Hawkins and I have discovered that a great way to wake up quickly in the mornings is taking an ice cold shower. As it is, we're not doing it voluntarily, and we hope that we can get it fixed soon...but I'm considering calling Guinnes World Book of Records to come time us...
Today we head out to Vienna to be presented to the General Secretary of the Austrian Red Cross. I've been informed that the leadership was originally skeptical of having American students come study here, but Bruno is proud of what we've done, so apparently we're a success. I guess today is our victory celebration "woohoo we did it" day for our leaders. ;)
The official building for the Red Cross was the old house of Christoph Willibald Gluck, which I found extremely interesting. They told me I was the only person to visit there who actually knew who he was.
Meeting the General Secretary was quite the experience. He was very kind and asked us what was done well and what could be improved, and with every new person we met, we got to retell our Austrian adventure story.
After meeting the General Secretary, we met with the head of International Affairs, which was probably my favorite discussion we had. After telling us about his job, he randomly asked about Obamacare and what we think about it, which of course led to deeper discussion as we are a conservative minority in the States. I got to ask him Why he participates in the humanitarian work he does; I was interested to see what he would say. The answer was chilling to me. He said he does it to give his life some meaning. I think I will write a paper sometime soon on the way people in Europe view their lives, as this was a perfect continuation of my thinking from last night.
I was given the entire opera Orfeo on audio as a gift before we left, which I am extremely excited about. I can't wait to listen to it.
We walked to the opera house in Vienna and to the university, and were given a brief tour of each. Zach came along with us (a friend from Bryan), and I got to speak Southern again. You wouldn't believe how nice that was.
We spent the rest of the evening in the station in Neusiedl (after fantastic history lessons from Bruno about Vienna), cooking our own dinner of spaghetti and wurst. Tomorrow we don't have any solid plans, and for that I'm happy.
Goodnight! I'm going to take a hot shower. We got the water fixed. ;)
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