Vienna, Austria

I have now been in Vienna since Monday evening. Before we came here, on Sunday we went up into the mountains outside of Sarajevo to a Bosniak village. A Bosniak is a Bosnian muslim, and the village was very traditional. there is the main village, and then the summer homes. lower on the moutain is the main village, where the people live most of the year, except the summer. higher up on the mountain pass was the summer village. during the summer the people of the village move up to these houses to farm and raise their livestock and prepare for the winter. the houses in this summer village were some of the few remaining bosniak summer villages after the war. during the war the serbs destroyed most of the traditional bosniak houses and buildings, but these few in the summer village were spared. the story we were told was that the son of one of the army generals was curied by someone who worked in the mosque of the village, so the summer homes were not destroyed. the homes in the lower village were destroyed during the war and have been rebuilt since. while at the village we were parpared a traditional bosnian meal. i didnt eat much because i felt sick. then after the meal the people of the village performed a traditional bosniak courtship dance for our group. it was interesting to see how things were done in this part of the world. according to our guides, they would do this simple courthship dance for hours with neighboring villages, and one typically met their spouse this way. at least you would know if your spouse had some good moves or not.

monday brought a long bus ride to vienna. along with breaks and stops for lunch and dinner, we were on the road for about twelve hours. luckily i didnt get sick, not even once. but i also took medicine for motion sickness, which made me sleep a lot.

so we have been in vienna pretty much since tuesday, because we didnt really do anything on monday night. vienna is a beautiful town. there are many buildings from the hapsburg dynasty, and these buildings are very impressive. a lot of the buildings feature romanesque and baroque architecture, and art nouveau has also made an impact on parts of the city. these are all things i am learning about in my art history class. vienna also has the last spanish riding school in the world. i have walked by the building several times, and always know i am near it because it smells like a big petting zoo.

some interesting things i have done since being in vienna. wednesday was a fun day. in the morning we went to the UN complex here. the complex is massive, it is almost like a city within a city. the tour was okay, we didnt really get to see much of the complex, but afterwards we had a presentation by a media officer for the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency. The presentation was very interesting and I learned a lot about the IAEAs role in the world. the are essentially an international consulting firm for nuclear energy and provide nations with recommendations and the best guidelines for nuclear energy. they also monitor nuclear materials around the world, but not weapons, just strictly materials. i am giving a debate on nuclear energy on friday, and i am arguing against nuclear energy, so i have been doing a lot of reading recently on arguments against nuclear energy. it was interesting to have a lecture given by this woman, who was more bias towards nuclear energy. the IAEA, on top of monitoring materials world wide and giving suggustions helps supply useful nuclear technology to countries who are signed on the the NPT, the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. as part of the treaty there are five nations who have declared nuclear weapon capabilities, the US, great britain, russia, china, and france, and 170some nations who are have signed the treaty but dont have nuclear weapons. north korea signed the NPT, but claimed they have backed out, which has turned into an international legal argument. india and pakistan have nuclear capabilities, and are not part of the NPT, and iran is suspected of having nuclear capabilities, but is also not part of the NPT. also, israel is part of the NPT, but is said to have secret nuclear capabilities, but of course no one makes a big deal out of it because the US and Israel are buddy buddy. anyway, it is interesting, and a little scary how the situation in north korea and iran currently are, especially since both nations are more or less anti-US and may have nuclear capabilities. on top of that, the IAEA and their inspectors have no real power, and countries can kick out the IAEA inspectors whenever they want, like North Korea did in the past couple of years. in my opinion, nuclear energy is more trouble than it is worth, especially in in the way in which the international scene has changed since 9-11. the materials from nuclear reactors can be converted into weapons grade material, granted a country has the necessary technology. it would be terrifying if those capabilites were to fall in the hands of the wrong person. on the other hand, nuclear materials are used to a wide range of helpful uses, from medical devices to irradiating food, so the word nuclear doesnt always need to be associated with destruction and the end of the world, but nuclear materials need to be carefully safeguarded, regardless, and the IAEA helps with overseeing the security of materials. this was even more interesting to me because i spent a lot of time this week preparing for a debate on nuclear energy. we had our debate this morning and we argued that nuclear energy in europe presents too big of an environmental and human risk, and should be phased out in europe as soon as possible.

also on wednesday we went to see an opera, i beleive at the burgtheater. the opera we saw was the barber of seville, which is a famous opera. some of the music has been used in loony toon cartoons, so i recongnized a lot of it. one downside was that our seats were not very good, and from where i was sitting i could see only a third of the stage. it was better if i stood up, and luckily no one was behind us, so i did stand up for a lot of the production. the music was amazing. it was fun to watch the musicians play while the performers sang.

i am about to leave to go to dinner, so i will stop posting here. i will write another update about the other things i have done on sunday. i am doing well, not sick anymore which is good. thank you all for keeping me in your prayers.

love and blessings,
mikey