My legs are about to fall off.

Man, what a crazy couple of days it has been. I think I have walked more in the past two days than I ever have at one consecutive time. It's been a whirlwind of sightseeing and exploring the city and I am dead tired now. But in a good way.
We started yesterday by getting up bright and early and heading out to the flea market that happens every Saturday just a few blocks down from the Opera house. It goes from 6 in the morning till 1 in the afternoon, and we ended up getting there around 8:45. We walked around a bit and there were all sorts of cool stuff from all over the world being sold there. We didn't buy anything then but ended up coming back during lunch and I bought an amazing scarf. We then met up with the rest of the group from the program and Dr. Hemenway and the Art and Architecture prof, Dr. O, led a walking tour around the main part of the city. I knew that Vienna had a lot of history, but man, I didn't realize it could have so much history in such a condensed area. We saw a spot that is right next to the Opera house that has no building on it because in WWII a building that used to be there was bombed and hundreds of people that were in the bomb shelter in that building were buried underneath the rubble. It was never excavated so all of those bodies are still down there. To remember that, a very disturbing but interesting monument stands at that sight. That's just one of the many things we learned on our tour, like we also saw where a bunch of museums are and a lot of places where members of the Habsburgs empire lived or had buildings made. We then had lunch, and then left for the Schönbrunn palace where the Habsburgs spent their summers. It is a HUGE palace and we took a tour of the imperial apartments. It was so interesting and we all got audioguides to explain to us the importance of each room. After the tour of Schönbrunn we had time off for dinner, and then we had to get ready for the opera! We didn't get to see the opera at the real opera house since tickets to that cost hundreds of euros, but we went to a great opera house a couple subway stops down from their and we got to see Carmen. A lot of people were exhausted from the busy day that we had and weren't able to stay awake through the whole opera, but I was able to and I am so glad that I did. The singers were absolutely amazing and it was so interesting because they set it in a more 1930s/40s era which really added to the show. It was so good! After leaving the opera, Jessie (my roommate) and I wanted to go back to our apartment. We took the right subway and tram, but once we got off the tram we had no idea how to get back to our apartment! We ended up taking the wrong street and wandered around the dark scary neighborhood for about half an hour. I was freaking out, but Jessie kept me calm and eventually got home safe and sound.
Today we started again really early because I absolutely had to see the Vienna Boys Choir at the mass that they do at the Hofburgkappelle. We did standing room at the church which was free, so we stood in the back and watched the mass and listened to the choir which was above us in the choir loft. I honestly got chills listening to the boys choir sing. Their voices are so pure and amazing, I could have stayed there all day just listening to them. At the end of the mass the choir comes down and sings a song in the front of the church and I wish they could have done a whole concert for us. We then ran over to St. Augustine Church where they put on a mass done by a famous composer every Sunday. Today they did Schubert's Mass in G major which was really great. I especially love the soloists and the whole choir and orchestra added so much to the mass.
After that we went out to the Vienna "woods" (basically the outskirts of Vienna) for the official kick-off dinner of the program. The restaurant each gave us half a chicken! We also got the famous Sachertorte (chocolate cake with apricot jelly and whipped cream) so I can officially say I've had it. The restaurant is really near the highest point in Vienna so a bunch of us went up there to get pictures of the great view looking over the entire city. The hill is apparently where the defense of the city took place when the Ottoman Empire was invading Vienna. We ended up walking down a couple kilometers and finding a really old monastery with mroe great views looking over the city and the countryside. I was pretty much done by this point so Jessie and I decided to head towards our apartment but ended up wandering around our district and tried to explore more. We got dinner from a typical Viennese sausage stand and I got bratwurst, which was DELICIOUS. There's a reason this town is famous for that.
I've still got homework to do, so I'm signing off for now. Gute Nacht!