Salzburg

So we spent this past weekend in Salzburg. Well, actually it wasn't really a weekend in Salzburg, even though that's what we were told. It should have been called "A Weekend Away from Vienna with About Five Hours Spent in Salzburg", because we really didn't spend much time in Salzburg. While we were driving Friday night we stopped in the town of Melk and took a tour of the beautiful Melk Abbey. The abbey has been in existence since the 12th century and there have been monks there ever since. It is one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen with a seriously nice view and an amazing chapel covered in gold. We drove a few more hours until we got to Hallein, about 20 minutes from Salzburg. That was where our hotel was and we didn't have anything scheduled after dinner so we wandered to the downtown area. They were having some sort of festival so there was a live band playing and a lot of outdoor bars open. We walked around a bit, got some gelato, and went back to the hotel and had some drinks at the restaurant.
Saturday we had to leave the hotel by 8:45 am to be on time for our tour of Salzburg! Our tour guide was this great lady who made sure we knew what places were in the Sound of Music and pointed out anything we might have seen from the movie, which was obviously exactly what I wanted. We saw the fountain that Maria runs around, the stage where they perform before they hide from the Nazis, the church where Maria and the father get married, the hill that Maria and the kids sing on, and many many more. It was so great. She also showed us many historical places important to Salzburg as well, like Mozart's birthplace and the palace of the Archbishop. There were also a lot of stands around that sell Bretzls, which are a famous dessert from Salzburg that look like a pretzel but come with lots of different toppings. I got one that was glazed and had poppyseeds and nuts on top, and it was so delicious. She also pointed out the Salzburg fortress, and after the tour we walked up the steep hill to the fortress. It was a hard climb, but it was a spectacular view from the top. After we left the fortress we had less than two hours of free time, so Kelsey, Bekah, and I got lunch from a cafe that Mozart ate at regularly. We just got simple food like sausages, tea, and dessert, but man was it good. And I was imagining Mozart eating there the whole time!
After our free time was over when left Salzburg for Germany to visit a Nazi Documentation Center. It was more informative about Hitler and the war than anything else, but it was actually really interesting to be more informed. There was also a bunker that was built by the Nazis towards the end of the war, and that was a little creepy and sad. We spent about two hours at the documentation center and then we headed back to Austria. We went back to Hallein and spent the rest of the night celebrating my friend Audrey's 20th birthday with drinks and dessert at a restaurant.
On Sunday we had to get up even earlier than the day before because we had a big day ahead of us. In the morning we went to the Hallein salt mine, which I was nervous about at first because I can get a little claustrophobic. They also told us there are big slides that you go down to continue the tour, and you're not supposed to try to brake on the slides which made me really nervous. Kelsey was also nervous as well, but we conquered the slides together and they were actually pretty fun! The tour itself was really cool and we learned a lot about the history of the salt from the mine being one of the oldest in the world and how the mine was started centuries ago. The salt is sold all over the world and is some of the purest there is. It was a really fun experience and it made it a great morning. In the afternoon it was a much different feeling because we went to Mauthausen, a concentration camp between Salzburg and Vienna. Mauthausen is the second best preserved camp after Auschwitz, so it is in a very similar state to the time when it was running. It was so sad and really humbling to see the conditions the people there had to endure.We saw the bunk beds that they slept in and all the beds would have three people in each of them. We heard about so many horrible thing that the Nazis would do to the people there. This camp was a labor camp, instead of an extermination camp like Auschwitz was, so they sent people there to do work for the Nazis instead of just killing them, but there was still a huge amount of murders there. The people would work in the granite quarry and have to carry up huge rocks up 186 steps, nicknamed the "stairs of death". It was so sad but really opened my eyes to the horrible things that took place.
We went back to Vienna after that, and everyone was pretty depressed, but it was nice to be back home. this week is the last week of the first session, so a lot of homework and tests coming up. More blogs later! Tschuss!

Winterreise

So remember how I got all excited because I got to go to Schubert's childhood home and see a lot of his stuff? Well last Thursday I got super excited because a group of us went to see a performance of one of his song cycles, Winterreise. It was such perfect timing with me giving my presentation on Schubert just a few days before and then going to see his apartment and church. It took place at the Musickverein, where I saw the Munich Philharmonic the week before, and it was seriously such a great concert. We did standing room again but this time pushed our way to the front so we could lean on the bar and look over the people's shoulders in front of us to read their programs. The baritone was Matthias Goerne and the pianist was Christoph Eschenbach, and they were both two of the most amazing musicians I have ever hear. They worked together so well and the music was so haunting that I didn't want it to end. And the baritone actually sang all 24 songs of the song cycle without taking any breaks. It was crazy, I don't know how he did it. After the concert I planned to meet Jessie and another friend Boyu at a bar, but as I was walking over to the bar I passed St. Stephan's and I saw a lot of people looking up at it. I thought they were just admiring it or something, but then I saw that there was somebody tight-roping between the two towers of St. Stephan's!

 At first it was really cool to watch, but as he got closer to the other side of the tight-rope I saw his hands flying around, and THEN HE FELL. Luckily he caught the rope and was hanging there, but I obviously freaked out and did not want to see anyone fall to their death. So I left. Really really hope that guy is okay.
Friday we had class and during class we got to go on a field trip to the Central Cemetery, where all the celebrites of Vienna throughout the centuries are buried. We saw the graves of so many famous composers that it was really insane to think of the people who are now buried here. Some of them were originally buried somewhere else but then moved to this cemetery. It was pretty cool. A little creepy, but still cool.

 Brahms' grave

 Johann Strauss II

 Schubert (excitement!)

 Beethoven (also super cool.)

 Wolf

 Eduard Strauss

 Josef Strauss

 Johann Strauss the first

Schoenberg

 The cemetery itself is one of the most beautiful places I've seen so far in Vienna. It is not a dark and scary cemetery at all, but really green and lush and a great place to go for a walk. Our professor told us that the Viennese celebrate death as a part of life, and the cemetery is made to reflect that, which I thought was a really cool mindset.
Had a really great weekend in Salzburg that we left for on Friday afternoon. Updates on that tomorrow!

Haircuts, food, and music galore

Okay, so I actually feel like I could fill an entire blog entry every single day. I have done so much in the short time I've been here and I am trying to keep track of everything so I can put it down here. But it's hard! Hopefully after this entry I will be all caught up to now.
Monday we were back to our normal class schedule. In class we got to hear an absolutely great talk from Dr. Paul Crabb, director of choral activities at University of Missouri. The reason Wolfgang had him come to our class was to give us a little more insight into what we have been learning about Vienna's influence on music, but he gave us so much more than just that. We got to talk to him about his musical experiences in Vienna and around the world, and he also echoed my feelings on how amazing it is to be in a city that has contributed so much to music in general. I loved hearing from him and just wanted him to keep talking because we learned so much. After class, our class put on a special event! Wolfgang told us at the very beginning of our session when we first got to Vienna that for a couple years now the music class has put on this special even where an Austrian stylist will come and give consultations and haircuts to people who want them in order to make them look more European. Today was the day of our event and it turns out that our stylist was... Wolfgang. Our professor. A 40-year old man who is a professional organist, and it turns out he also loves to cut hair. But that didn't stop a bunch of people getting some good haircuts! Wolfgang loves to make hair short,and I ended up getting one too. Wolfgang advised me that I should cut my hair pretty short, but longer in the front and shorter in the back. So it took a lot of convincing for me but I finally made the decision to cut my hair. Still deciding how I feel about it, and it definitely sounds weird when I say that I got my hair cut by my professor, but it's definitely a good story at least. After the event a group of us went to a park in the Museumquartier and some did homework and others just took a nap in the sun, but it was great to take a break from a busy day. Later, Wolfgang had invited us all over for dinner at his house, because not only is he professional musician and apparently a quality hairstylist, but he's also built a barbeque hut in his backyard. What. But we went over to his house and got to talk to him and his wife and Dr. Crabb as well and it was such a fun dinner and I am glad we got to go. The day wasn't over yet! It was also my friend Meredith's 21st birthday, so we met her and a couple other friends at a bar near Schwedenplatz which was very classy and was really fun. I really like the girls that came out with us and I am so glad I am getting to know them better.
On Tuesday we started out with class, and then for lunch we went to the Austrian version of a Spanish restaurant with an AMAZING salad bar. That a weird thing to be really excited about, but it was so good. Blew me away. After lunch my friends Kelsey, Meredith, and I went to visit a church in the first district because Meredith has to do a write-up on the architecture of a church for her class. I don't know what the church was called, but man was it beautiful. It was originally built along the Danube River so the building is built a little crooked to go along the river. The river doesn't run there anymore but it makes for a really interesting looking church. The artwork inside is also amazing and it really is a spiritual experience to be inside these amazing churches that have existed for hundreds of years that people have worshipped in for so long. After the church, Kelsey, Jessie, and I went to an English movie theater and saw The Third Man, a movie made in the 40s filmed in Vienna. It is in English and about an American man in Vienna, but it was so cool to watch it and be able to recognize places that I have been and experienced for myself. The theater itself also felt like an authentic movie theater from the 40s so it was a really fun movie to see in that environment. After the movie we met back up with some more people and went to a restaurant called Melker Stiftkeller. It is in a cellar that is based on the one at the Melk Abbey in Salzburg (that we're going to see this weekend!) and it was such a cool and cozy place to get dinner. Also, the food was so good! I got roasted pork with a bread cumpling and cabbage salad, and the meat just fell off the bone it was so tender. The bread dumpling was a little weird but tasted really good, and the cabbage was... interesting. But I ate some anyway. during dinner it started raining really hard so we decided to call it a night.
Today our class got to take a trip to Schubert's childhood home. It was especially exciting for me to go there because I had just given a presentation on Schubert's life and music just the day before, so everything was very fresh in my mind. I was seriously losing my mind while we were there because it was mind-boggling to think that he had walked on those floors and lived in these rooms, and they had the original manuscript of several of his works, including his eighth symphony "Unfinished". Unreal. They also had a piano that belonged to his brother that Schubert probably played on, and that was when it got real for me. I was touching the piano that Schubert played and composed on. It is so insane to go to these places, because we don't really have anything like that in the U.S. We also went to the church that he learned organ in and premiered and conducted his first major work, Mass in F. It was such a crazy experience, it's really hard to put into words.
Later on in the afternoon, a group of us went to see the opera. But it wasn't the regular opera. At the Staatsoper (State Opera House) they have a giant screen on the front of the building that broadcasts the operas that are going on inside live. So we got some snacks and drinks and watched the last part of the Ring Cycle by Wagner. It was really fun to be able to watch the opera, but not have the pressure of having to be really careful with what you are doing and you can talk to other people while it's going on. For dinner tonight Jessie and I got to do something that we haven't been able to do before, and that is have dinner with our host family! Barbara and Manfred made us a layered casserole type thing with asparagus, spinach, pasta, salmos, and cheese. I was a little hesitant at first but it ended up being really good. For dessert we had a baked dessert with apples, blueberries, and meringue. It was delicious.
I am exhausted from these past few days, so it is definitely time for bed. Gute nacht!

Prague, Prague, Prague

Wow. Prague. One of the most amazing cities I've ever been in and at the same time one of the saddest as well. There is so much history in one city which has existed and still has memorials from the 9th century, but also is still recovering from the Cold War and Russian occupation.
We got to Prague Friday evening and the first item on the agenda was to pick up our tour guide, Dana. Dana is a native of Prague and has been leading Hope College tours for decades and absolutely loves Hope. She is seriously one of the sweetest and most adorable ladies I have ever met and she was so full of joy to see us and show us around the city that she knows so well. She gave us a little mini tour and gave us some facts about Prague while still driving on the bus into the city. She pointed out this building called the dancing house, that was designed to We had dinner at a restaurant inside a monastery that has existed since the twelfth century. Seriously. There's also a brewery there, and apparently the monks contribute to making the beer. It was a pretty funny thing to think about. After dinner we walked from the monastery to the Prague castle a little farther up on the hill. Yes, there actually is a castle! The main part of the castle that is open to the public is St. Vitus Cathedral which is an amazing church that really shows how the castle looked when it was first built. The rest of the castle looks much more modern than I expected, but that's because it has been redone several times throughout the centuries. After the tour of the castle we went to our hotel, which is in a art of Prague that is not quite so beautiful. That part of town looks a little bit like communism never left, with graffitied walls and 70s style buildings. One thing that I noticed while being there is that government doesn't work quickly to rebuild or clean up the city. There was a huge flood in 2003 that devastated Prague, and there is still lots of work being done to try to rebuild from that, and of course there are still lots of effects left over from the communist days.
The next day we got up bright and early for breakfast and then headed out on a tour at 9 am. We were planning on doing a long walking tour, but there was a lot of rain, so we took a bit longer with the bus tour before the walking tour than originally planned in order to try to wait out the rain. When we finally started walking Dana showed us some of the most famous squares in Prague, like Wenceslas Square and Old Town Square. We also walked on part of the Charles Bridge, built by Emperor Charles in the 1300s. We also saw the place where Mozart first premiered Don Giovanni and all the music students got really excited. Also Franz Kafka was born and lived in Prague for his whole life so we saw some places where he lived and in all of the souvenir shops they have all sorts of stuff with Kafka on them and books and journals about Kafka. All of the architecture that we saw was just beautiful and hard to believe that it had been built so long ago. Old Town Square that Dana showed us is probably the most touristy part of Pargeu but also the most beautiful. It has several huge towers that are part of the Old Town Hall, and it also has an astronomical clock that we got to go up in and get amazing views of the whole city. After the tour we got to go on a boat ride down the river and we went through the lock in the river and got to have lunch as well. The food was delicious, but the ride in the boat was a little nerve-wreaking. In the lock there was a long line of boats waiting and we kept bumping into the walls of the lock and almost bumping into the other boats. The hits were pretty hard on the walls so we kept getting knocked over if we tried to get up and spilling our drinks. Interesting boat ride number 2 of my time here!
The boat ride ended around 2 and we had free time for the rest of the day. The shops in Old Town Square and around that area looked pretty cool, so Jessie and I spent some time looking through the shops and buying some cool gifts. We made our way over to the Municipal House where they host concerts and art exhibitions. Jessie is really interested in a Czech painter named Alfons Mucha who is an art nouveau artist, and at the Municipal House they are hosting a collection of his posters and other works so we went through the exhibit. It was a really cool exhibit since I have never heard much about this style of art, so I learned a lot by going through the collection. They had a video at the end of one room that told about how this collection came together and how it came to the Municipal House which was really interesting. However I was so tired by this point that we sat down to watch the video and I fell asleep almost instantly. In a museum. How embarrassing. But after moving on from the art we went and got dinner and then went to one of the coolest shows I have ever been to. Prague is famous for it's Black Light Theaters, where there is no talking and the props are lit up by black light and it looks like things are floating or flying just by using people dressed all in black moving these props around. We saw a performance based on Alice in Wonderland, but it's about after she comes back from Wonderland. It was a little trippy and a little confusing at times, but the prop use and scnery and special effects that they used were so cool and so unlike anything I have seen before in theater. Prague has several black light theaters all around town with all different kinds of performances and if anyone ever goes to Prague, going to the black light theater is definitely something you have to do.
The next day we got up pretty early again and was back on the bus again by 9 am. We went to Prague's Jewish Quarters which has one of the oldest and biggest community of Jewish people in the world. During WWII when the Nazis were trying to exterminate all of the Jews, they left the Jewish quarter in Prague largely intact because after they had exterminated all of the Jews they wanted to make Prague's Jewish Quarters a "museum of an extinct race". Kind of gruesome, but without that there would not exist today some of the oldest and most beautiful synagogues and relics of Jews from centuries ago. We first went through the Pinkas Synagogue, which isn't used for services anymore but has inscribed on all of it's walls people from Prague who were taken to concentration camps and killed during WWII. On the second floor there is a collection of children's artwork from the concentration camp that all the Jews from Prague were taken too and all of this put together was very emotional and made you realize just how much the Jewish people faced during that time. The children's pictures especially were very difficult to look at, and while some of them were very optimistic, others showed exactly how life was for them in the concentration camp. For a lot of the artwork they had the names of the children who made the picture and their life dates as well. So many were killed at such young ages that it was really hard to look at the pictures. After that we went through the Jewish Cemetery which has people buried there from the 1400s and has about 12,000 tombstones there. However people were also buried in layers on top of each other, so there are probably at least 20,000 people buried there, which was really interesting and a little unsettling. Once we left the cemetery we walked over to the Spanish Synagogue a couple blocks away. The Spanish Synagogue is called one of the most beautiful synagogues in all of Europe, and I can definitely believe that. It was built as a reformed synagogue so they actually have a beautiful organ there as well. the Spanish Synagogue was used as a place to store valuable things from Jewish families during WWII, and some of them are still there and there are pictures from before and after WWII. The whole experience was a really cool one and opened my eyes more to just how much these people have faced over centuries of abuse.
After we finished that tour, Jessie and I decided that we were not done with shopping in Prague so we went to more shops and bought some more items. Afterwards I really wanted to go up into the Old Town Tower since we hadn't gotten to do that the day before, and man, were those views beautiful. The Tower is right in the middle of the city and every way you look you can see beautiful buildings and amazing landscape.It was different from the other views we'd seen since those were separated from the city, but this was right smack in the middle and I am so glad we got to go up and experience that. We also tried a traditional Czech dessert called Trdelink, which is basically pastry wrapped around a metal rod, rotated over a fire, and covered with cinnamon sugar. DELICIOUS. I want more. Finally it was time to leave, so we hopped on our bus and started the long 5 hour bus ride back to Vienna. I am so happy that I got to experience this city, but I really missed Vienna. Time to go home!

Music Nerd Heaven

So I don't know if you guys know this, but Vienna is kind of like the Mecca for music students. There are performances happening every single night in multiple concert halls and theaters. Music history was basically created here and there are so many places where you can go see where a certain composer lived or worked or performed and museums of music history or instruments. So obviously I am living the life over here. On Thursday night friends Kelsey and Bekah and I went to see the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra perform at Wiener Musikverein, a famous concert hall in Vienna just a few blocks from the Staatsoper. The concert hall is amazing and it looks like this:

It's funny because it is completely flat. There isn't a balcony except for one small strip around the entire concert hall. But the orchestra was absolutely amazing. It was conducted by Lorin Maazel, super famouns French conductor. They played an overture by Wagner, La Mer by Debussy, and Rite of Spring by Stravinsky. I loved them all and they were all played beautifully, but I have always loved Debussy and La Mer was so amazing. The concert in general was one of the best ones I've heard and definitely the best orchestra I've ever heard.

The next day in class Wolfgang took us on a walk around Vienna, mostly in the first district, to show us certain spots that were of interest. We saw a cafe where Mozart premiered a lot of chamber works, where Vivaldi died, and a couple of Beethoven's apartments that he lived in while in Vienna. He moved like 40 times so it was impossible to see them all, but this is one that he lived in for the longest: 

It was kind of sad to see the graffiti all around this really special place where some of the most amazing music was created. Other places that we saw, like where Mozart died, is now a department store, and it makes me sad that these really important places weren't appreciated for the history that they hold. However, most Viennese people really value music and when it is created, but they get used to seeing these amazing places and just take them for granted. I am lucky enough to be able to realize how cool it really is that these amazing musicians walked the streets that I am now walking and I hope that some of their genius can rub off on me while being here!

Blast from the past!

Monday began our first week of our regular schedule of classes. We had our first real class in the Institute and then we had the rest of the afternoon off. I ended up meeting my friend Maggie from high school that happened to be in Vienna for a few days and we had a great time! I haven't seen her in a while so it was so fun to catch up and have some good conversation. Her and I and my friend Meredith who is in my program decided to do standing room for the opera at the Staatsoper (the real Vienna Opera House) and got to be on the main floor with a seriously great view of the stage for only 4 euros. We saw "La Fille du Régiment" (The Daughter of the Regiment) and it was SO GOOD. first off, it was amazing to be in that venue. The way that it is set up is so different from any other theater that I've seen in that it has a main floor with regular seats and standing room, and then the next four levels are just boxes, and after that there are two levels of balcony. Each person, whether sitting or standing, gets their own little screen where you have the subtitles and can select the language that you want it to be in. That alone was really cool, but the opera was amazing! There was not any weak singers and the opera was so funny. I hadn't heard anything about it before but it's actually probably one of my most favorite operas I've ever seen. After the opera Maggie and I went to a bar and talked more over a couple glasses of wine. I felt very fancy but it was really just so much fun to hang out with her.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays I don't have class till 1:30, but on Tuesday I still left with Jessie when she needed to go to class and just worked on homework all morning. In the afternoon I had class and then after class Jessie and I went to where Maggie's hotel is in the 3rd district to meet up with her for some dinner. However, she said that she would meet us at the subway station, but when we got there we realized that there were multiple places that she could be, so we wandered around the block several times for about half an hour and got pretty lost before finding some Wifi and getting in touch with her. Finally we figured out where she was and went to find some dinner. We went to the restaurant Salm Brau, but in order to get there we walked through the Belvedere Gardens, which are absolutely beautiful. I can't really describe how much beauty there is there because it is really too amazing for words. The grounds are beautiful and it makes you feel like you're living in a fairytale. I took a bunch of pictures, so hopefully they will be posted soon and you can see for yourself. At dinner I ate Schinkenfleckerln, which is a baked Austrian pasta dish with ham and cheese, which was delicious but HUGE. Still had room for gelato though, of course.
Today was really cool because our class visited the apartment that Mozart lived in the longest when he was living in Vienna. It was so humbling to think that I was walking where Mozart had walked and was in the rooms where he composed some of his greatest works. We got to see some original manuscripts and learn more about his life, and I knew that he was a genius before today, but it's really hard to grasp just how much genius he really had until you realize that he could listen to entire symphonies once and then right down every single part almost exactly correct. It was so inspiring to go there and I hope that when I am in Salzburg I can see his birthplace and childhood home as well. After visiting the Mozarthaus, some of us went back to Schönbrunn to walk around in the gardens since the last time we were there it was raining and not the nicest time to be outside. Today though was a gorgeous day and the perfect time to explore. We walked around a bit and then just ended up sitting in the grass and taking in the view, and maybe a little nap in the sun as well. It was so nice to just relax and really absorb the scenery, since almost every day it seems like we've just been going and going without being able to really take in what we're seeing. After the gardens we ate a really great Italian dinner at a restaurant called Della Lucia, which also has great daquiris and amazing desserts. For dessert I had a strawberry crepe with vanilla and strawberry ice cream and it was so amazing. I say that about everything, but it really was so good!
Tonight we're home pretty early because we're exhausted. Gotta fuel up for tomorrow! Gute Nacht!

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!

FINALLY IN VIENNA

We finished out our stay in Mörbisch today. Yesterday we had our first class in the hotel and I am so excited about the class I am taking. It's called Vienna's Musical Traditions and the professor is so great. He's lived in Vienna almost all his life except for a few years when he was studying in Kansas (why...?) where he learned to speak English. His English is really good and he knows SO MUCH about music and the impact that Vienna has had on music history,and he also has a really great dry sense of humor which he says is an Austrian thing. He is an organist and vocalist who teaches at the conservatory here and he knows the stories behind so many things about composers and the pieces that they've written, not just the dry fact which makes his lectures so much more interesting. Between yesterday and today we've basically gone over the whole of Haydn's life and his impact on music. This class might be a lot of work because before the end of three weeks we have to give an oral presentation, write a 5 page paper, and write 5 journal entries.But I am so excited to experience what our professor knows in the place that it really happened and get really into the musical culture around here, so I am really pumped to get going on this class.

After our first class, we got to go on a dinner boat ride around the lake that is right next to Mörbisch. This lake separates Austria from Hungary and one of the professors pointed out some of the watchtowers on the Hungarian side that used to be used to keep people from escaping Hungary during the days of the Iron Curtain.The driver of the boat was on the phone the entire boat ride and ran us right into some weeds and said that this was where we were having dinner. We weren't sure if he meant to do that or if it was an accident and he just decided that this was where he was going to stop but it didn't matter because dinner ended up being really good. Our dinner was barbequed beef and brats with sauerkraut and bread (these people really love their meat...) and a couple of us pitched in to buy a bottle of local wine for only 10 euros. It was really delicious and the scenery was beautiful. After dinner was over and we were back at the hotel most of us left again and walked around the town. We ended up getting some gelato and sat around talking in one of the restaurants and then headed back to the hotel.

This morning we had another class in the hotel and then we had lunch and then we were off to Vienna! Coming into the city was a very interesting experience because the outskirts of Vienna was built more recently and really didn't look very nice. But even when you're in the outskirts you can see bits and pieces of Gothic towers or old parts of buildings just sprinkled around. As you get farther into the city the buildings get older and more beautiful until we got to the Institute where our program is headquartered which is right in the middle of the city and in the most busy and beautiful part. It is right next door to the Vienna Opera House which is STUNNING. We were told that you can get standing room tickets to the Opera for only three euros, so obviously I am going there ALL THE TIME. We had about 20 minutes to walk around the city so we wandered around the block and found a statue of Goethe and a beautiful park that we spent a couple minutes in. After that we had to go back to the Institute to get picked up by our host family. Our host mom's name is Barbara and her family has a long history of hosting American students. She has lived in Vienna her whole life but has very good English and told us how to get around Vienna and told us of some good spots we have to visit. She took us to her apartment where we dropped off our bags and then we went to get dinner. We ate at a sushi restaurant not far from her house, which was like culture shock inside culture shock because the menu was in Japanese and German and I could read literally nothing on the menu. But with Barbara's help I got some tempura sushi and cucumber sushi and now I am stuffed.

Tomorrow we're taking a walking tour around Vienna and going to see Carmen at a small opera company, so stay tuned! Auf wiedersehen!

We made it!

I am officially IN AUSTRIA. We finally got here after three flights over 10 hours of flying and 6 hours of layovers. Obviously we were all dead after we got off our last flight around 10:30 am Austria time, but in order to get ourselves use to the time change we weren't allowed to sleep. We left straight from the Vienna airport and got on a bus that drove us an hour and a half to Mörbisch, a little town right next to the Austrian border. I tried to stay awake on the bus ride to take in all the scenery, but there was just no way. However, I did catch little glimpses of it and it is so beautiful. When we got to our hotel in Mörbisch, we moved into our rooms and had lunch. We've noticed the the food is pretty dense here and that similar foods are served for lunch and dinner.
After lunch we had a couple of hours of free time, and the professors told us that we could rent bikes and RIDE THEM TO HUNGARY. We did it and it was insane. One minute we were in Austria with all the signs in German and the next minute and horse and buggy was riding past us and the people were talking to us in Hungarian. We rode past what used to be a border control station, and now there's just a line across the road showing you where the border is. We weren't even sure we were in Hungary at first because none of the signs were in English and when we tried to ask someone people could only speak Hungarian or German. But it was so cool and the countryside is so amazing to look at. We also went to the bank and exchanged dollars for euros, and our bikes only cost us two euros which seemed super cheap to us.
There's only one main street in Mörbisch so after we returned our bikes we walked down the main street and got gelato. The buildings here are so different from anything in the U.S. because they're all connected and each building or house has it's own courtyard and huge garden. It really looks so adorable and a bit of what you might have seen in pictures of little towns in Europe but it's so different until you've seen it in person.
Today we had a breakfast of bread, fruit, cold cuts, and cheese, and then had our first German instruction. I know almost no German so I really need the help. We basically just learned greetings for hello and goodbye and also went through numbers up to 20. We also learned "bitte" means please and "danke" means thank you, and all of this we need in this little town because a lot less people speak English here than they will in Vienna. We also got our Austrian cell phones today and talked about what our housing in Vienna is going to be like, which I am super excited for. We're starting our classes here in Mörbisch and we have our first one today and it should be a lot of fun.
I've only been here for about a day but I am already loving it. Tschüss for now!

Pre-Vienna Thoughts

I leave for Vienna bright and early tomorrow morning! I have spent most of this week freaking out about making sure I have the things I need and that I won't forget anything. While I still need to go shopping today to get a few last-minute items, I am so ready to go. I am so excited to go and experience this amazing country and city and immerse myself in the culture for almost two months. I'm hoping to regularly post here so that other people can see what I'm doing and so I don't forget what I did. Next time I post here, I will be in Europe! Tschüs!