Bloom and Grow Forever: Church Music, Jewish Love, and Christmas!

The past two weeks have been surprisingly busy with both school and outside-of-school activities. I really feel like I'm settling in and getting to know the students and other teachers well. I see some of the school kids in town or at the train station at they're always super friendly and excited to see me and chat, which of course makes me feel great. They're quite delightful. I’ve also been spending a lot more time with friends in Vienna, doing my best to meet lots of new people! I am loving the city itself, and even though I've done a ton of exploring, there's still so much more to see and experience, so I'm really glad I am spending the whole year here!

Yesterday was particularly full of culturally things, so I'll share with you a recap of what I did! I began the day with a visit to the Augustinkirche, the chapel that is part of the Hofburg Palace. Rick Steves told me that the choral music there during Sunday morning mass is fantastic, and since I had yet to take advantage of this free cultural opportunity, I thought it was about time! This church is where most of the Hapsburgs were married, and I had been to it before, but hadn't yet gone inside. Although it doesn’t look very impressive, or even very “churchy” from the outside, as soon as you walk inside, the regalness really smacks you in the face. It’s not exactly gaudy, just very majestic, and I could vividly picture a royal wedding taking place there. The music for this mass was written by Mozart, Vienna’s little baby, and hearing such majestic church music in such a gorgeous hall was really something special. I probably enjoy classical music more than the average 22 year old, but I certainly don’t listen to it often, and frankly often get sick of it after about 10 minutes. However yesterday I did not feel that way at all! I really loved the experience, and the fact that the music was interspersed throughout the mass made it quite nice. The only downside was that I got there a little late so there was absolutely nowhere to sit, and I had to stand the whole mass. When I go back (which I definitely will, especially because Advent time has some great music), I will have to get there early so I can sit down.

After getting my church fill for the day, I took a two minute walk down the street to the Vienna Jewish Museum (the natural next step, right?). I had expected this museum to be mostly focused on the history of the Jewish people in Vienna, told through cultural artifacts and documents—your typical museum. That was not the case at all. The museum was more specialized, with special exhibits related to Jews and not much at all about the Viennese Jewish community as a whole. For example, there were two photo exhibits: one featured pictures from Viennese women photographers from the 1920s and 30s, and the other featured pictures from one photographer that capture contemporary Jewish life in the city. I liked the latter a lot. Some of my favorite pictures were of orthodox rabbis reading Hebrew texts on the Strassenbahns (street cars), old Jewish men chatting in a café, a few Jewish weddings in parks, and groups of kids at a Purim party. These pictures showed me that even though the Jewish community of Vienna is only about 8,000 strong, it is lively! The only cultural artifacts the museum had were held in an area called “visible storage” that had some information about the various Jewish communities in the area throughout history, but it was terribly organized and not very nicely put together. Oh well.

The museum is in 2 parts, one of which is an Judenplatz, the area in the 1st district (the main historic part of Vienna) on which the old main synagogue used to stand. Now there is a beautiful Holocaust Memorial there. I thought it was really lovely.

The last part of my Sunday cultural adventure was the most classically Austrian part: a visit to a Christmas Market! These markets (called Christkindlemaerkte) happen all over the country in the time before Christmas (apparently they open earlier and earlier every year, according to the woman I live with). There are several in Vienna, and each has a different feel to it. Some are more focused on crafts and handiwork, others are just food and drink, and some are a mixture of it all. The one I went to is in ront of the Rathaus (city hall) and is mostly for kids and tourists. It was kind of kitchy, but still AWESOME. There were pony-rides and little huts with interactive games for kids, as well as little huts that sell everything from toys to ornaments to hats to specialty gifts. The kind of food sold is also really fun: lots of caramelized almonds, roasted chestnuts, cookies, cakes, baked potatoes, wurst, other traditional Austrian foods, and LOTS of DELICIOUS hot drinks. Punsch and Glühwein are two classic Christmas drinks, both kind of a mix of tea, hot apple cider, and wine, which I realize sounds gross, but that’s false. They’re delicious, and perfect for warming you up when you’re wandering around the cold market! Just the atmosphere of the whole place was so perfect and magical—twinkling lights, little wooden huts with pine needles on them, happy children, all in an explosion of Christmassy goodness. All we needed was some light snow and the picture would have been perfect. And this is just the start of the season—I can’t wait to visit more markets as Christmas gets closer!!! [sidenote, I do feel guilty that I’m indulging in this kind of Christmassy goodness before Thanksgiving, but it’s just too hard to escape it. There’ve been advent calendars for sale in stores since mid-October…]