As much fun as I had in Berlin, I couldn't wait to get back to Vienna and start classes and get into a regular schedule. I'm taking 5 classes here and doing an internship too! As of now, I can safely say that I'm enjoying all of my classes. Also, there is little truth to the belief that studying abroad is a semester off. While the work may not be as demanding as my schoolwork at Fordham, I am having to constantly go to museums, make lesson plans, and research snipbits of Austrian history that I'm not familiar with to keep up in class. I know... tough life.
“Fin de Siècle: Vienna 1848-1916” is a history class that focuses on Vienna under Franz Josef’s long reign during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Franz Josef is arguably responsible for modern-day Vienna, and is thus an extremely important figure in Austrian history. My professor is very enthusiastic about the subject and we’ve gone on three field trips already in the 6 classes we’ve had! We’ve been twice to the Museum Wien, a museum about the history of Vienna, to see examples of Biedermeier architecture and paintings and other works of art. We also went to the Imperial Treasury at the Hofburg last week, and got to see incredible jewels and coronation gowns, swords, etc. This class provides me with a Belvedere museum pass, so I’m planning on going to many museums throughout Vienna with it!
“Music in Performance” is a class about 18th, 19th, and 20th century music, specifically focusing on music composed and performed in Vienna. I really enjoy this class, as its pretty much a continuation of a class I took my sophomore year (Introduction to Music History). This class requires that I see at least four concerts, operas, etc. throughout my semester abroad, so I have absolutely no excuse to not attend these staples of Viennese culture! So far in class we have talked about basic musical terms, Mozart (focusing specifically on Le Nozze di Figaro - The Marriage of Figaro), Strauss, and Bach. My professor thought it important to see Figaro while it was being performed at the Staatsoper, so our class went to see it last Thursday at the Opera! It was a truly incredible performance and I loved it even more than Romeo and Juliet. Who would ever know I am a secret opera lover...? Last Wednesday, we took another field trip to the Mozarthaus, the house Mozart lived for most of his time in Vienna. It was awesome and kind of surreal being in the actual room that Mozart composed some of his greatest works in!
German, which I have already talked about plenty, continues to be a struggle every day. I love it, and am really getting used to the language and think I may be pretty good at it when the semester is over. My professor is the best and so patient and hilarious with us. Whenever we get anything wrong, like an article for instance (this is very easy to do - the German language has THREE articles: der, die, das: and there is no way to know which one goes where), she always scowls at us and says, “We are not friends.” Which of course sounds like, “Vee ah naht freunds” and is thus instantly adorable and hilarious. She also has a great sense of humor, which I can imagine is necessary when teaching fifteen 20-year olds how to say, “What do you eat for breakfast?” Which, by the way, is “Was essen Sie zum Frühstück?”
“Coexistence and Conflict: The History of Eastern European Jews” is by far my favorite class I am taking here. My professor commutes from Budapest once a week to teach us about Jewish history. I have never really studied this in any history class before, and am so interested in the material. We haven’t had many classes yet, as my professor had to cancel twice due to a conference in Morocco, but it is a great class about something so important to the history of Austria. After our midterm in two weeks we will be focusing on WWII, which obviously everyone is excited to learn about.
My final class is an Education Internship. We have a class dicussion facilitated by our professor once a week about ways to teach English to Austrian students and other pertinent aspects of the Austrian school system. Lately, we have been focusing on differences between Austrian schools and American ones, and there are many. I also meet twice a week for two hours at an Austrian school. I am in the 18th district at Lutheranschule and teach English to a class of 26 2nd graders. My supervising teacher, Ursi, has been an unbelievable help and I love going to school. It’s also a great way for me to keep up with my German, as 8-year old Austrians know verrrrrry little English. They were all very impressed with themselves when they introduced themselves to me in English and I understood them.
All in all, I think my classes are great, and I can’t believe I’ve already been taking them for over three weeks! Time truly does fly when you’re having fun.
My next post will hopefully come tomorrow, and will be about my mother and Michele’s visit to Vienna in mid-February! Auf Wiedersehen!
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