August 25, 2014 - Melk, Austria

They gave the cafeteria a fancy name - the Mensa.  It doesn't look like the caf at Franciscan, that's for sure. It's a lot more color coordinated, smaller, and the tables are really large.  That could be a blessing in disguise or a curse - if you are going to sit alone, then you look really, really alone - on the other hand if you're in an adventurous mood and want to try to sit down with a group, there's usually room if you're fast enough.  Here's what it looks like:

The fare is what I expected - European breakfast, hard rolls, Greek yogurt with granola, cold cuts and cheese, and coffee, lots of coffee.  I'm pretty sure this is what we can expect for the next four months.  Also, it looks like they have a permanent station set up for lunch and dinner, with premade plastic signs taped up over the individual food slots. Looks like we might be rotating through the same 4 or 5 meals for the rest of the semester, also.  Good thing the meals are actually pretty tasty, so it'll take me at least a few weeks to get tired of them.

Today we took a day trip out to the Benedictine abbey in Melk, Austria.  It's about an hour drive away from the Kartause, where I'm staying.  By the way, the Kartause isn't as secluded in the mountains as I thought it was - today Clare and I took a walk down to the Spar, which is a little grocery store about five minutes' walk down the street from us.  Across the street we have a car repair shop; a little further down is a kabob place, and further down yet is a shoe store, where the post office is located.

Here's a shot I took of the Kartause on the way to breakfast this morning.  I haven't explored much of it yet, but it's massive - our St. Francis Haus, where the students are staying, is only a small sliver of the entire thing.  I haven't even seen the Keller (the restaurant attached to the hotel).

We took about three massive buses to Melk; Clare and I rode on the double decker (on the top, of course).  We were immediately whisked away to Mass in the chapel, which was done in full Baroque style, and very full of tall pillars, a massive amount of gold work, ceiling frescoes, and slightly creepy cherub statues mounted very high up on the walls looking down at us.

The Mass was wonderful. I focused a lot better than I usually do in mass, which might be because it was really wide open; or because the seats were really really uncomfortable (I think on purpose), or also because it was, you know, mass in Europe.  However, I don't like how the people in charge of music ministry decided that we're still going to use modern Mass parts meant for the main Franciscan campus band, instead of switching to something that sounds more like Latin chant.  It's a little out of place...

(the interior courtyard of the Abbey)

Following Mass we were led on a whirlwind tour of the museum.  I didn't really like the tour; we were dragged in and out of rooms really quickly, and there wasn't all that much to look at inside the rooms.  I don't like tours and I don't like being herded, I like to explore quietly on my own and have less people in my pictures.  

In any case the abbey is separated to represent the balance of God's creation into the Worldly and the Spiritual sides of life.  The Worldly sides of life included massive amounts of jewels and gold incorporated into chalices, monstrances, bishops' vestments, crucifixes, et cetera.  There was even a ceramic and gold heater from the 18th century in every room.  They had also preserved a large amount of the documents from the founding of the Abbey.  

Apparently the Kartause was shut down when Josef II came into power (I think that's his name), because he demanded that monasteries should have specific buildings attached to them, hospitals etc.etc., and if they didn't they'd be closed.  The Melk Abbey survived the cut.  Kartause Marienthron did not.

My favorite parts of the tour weren't really the rooms with the display cases, but looking at the long corridors of the Abbey itself.  There were 2 or 3 that were the length of about three American football fields, and the way the lighting was playing through them was minimalistic and very pretty.  I wasn't able to fully capture the effect with my camera though. 

I also spent a lot of time going discretely ahead of the tour group and looking into the next rooms.  I enjoyed taking pictures of the large Marble Room, which reminded me of the ballroom where Beauty and the Beast dance... the ceiling frescoes were kind of creepy in the usual way - I think this time they detailed Athena and Hercules - but I really really liked the windows and how the light came in and hit the floor.

After that we went outside onto a balcony and I got a few shots of Melk itself from the Abbey.

That river on the right is the Blue Danube.  Mr. Pipp (the Student Life Director in Austria) sang it for us; you'd probably recognize it if you heard it.  To be honest it just sort of looked like another river, and not a very exciting one at that.

After that Clare and I went and sat at a table for Lunch.  It was a really large table, but we ended up sitting there by ourselves for a long time before anyone dared to come sit by us...and then they shifted their chairs away from us and ignored us after we introduced ourselves ... so Clare and I enjoyed a nice lunch by ourselves, consisting of a weird brothy soup that was really good, some kind of odd bread-and-potato concoction and unidentified (but really good) mystery meat, sauerkraut, and red wine. 

Then we drove back to the Kartause, and Clare and I hit up the Spar (the grocery store) for some soaps and such.  I encountered an Austrian woman who laughed when she heard me trying to read a German magazine out loud, but it was a really friendly laugh, and it might have had to do with the puzzled look on my face - so I'm honestly not sure if that means my accent was good or bad.  She didn't speak particularly good English, so I don't think I'll ever know.

In any case she recommended that I try this little bottle of chocolate-creme liqueur that was in a rack next to the M&Ms by the checkout stand, so I've got that sitting on my desk waiting for a good evening to give it a shot. I also got some kind of odd lemon lime beer mixture for another time.  It kind of freaks me out that they don't even ID you here; I guess I look old enough or something.  

Don't worry!  I'll be good.  I also got a 40 minute lecture along with the rest of campus about alcohol earlier tonight.  As well as an hour long lecture about how we are supposed to attend class.

Internet to go shortly, so I'll sign off for the night.