lobby and crank out as much as possible! Though of course, I had a couple of people from my program joined me here and there and we talked for a long, long time. I was able to get my work done but I had a couple of fun conversations here and there. Overall, it was great and pretty relaxing day!
Annnddd that's it for today! Hope you all enjoyed this entry and I hope you guys will tune in for the next journal entry too! Until next time!
Picture Sources (in order of appearance):
Museum Quarter Sign - My photo!
Maria-Theresien-Platz
Empress Maria Theresa Monument - My photo!
Äußeres Burgtor (Outer Castle Gate) - My photo!
Heldenplatz - My photo!
3 Globes about the stars - My photos!
Tellurium - Lunarium - My photo!
An Umbrella Globe - My photo!
Planet Globes! - My photo!
Comments