To Float on the Wayward Wind

  While I had been to many, many museums by the time November and December rolled around, there were some I hadn't gotten to yet that I really wanted to see, and a few that I had been to already that I was interested in revisiting. Part of the drive for this was also to show Catherine some of the best, most interesting museums in the city. One such museum I went to due not because I had originally intended to, but because the professor for my class Europe Beyond the Nation   State  wanted us to go there. This was the War History Museum, which was a bit further out in a more modern part of Vienna that took a few connections to get to. I don't have pictures of the interior or the exhibits, but this is a picture of the exterior of the old barracks in which the museum is housed. The Turkish influence (one of Austria's great enemies) is fascinating. The museum itself was interesting too, possessing weaponry and defensive pieces from every period of Austrian history through

Even before we got to Kaprün I was busy taking pictures! And with good results! Catherine on the way to Kaprün Downtown Kaprün The IES Vienna program offers a ski trip around the time of U.S. Thanksgiving to the small town of Kaprün, which has a corresponding ski area based on the glacier Kitzsteinhorn. After taking the bus out to this area, we ended up in a lodge with good food and nice, warm, sizable beds. It was quite exciting to have the opportunity to go skiing in the Alps in Europe, even if it was too early for there to be good snow or terrain open off the glacier. We were quite excited when renting equipment, though I had brought some things like my helmet and gloves that I was certain would be hard to find as rentals. The skis were nothing special, of course, but they did a fine job. The rest was just days of skiing! It was fun to finally see Catherine ski, to coach her a little bit, and (!) to show off a little bit. We tried to pick hills that were good f

Nürnberg Bahnhof A tower visible just outside the train station On my way back from Berlin I stopped at Nürnberg. Unfortunately, I had quite some difficulty with my train connections both due to some mistakes of my own and also some confusion on the part of the company providing the trains. Hence, I basically spent one afternoon and evening in Nürnberg. It was an enjoyable time, however, and the late Autumn sunset on the old city was quite impressive. Indeed, as soon as I stepped out of the train station (pictured above) and looked back at the building, I knew I was somewhere with great history and an impressive landscape. Looking forward, then, I could immediately see the inner sanctum of the old city, surrounded by a moat and with turrets and walls all around. For someone who grew up playing out elaborate stories, with toys or without, about castles, knights, and medieval times, this was like a fairytale come to life. What followed was a tour through the city mostly at random

Berlin was a trip that I knew I had to make due to its historical significance, current importance, and relative proximity to Austria. I also had some personal reasons for going there. I have always wanted to see Jim Steinman's Tanz der Vampire . I had thought I would be going to see the show in Stuttgart or Oberhausen, which would have been less interesting otherwise, but fortunately those productions closed and a new one opened in Berlin. It was quite an opportunity to see the show, as it is almost exclusively performed in German-speaking European countries. It was a definite bonus to be able to visit somewhere as historic as Berlin simultaneously.   My first view upon arriving in Berlin at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof Arriving in Berlin was exciting. I traveled a lot and, to some extent, Prague and Budapest (and Vienna itself) qualify on a similar level as Berlin, but really nowhere else was as monumental in terms of size as Berlin. The train station was in itself an indi