After 2 weeks of
no classes and traveling around, it’s time to reflect on the school trip we
took to Vienna, Austria, and Venice, Italy.
When we arrived in Vienna we checked
into our hostel which turned out to be very nice. The next day we went out to
visit one of the castles of the Habsburg’s. The family was ridiculously rich
and had a lot of possessions that have become property of the state now. This
is due to the fact that they were forced out of their ruling and when this
happened they did not have time to gather all of their things. Walking through
this museum of stuff, mostly useless random things, I was baffled by the amount
of money in this place. If I could sell just one earring in one of the many
sets that were housed here, I would be able to pay for college, a house, a car,
and still have money left over. This was truly an interesting experience.
Thinking about all the poverty in the world, we have people who had and still
have this amount of money that could easily solve a whole lot of problems with a
fraction of their money.
After that our group split up and
got to enjoy a variety of museums. I choose to go to the Natural History
museum, which was a great decision. While we were there we saw everything from
different types of rock, jewels, and gems, to all types of animals. My favorite
part of the whole museum was the dinosaur section. While I did enjoy the bones
and cool dinosaur finds, the most fascinating thing for me was the life size
dinosaur that moved and made noise. I was so entertained with it, like a kid in
a candy store. We did not have near enough time to see it all but we sure
tried. While we walked through we took many pictures and had fun.
The next day we headed out toward
Venice. We left super early for a 7 hour bus ride. Around lunch time we stopped
to grab a bite to eat and luckily we got a wonderful mountain view. When we got
there we got settled into our hostel and then headed out for a short tour of
the city. This is where our guide Jan left us to fend for ourselves. Venice is
actually made up of over 100 islands. This makes it very easy to get lost but
in the end getting lost was a good thing. We were able to find food and get the
layout of the city.
Our next day out in Venice we
visited the palace of the Duke of Venice, which again was a Habsburg. The
palace is right on the Grand Canal in Venice, which made for a pretty view.
This building was very ornate, just like all of the things we saw in the museum
in Vienna. There was also some very pretty artwork throughout. However, the
last thing we saw in the palace was the jail. This jail was a long trek but
worth it in the end. Jan showed us the window where most prisoners saw the last
of the outside world they would see. This was a sobering thought because even
though these people had committed crimes they would not be able to see anything
but the prison again.
This trip gave me good insight into
how greedy people can be. All the money in the world would not cover the price
of the things I saw on this trip and that is truly shocking to me. This being
the halfway point of my time here, I have come to the realization that the
Czech Republic has a deep and long history that most people don’t even know
about. This country maybe small but they have been through a lot like the Nazi
invasion, communist rule, and dealing with people like the Habsburgs. The Czech
Republic should be given more historical attention than what it is getting now.
It is truly sad that in America we don’t focus more on worldly history. America
is great and it’s wonderful that our students are learning about our history
but there is a lot more going on outside the US boarders that could potentially
affect the United States.
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