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Published: August 7th 2008
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entering the courtyard at Melk Thursday, 8/07
Today we had our excursion to the Melk Abbey in the Austrian countryside. We had to get up early to make it to the train station in time to catch the train at 9:45am. I was making my breakfast, and I really wanted some toast. They have REALLY good jam here, and I want to eat it all the time now. I had one slice of bread left, and it was moldy, so I had to eat some of my other stuff. When I panic-shopped the first day, I don't think I thought to check the dates of the bread. But I have been a more scrutinous shopper since. We took our regular U-bahn line to the train station, and got on a train resembling a nicer version of Amtrak. We had a "group ticket", and the German phrase to explain this to the conducter was taught to us, though we did not get a chance to use our phrase. The conducter talked to one or two people and sort of gave up, just walking by us and apparently realizing all the loud Americans were part of the group ticket. We arrived in Melk (its on the way to
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a saint's shinbone, thus a reliquary Salzburg, so west of Vienna) and walked up the cobbled streets to the 'downtown'. We then did a rather quick walk up what felt like a million stairs to the monastery. My professor praised us for keeping up with her in the hike up the stairs, claiming that we can rationalize eating more by walking faster. Being a Debbie Downer, I pointed out that the subsequent consequence of this decision is having to do more laundry because you sweat through more clothes by walking faster. Clearly I am in a funk by not having the convenience of a normal washing machine at my side! We made it to the courtyard an hour early, so everyone went to the cafe to get something to eat (it was lunchtime by the time we got there). I got some mystery sandwich, because it takes too much effort to be a picky sandwich eater in a foreign country. I also got an apricot soda drink, which I promptly spilled on my white pants (but I had a Tide-to-Go pen, so the situation was dealt with). Apparently apricots are grown all over Austria and they make all sorts of stuff out of apricots. I'm excited
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view from Melk about this, as an apricot fan, and hopefully will bring home some apricot products. There were a ton of wasps buzzing around our food, and my professor displayed her hidden talent of killing wasps with a fork. After eating, we meandered around the garden, and enjoyed the amazing views from the monastery (which were worth the earlier hike). We met our tour guide in the courtyard, and were shown into the monastery. The first room I saw was nothing like what I had expected. This monastery was built before 1000 AD, as a Babenberg residence, and given to the Benedictines in 1089. So I was expecting old, dusty and impersonal looking decor. The rooms I saw almost resembled a hip club. Each room had a different color lighting theme, with all their ancient treasures displayed in simple but fancy looking glass box things. It was a bizarre juxtaposition, to see a sleek-looking green-light room with an illuminated manuscript on display in the center of the room. We walked through multiple rooms, learning about saint's relics, reliquaries, and other such monastic objects. The monastery is the proud owner of a splinter from the real cross that Jesus died on. They also
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main church at Melk have a piece of a shin bone from some other important Saint, as well as the entire corpse of St. Coloman. Coloman was hanged around the eleventh century, and apparently his body never decomposed and his hair continued to grow for years after his death. He is the patron saint of the area, as well as the patron saint of people with eye disorders. I was looking in the gift store for some bottle of magic St. Coloman juice or something, but I did not luck out. Our tour concluded in a library that everyone from my program said resembled the library Belle sings in from Beauty and the Beast. After the tour we had almost four hours of time to kill before we needed to meet for dinner, and people started splitting up. Some of the girls wanted to find some shady grass to nap in, and I joined this group. After awhile, I got up and decided to head down the stairs into the town of Melk's little downtown. It didn't take long for me to realize that the stores were all cafes or souvineer shops. I saw a shirt with a kitten lounging in a hammock with
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library in Melk the slogan "lazy days- Austria" on it, and thought it was the stupidest tourist souvineer I may have ever laid eyes on! Its like someone ordered too many stupid kitten shirts so they screen printed 'Austria' on them and tried to sell them to dupe tourists into thinking they're getting something actually Austrian. I stopped at a little cafe where some of the other girls were, and asked the waitress to recommend a beer. She pointed to one, claiming it was a girls' beer, but I had already tried it and ordered the 'boys' beer. We hung out at the cafe for awhile, talking about rude Austrians and how disappointed we were in the touristy-ness of the town we were in. We gave ourselves a half hour to make the hike back up the hill for dinner. To prep for the three-course meal in a country that loves pork in its many forms, my teacher got a head count for those who do not eat pork or meat. So imagine our surprise when the meals arrived and the non-pork chop dish was practically bacon-fried-ham (also known as schnitzel). One of my classmates, who ordered a non-pork dish, was baffled about
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skeleton dressed very nicely what the point of objecting to a pork dish was, when it was to be replaced with yet another cut of pig. My dinner was just fine, and the wine we tried was delicious. All three wines were made in the area, two white wines and one red. I had apple strudel for dessert, but was not particularly impressed (its like apple pie's disfigured sibling). Waiting at the train station to go home, my whole class was chatting to each other in small groups. Evidently Americans are louder than the Austrians prefer, because without any warning, this man sitting at the little bar/cafe at the end of the train station started screaming in German at our group. While we weren't sure what he said, but it sure didn't sound like he was enjoying our presence. Everyone awkwardly stared around, whispering and pointing, but eventually resumed conversation. I asked Duane, our program coordinator (who speaks German) what the guy said. It was something to the effect of "F*** you, stupid Americans". On the train back, we were asking our professor what she thought accounted for the apparent difference between American and European conversation volume. She mentioned that the Austrians were used
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napping in the gardens at Melk to sharing close quarters, and were better at being courteous neighbors. She said "in America people blast music... that would never happen here". It felt all too true to accuse Americans of being rude neighbors (or roommates), imposing their conversation/movie/music/fight/party/phonecall on everyone in the vicinity. Switching trains, we boarded a train that resembled the Hogwarts Express for its 6-seat compartments with sliding doors. In our classic American style, we proceeded to have a loud and enthusiastic conversation about dementors (and Obama) while the Austrian in the compartment cowered in the corner with her iPod. We jumped off the train and onto our U-bahn to head back home. I name this entry "acoustically intrusive" because that is a great way to describe Americans, or if not to stereotype everyone, it is a great way to describe the 25 UCD students on my program. I wonder if they sell earplugs in Austria?
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