Travel days are tiring. We took a bus from Vienna to Munich. The ride was more spectacular than any other Amtrak or bus ride I have ever been on. While many of us fell asleep on the 6 hour bus ride, the rest of us stared out the window in wonder. On the way there, we made a quick stop in Mondsee, Austria to experience the most beautiful views ever. The day was spent mostly sitting in the bus, so I’ll take this time to talk a little bit about the classes. German 1: This class moves fast. While the first day was mostly spent with introductions and basic phrases, we were given a lot of material to memorize and study. In addition to that, we had our first exam coming up on Monday. A lot of students spent the bus ride reading over material and practicing their phrases with their peers. German 102: Being an arts and history class, German 102 is built around our travel schedule. The first week was spent broadly studying Austrian history and narrowing in on several artists and artistic movements. For German 102 we only have two projects and a final for our grades. No intermittent exams like German 1. However, we do have reading—a lot of reading. Not keeping up with the reading will make your work load devastating. The past week in German 102 was spent learning about the Ringstrasse period, a turn of the century period which brought about new art and new period in Viennese history. We learned about new artists such as Gustav Klimt and also studied the father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud. Rumor has it the Klimt and Freud may have attended the same events whilst never formally meeting each other. |