Date: May 19th, 2023
Location: Vienna, Austria
Today I woke up still not feeling the best but oh well. Since I’m almost home, I figured I could go to a clinic there. Anyways, I did my usual in getting dressed for the day while also making sure I had all my bags packed nice and tight. Today, we had a long bus ride ahead of us since we were going to Vienna for the night. So I made sure to hit the hotel breakfast bar, grab a few snacks for the road, and hopped onto the bus! Soon enough, we were on our way back to Austria!
The ride back to Vienna was pretty uneventful but I was more than happy to get off the bus when we arrived. We were staying in a different hotel in a different part of the city. I hadn’t been in this area before so it was really unfamiliar. But it was a 30-minute walk from the museum quarter so it wasn’t too bad. Anyways, I ended up being put in a triple again with the same girls from earlier so we all dropped off our stuff in the room once our rooms were assigned. Since it was our last full day on the trip, my friend and I wanted to try to hit the Museum of Natural History in Vienna. We were joined by a couple more people and we then went ahead and took the walk to the museum. Though before we made it very far, we decided to stop by a nearby food stand to grab some lunch. A couple of us got this special type of hot dog where the meat was almost completely encased in bread that was pumped with cheese and ketchup. It was really good!
Eventually, we made it to the Natural History Museum of Vienna! The building was two stories and still had the similar ornate baroque style that most of the buildings on the trip I’ve seen. We had only about three hours inside the museum before it closed so we tried to make the most of it. My friend and I started in the rock and mineral sections and we got to see the Muesum’s collection of all the different rock samples that they had. We even got to see some of their meteorites too. The collection was pretty expansive and there must have been thousands of rock samples there. So many ones I hadn’t seen before. Though one of the coolest parts was when we got to see different pieces of jewelry and the stones they were made from.
After that part, we visited a bunch of different rooms that the evolution of different species over time- including humans. Naturally, the evolution of humans and how they began to organize and learn about the world took up the largest part of this floor. There were also little exhibits on the Ice Age and Climate Changes too!
Once we were done with the first floor, we went upstairs to look at what they had there. The entire second floor (minus their little museum cafe) was dedicated to taxidermy and models of all different types of animals. This was a pretty extensive collection as well. They had all different types of reptiles and fishes and insects which weren’t really my favorite. But I loved seeing all the fuzzy, cute-looking mammals and all the birds too! Some of the larger animals were a bit intimidating since you never really fully grasp just how big some animals are until they’re up close and personal. But it was still cool to see nonetheless.
Eventually, it was time for us to leave the museum. Naturally, we made sure we got to pick up a few things from the Museum gift shop first. Anyways, we started to head back to the hotel since our program wanted to have one more dinner with everyone before we left. We all left out to go to the restaurant after a couple of minutes and it was a pretty quick walk since it was just down the road from the hotel. The restaurant we went to sold traditional Viennese food and some typical Austrian dishes. I felt bad for the restaurant and its patrons though because even though we had a reservation for around 25 people, I don’t think they were quite prepared for a group of 25 Americans. While we weren’t rude or disrespectful, we definitely could have been a bit quieter. And I think we could have used more than just one server to take care of our entire party. He tried his best I’m sure, but I bet help would have been appreciated. Especially since there were some translation errors here and there. But oh well! Dinner was nice either way. And it was kind of a bittersweet experience since there were going to be a couple of members of our program who were leaving early morning. It was the last time we were all going to be together and I made sure to have a good last final dinner with everyone! Even though I still couldn’t speak.
After dinner was finished, everyone decided to head in different directions to enjoy their last night. I went back to the Jazz Bar from a couple of days ago with a couple of friends. It was a lot more crowded than last time so we just decided to spend a little bit of time there before heading back to the hotel. I got back earlier than my roommates so I was able to spend some time repacking my bags and making sure I was ready for tomorrow. Once I was finished with that, I went ahead and got ready for bed!
Thanks for reading today's entry! And sorry there are no pictures. I didn't really have anything besides blurry photos of rocks. But I hope you enjoyed it! Until next time!
- DD
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