A day to myself in Vienna

6 December Friday

 I woke up to a beautiful, cold, wet morning.

 The first thing I went to do was, yes, my last museum.

 I have actually been to this museum a handful of times because we have an unlimited pass to get into it.  I've been into it numerous times, yet I haven't seen nearly the whole thing.

The museum is the Kunsthistorisches Museum . . . Art History.  

 But, as you can see, the art isn't just paintings in here!!  Although there are some of the most incredible paintings in the world here.

 There is jewelry, and pottery, and small little sculptures.  There are centerpieces and glasses and plates and bowls and EVERYTHING, and it is ALL so beautiful.

 These are made out of ivory.

There was one particular exhibit I wanted to see here that is temporary and special right now.  It is the largest collection of paintings by Lucian Freud.  He was Sigmund Freud's grandson.  He painted some interesting things in the 20th century.  I love this style.  It is realistic, but so stylized as well.  Excuse the naked bodies.  This isn't the same as looking at paintings of Venus from the 1500's or seeing bare-chested sculptures in Rome, or anything like that.  These look really realistic . . . some people hate his work.  It wasn't really loved right when he did it, either, but today we can appreciate it.

Afterwards, I went back, yet again, to my favorite Christmas market between the museums.  I grabbed this one ornament that I have been looking at every time I've been there, but I haven't yet bought it . . . and I JUST GOT IT.  I am happy.  It is just a glass ball that is painted beautifully . . . ahhh I love it.

I had the day to myself.  ALL DAY!  Well, until 3:30.  So I went up to Neubaugasse to find this fabric store that I've been meaning to go to.  Frau Feest got fabric from here and made her beautiful tablecloths from these pieces of fabric.  I couldn't really find anything like what she had. . . .  nothing too special.  The place was HUGE, though.

Amy met up with me, and we looked at these boots I really wanted . . . I couldn't really decide, and the size wasn't perfect, so I put them on hold.  And I decided if i still liked them by the end of the day I would come back and buy them.

I got a pastry for lunch duh.

We met up with everybody at the LDS Centrum for choir rehearsal at 3:30.  We played through Oh Holy Night, Silver Bells, and Come Thou Fount.  I played this beautiful accompaniment for Oh Holy Night and it is really hard but wonderful, and I've only played it a few times, but we sounded pretty good!!

We went to the school Christmas party at the Institute at 5:00. We were all dressed up and we sang and it was just great!  I LOVE CHRISTMAS!

After the musical program, which our cute Haus Fraus came to listen to, we all 

had PUNSCH and cookies.

SO.

PUNSCH.

This is a traditional thing, special European (mainly German & Austrian) thing to have around Christmas time.  ALL the markets sell punsch.  It is fruity usually, the flavors range from berry to apple to orange . .  there are probably  more than that.  BUT, it ALSO has rum in it.  So you smell it like mad EVERYWHERE at all the markets!  And Hermann (our school director) makes a special family recipe, and he even lights the pot on fire right before it is served!  But he also makes us an alcohol-free pot which is known as kinderpunsch. . . because, yes, we are children.

This is professor Pokorney (history) and Brother Minert.

This is HERMANN.

We all ran to waffle night.  Well Kimber came with me back to that shoe store to get my shoes, but they had a size 39 and 41, and I was going to just get the 41's...but then I rethought everything and my entire life and decided that they weren't right.  LUCKILY the lady told me this other random store far away that has them in 40's!  This is all pointless information, but that's what we did, then we got to waffle night.
We saw this man spinning lights on the way.

The U-bahn station with an accidental shutter that was open for a long time.

So, we did something crazy tonight.

Haley, Amy, Monika, Stephanie, Garrison, Lizzie and I (Lizzie is a friend of the twins from back home, she is studying in France and is traveling here this weekend).

We went CLUBBING.  It was awesome.  We got there at 11:15 ish and stayed till 1:30.  The club was insane!  It was free also which is nice.  Cause we didn't drink hahaha.  Checking coats was 2 Euro and sooooo I just didn't wear a coat so that's good.  The club!  It is called Prater Dome, and I guess it is not the greatest or nicest of clubs but we had a great time together.  There are 3 floors, and 5 or 6 rooms, each with different DJ's and different genres to dance to.  It was great.  This guy took pictures of us and we found them on their website, hahaha.

So we got home after 2, and I took a shower because I smelled like a serious smoker.  My mouth even tasted bad!!  Love dat city night life experience.  HAHA.