Museums and Flood Waters

It's becoming a bit of a thing now I suppose...whenever I go to Linz, it rains.  Thankfully there are lots of fun things to do indoors, and I don't really mind wandering around in the rain for a while, but last weekend was a bit extreme.  As I've said before, the weather forecasts here are generally a bit vague and not all that accurate, so you're just about as well off sticking your head outside and seeing what the weather is actually doing.  After a wonderful lunch with Philipp's family on Saturday, the sun was peaking through a bit, so we decided to head to Freistadt to the Landeausstellung (National Exhibition) there.  This particular location is all about this area of Upper Austria and Southern Bohemia; the geography, flora, fauna, politics, and beer production!

Sadly they don't allow you to take photos of many of the parts of the exhibition, but it was really cool, lots of historic artifacts and interactive exhibits. 

A quick stroll around the old part of Freistadt

Part of the historic wall around the city

So while it had been raining at this point off and on for a couple days, by Saturday night/Sunday morning it was RAINING.  After breakfast we decided to head across the Danube to the Ars Electronica Center to check out some of their exhibits...and the river is looking precariously full...

The museum basically sits in the Danube, so the lower level galleries were already closed at that point in the morning and were starting to take on a bit of water...discounted entry fee...check.

We did still wander around to all the other cool exhibits that were open...and were certainly not the only ones with the idea to be here on such a rainy day. 

Including this awesome 3-D movie experience in a giant room all about the Earth.  Being the sustainability student nerds that we are...we got really excited about the maps showing per capita oil consumption and CO2 emissions.

Walking out of the museum the river is not only full...it is starting to flood quite seriously.  This should all be streets...

Again, you should be able to walk along here, between about where those black bars start sticking out of the water all the way to the grassy area.  

We spent the rest of the day mostly going from meal to meal with various people since there wasn't much else to do.  Thankfully there is always plenty of delicious food and wonderful company in Linz.  I even had my first Grammelpogatschen, which I can hardly pronounce nevermind spell (I had help)...but it was delicious.  And then being slightly glued to the news reports coming in from around the country about the rising flood waters and mudslides and things that were basically bringing the country to a standstill.  We did make it back to Vienna on Monday without much incident, and it took a day or so for all of that water to get down here...

the Danube canal, one of three sections of the Danube that flow through Vienna, this picture is from Wednesday when the water is barely below the walking path (there's normally several meters of clearance) 

Again...normally there are about 20 steps visible here...not 3.  I was by this same spot yesterday though, and thankfully the water has now receded quite a lot. 

We're rapidly approaching the end of another semester here, I cannot believe it is already June.  The weeks are flying by while being busy with group projects, presentations, papers and also trying to enjoy time with some friends before they leave for the summer!