I finished off my Eurail pass!

I used the final two travel days on my Eurail pass this weekend to go to Strasbourg, France. Emily and I visited our friend Kirgens, who was in Vienna last weekend. It was a very fun time. I remember talking about Strasbourg in French class in Middle School, and it always sounded like a beautiful place. It was very charming. Highlights of the trip included going on a boat tour, eating lunch in Petite France, an area that looks like the town in "Beauty and the Beast," and eating crepes (at the train station in Munich).

The Eurail pass got me to Venice, Rome, Milan, Nice, Paris, Mannheim, Munich, Krakow and Strasbourg. I would say it was definitely a good investment!

I am now back in my apartment, ready for another week of classes. It was pleasantly surprising to arrive home and see that Christmas lights have been put up on a street near my house. It was a nice welcome back to Vienna.

Here are the highlights of this past week:

Monday, November 2nd: I cooked a nice meal after classes: brocolli, carrots, and rice with soy sauce. It was simple, but I haven't been taking a lot of time to actually cook here, other than canned soups and pastas with pre-made sauce.

Wednesday, November 4th: My Art and Architecture class went to the Kunsthistorisches Museum and studied some of its Renaissance works. I have a new favorite painter: Pieter Bruegel. His paintings have a lot going on in them, somewhat similar to a "Where's Waldo" drawing, yet each contains a very important message. For instance, at first glance, one of his paintings just looks like a bunch of children playing games in a town square. Upon closer inspection, though, you see that the games are mostly dark and abusive. It makes a point that everyone is always playing their own games, and not paying attention to others around them.

Thursday, November 5th: Linda Watson, a professional Wagnerian Soprano, came to IES to give a masterclass, and I was selected to sing for her. It was a great honor, and a fun experience. I sang "O du mein holder Abendstern" from "Tannhauser," a Wagner opera. The feedback was good, and I got a much better grasp on the character of the piece.

Friday, November 6th: I skipped my classes to catch a train to Strasbourg. When I was chatting with a friend on Facebook the night before, I said "I think I'm going to skip my classes tomorrow. I'd rather go to France." He said it was one of the best excuses for skipping he has ever heard.

Saturday, November 7th: I spent the whole day in Strasbourg. It was wonderful.

Sunday, November 8th: Our train left France around 10:00, and it took most of the day to make it back to Vienna. But I feel rested and I was able to get my homework done on the train. All is well.

I love you all.

Pictures from the end of October

These are two of my voice teacher's dogs, Baloo and Buckaroo. She has four total.
At Seegrotte, Europe's largest underground lake. This boat was used in the movie "The 3 Musketeers," which was partially filmed at the lake in 1993.
The "Brain Opera" at the music museum.
This is the Mozart statue in the Burggarten that I sometimes walk past on my way to class.
In the gardens of the Belvedere Palace.
Me and Kirgens, the friend from school who visited this weekend.
Backyard of the Belvedere.
Me and Britney Spears on Halloween.

HalloWIEN

I can't believe it's already November. October flew by quickly. This week, we had midterms at IES, which meant a lot less time in class (and I hardly had to study). Also, I had Thursday and Friday completely free, so it was nice to have a long weekend where I didn't really have any homework. The weekend was especially fun because Kristen Irgens, a good friend who recently graduated from DePauw and is now living in Strasbourg for a year, came to Vienna for 3 nights. It was great to show somebody around. I discovered that talking about the city and realizing how much I know about it is very comforting, and makes me appreciate living here even more.

Halloween is very much an American holiday, and while there were a few costume stores open in Vienna, the lack of decorations (and candy) around the city made it fairly clear to me that it is not widely celebrated here. However, I still had a great time. I bought a tiger mask, which is something I will be able to wear at DePauw too, because our mascot is a tiger. I wore some preppy clothes and the mask, and it sufficed. We had people over to the apartment before going to a party at the local brewery. Costumes included: a geisha, Britney Spears, Lucille Bluth from "Arrested Development," a cowboy, and my personal favorite - Beyonce and her two backup dancers from the "Single Ladies" music video. They even learned the dance. Oh, and they were all males. It was impressive.

Here are my week's highlights:

Tuesday, October 27th: I went to Europe's largest underground lake, which is right outside Vienna. It used to be a gypsum mine, then it flooded, and that's how the lake was created. I went on a boat tour.

Wednesday, October 28th: I finally went to the "Haus der Musik," an interactive music museum right around the corner from IES. It contained a lot of information on how our ears and brains work in regards to hearing music as well as entire rooms devoted to famous composers of Vienna.

Thursday, October 29th: Kirgens and her friend Maggie arrived by train in the evening, and we went to Cafe Leopold in the Museumsquartier and caught up on life.

Friday, October 30th: We went to Schoenbrunn and admired the gardens. Everything is really pretty with the leaves changing colors. Then we went on a tour of the palace, something I had yet to do. The rooms were very impressive. I can't imagine living in such luxury.

In the evening we saw "Lady Macbeth von Mzensk," an opera by Shostakovich. It was incredible, especially the orchestral excerpts. It had a weird story line (a lot of sex and murder), but the music was great.

Saturday, October 31st: Halloween! We went to the Belvedere Palace and ate lunch at a nearby brewery. Then I went home, took a nap, put on my tiger mask and waited for people to come over.

Sunday, November 1st: Today I went to the Albertina, the museum here that contains a lot of Impressionist art, then took Kirgens and Maggie back to the train station. Now I'm contemplating starting on some homework...

I love you all.

Some Weekend Snapshots

This is the Graben, one of Vienna's main shopping streets. I took a lot of pictures on Friday as I walked all around the 1st District.
Austrian National Holiday!
This is the zipline I went on! Stepping off the platform at the top was terrifying, but amazing.
We met a bunch of tourists on the Strassenbahn Saturday night. I absolutely love this picture. Five of them were from Lancaster County, PA! We talked about the Mennonites.
The Verdun Altar at Klosterneuberg. It's one of the most significant works of Medieval art in Europe.
This is what the palace at Klosterneuberg would have looked like if it was finished. The gray part is the only part that was completed. Then the emperor died, and his daughter didn't think the palace should be finished. She wanted to live at Schoenbrunn.
Here's what was was completed of the palace.
There were some awesome breakdancers downtown. I watched them for about 20 minutes.

Ich liebe Wien!

I love Vienna!

Today was perhaps the most perfect day I have had in Vienna so far. I woke up around 9:00 and realized it was actually 8:00 because of Daylight Savings. So I got an extra hour of sleep! I met up with Emily and Karly at the festival going on by the Hofburg in celebration of Austrian Nuetrality/Independence day or something like that. We got tickets for the massive zipline erected in the park, then we went to the Prater (Vienna's amusement park, home of the famous ferris wheel) and walked around. We randomly ran into Mark and Erin, two other IES students, in the grass outside the Prater and sat there for over an hour, enjoying the incredible weather.

At 3:50, we went back to the zipline, and signed a form that was all in German (I assume it was for liability reasons, agreeing to not press charges if the zipline malfunctions, etc.). We were dressed up in our ziplining gear, taken up the tower in an elevator, and stood on a small metal ramp until it was our turn. On the elevator to the top, I started shaking, and exclaimed, "What am I doing? I'm afraid of heights!" It was very scary stepping off the edge of the ramp at the top, but ended up being an amazing rush.

After braving the zipline, we went to the opera house and got in line for "Le Nozze di Figaro" ("The Marriage of Figaro"). It was great, and especially fun because I'll be playing the role of the Count at DePauw in March, so seeing a professional production was very exciting.

It's late now, and I have yet to study for my midterms, two of which are tomorrow. But I'm not worried, because I had an amazing day, and a test is just a test.

Here are my week's highlights:

Tuesday, October 20th: After choir, I went to Mark and Dil's for "Wine and Whine." It was a very relaxing evening.

Wednesday, October 21st: After Music Performance Workshop, I went to a heurigen in Grinzing. I ate some chicken, potatoes, and drank some Sturm (this year's wine - it goes out of season very soon). For dessert, I had my first full piece of Sachertorte, the dessert that was invented in Vienna - it's a chocolaty cake.

Thursday, October 22nd: We had our first Music Performance Workshop concert. I sang a duet with my roommate Mark - "Sound the Trumpet" by Purcell. It went very well, and I enjoyed seeing all of my peers perform.

Friday, October 23rd: I walked around the city for a while, doing homework for my Art & Architecture class. I went to the Roman Museum and saw some Roman ruins from the 1st Century, then went to Vienna's oldest church. For dinner, I met up with Karly and we went to the festival. I had a gigantic plate of Indian food.

Saturday, October 24th: My history class went on a field trip to Klosterneuberg, a monastery/church/palace on the outskirts of Vienna. The palace was only a fourth of the way completed, and was intended to be the grandest palace in all of Europe. When Emperor Charles died, though, work was ceased because his daughter, Maria Theresia, decided she would rather live at Schoenbrunn Palace (which is also incredible).

Sunday, October 25th: See above.

Midterms this week, then a friend from DePauw is visiting all weekend. I'm so excited to show her around the city!

I love you all.

Pictures from Poland

Krakow's Main Square
Inside Auschwitz
Buildings at Birkenau - the largest part of Auschwitz.
Victims slept on the wooden slats, 6 to a bed, with only a blanket as covering - no pillows or sheets.
The train tracks leading to the "Death Gate," where all of the trains entered Birkenau.
St. Mary's Cathedral in Krakow's Main Square
The Wawel Cathedral (left) and Castle (right).
The Dragon's Den! Legend has it that there was a horrible dragon wreaking havoc on the city of Krakow. King Krak offered his daughter's hand in marriage to any man in the kingdom who could outwit the dragon. A carpenter came up with the idea of stuffing a sheep's hide with sulfur. The dragon ate the sulfurous sheep and had an awful bellyache - so awful that it went to the river, and kept drinking water until it exploded.
A memorial to the dragon.
I had some Polish "Golabki" for dinner - meat wrapped in cabbage, served with mashed potatoes. It was delicious!

Midway Point

Today marks the halfway point of my semester in Europe. Pretty crazy. I do feel like I've been here a while, but 2 months still seems like a long time - I enjoy my time here more every week, so in some ways 2 months also seems very short.

I just got back from a weekend in Poland. I decided to go there by myself - I'm a fairly independent person, so I thought it would be fun to travel alone. I got into Krakow around 5:00 on Friday after spending 8 hours on a train. I found my hostel, then walked around the city for a while. Most things closed early, so I sat in the Main Square, had some dinner, and did some more walking. There were some really cool people at my hostel, and I hit the town with them after dinner. They were all from either London, Australia, or South Africa.

On Saturday morning I took a tour of Auschwitz, the largest of all the concentration camps of the Holocaust. This was the main reason I chose to go to Poland - I wanted to see the concentration/extermination camp. I would definitely not describe the morning as being fun, but it was an important thing to see. I've learned a lot about the Holocaust in school, but to actually step foot on the same ground as the victims opened up an entirely new dimension for me, and put my own life and difficulties into a different perspective.

I did some more sight-seeing in Krakow in the afternoon, had Golabki (meat wrapped in cabbage), and made some more friends in the hostel.

Here are some highlights from the week:

Tuesday, October 13th: I had my first choir rehearsal. It was scary because I really couldn't understand anything the director was saying the entire rehearsal - it was all run in German. I would just watch him and smile, and occasionally glance at the other Americans in the room to see how they were understanding him - not much better than me. Fortunately, music is read the same way all over the world!

Wednesday, October 14th: My "Austrian Art and Architecture" class took a tour of St. Stephen's, Vienna's famous cathedral, at the very center of the city. I had been inside it already, and found it incredibly tacky. However, after learning more about how it was constructed, and how it actually looked when built, with colors and without signs for tourists, I began to appreciate it a bit more. We go on a tour every Wednesday. I also have Thursday tours with my history class, so it's a great way to see the city.

Thursday, October 15th: IES hosted a halfway party for the whole program, and it was a lot of fun. It's a large program (110 kids), and I still have not met everybody.

Friday, October 16th-Saturday, October 17th: Krakow and Auschwitz (see above).

This is the final week of classes before midterm week, so it might be a bit busier than usual as I make sure I'm all caught up in everything! Wish me luck.

I love you all.