Sunday, February 8, 2009

A rainy Sunday in Vienna

Hello all!

Let me paint a picture for you. This morning I awoke to the sound of rain lightly knocking on the window. I clumbsily parted my princess curtains (yes, I have princess curtains that seperate my bed from the rest of the floral-wallpapered awesomeness that is my room), and casually greeted the serf that seems to always occupy the other half of my kingdom when she's not otherwise engaged in useful activities such as, but certainly not limited to, preparing my morning cornflakes or bringing me chocolate bars ;). After this customary greeting of "hey Britain," I felt the gentle heat of the radiator eminating from the floorboards as I made my way to the window. As I peered around the orchid emblazoned curtains, I noted the usual morning suspects - Volkswagons humming along the Ringstrasse, pedestrians hustling down the sidewalks with their dogs, and little kids on razor scooters. However this morning, something was a little different. For one thing, the windows were a little bit foggy, and secondly, the Danube was greyer and more tumultuous than usual. As I looked closer, I also noted that the pedestrians were hugging their big fur coats (which are very popular among the women here) a little tighter to their bodies, and that the unfortunately small dogs that these pedestrians seem to tow along everywhere looked a little more frantic than usual. Amassing all of these observations, I decided to open the windows and see if it was really as wintry as the scene outside my window seemed to depict. As I pulled the window pane toward me, a blast of frigid air and water hit my face.



Thank you for entertaining my creative interpretation of my morning. One side effect of being in such an enchanting place has been an inspiration to explore all the creative avenues of my personality. I would love to continue this little narrative, but for time's sake I will consolidate the rest of my adventures of the day. After I discovered how cold it was outside, I went about my normal Sunday routine. After grabbing severeal jackets, scarves, and the like, Britain and I made our way to the U-bahn, and I will have you know that we were out the door by eight. That, friends, is a whole hour before church starts. In order to get to our meetinghouse, we take two U-bahns and a Strassenbahn. It was kind of fun. I sat on the Strassenbahn (streetcar) listening to Symphonie Fantastique, watching the icy raindrops flit across the windows, and thinking about all the possibilities that stretch out in front of me. I met some very interesting people at church today, and I feel like I was much more aware of what was happening around me than I was last week. This is exciting, becuase it means that my German has improved at least a little bit. I really enjoy sitting in these all-German meetings and trying to make linguistic connections. I understood what all the lessons were about, even if I didn't catch many of the details. I brought my music with me, and so after church was over I went into the cultural hall and practiced for a little over an hour. It was so great! I didn't realize how much I took the HFAC for granted. I do not have a piano in my Hausfrau's apartment, and so it is really exciting when I have a place to practice. I worked on a trio and a duet from The Barber of Seville and Cosi fan tutte, respectively, and it was fun. After practicing, I went back to the apartment, and changed into jeans. Yay! Britain and I then went over to Dr. Vincent's for religioun class. After class, we talked about the second walking tour, and ate dinner. We had yummy stir-fry, and just hung out, which is always nice. All in all, I had a very pleasant Sunday.


Now I'm going to backtrack and tell you about my adventures from Saturday! Saturday morning, Britain, Emily, Naomi, and I went to Naschmarkt, which is always entertaining. Then we ate at Puccini's. Sounds great, right? Wrong. I realize that eating at cafes takes longer here, but it took an eternity to get our food, and they were out of almost everything on the menu. It was obnoxious. After "lunch", we met up with other members of our group at the Rathaus (city hall, funny right?), to go ice staking. This sounded like a great plan until we discovered how expensive it was. So, instead, Becky, Emily, Laura Joseph and I went on part of the second walking tour. We saw the old city hall, Maria am Gestade (a cathedral), and Judenplatz just to name some highlights. Here are some pictures!




This is a plaque on the side of a building where Mozart lived in 1783.



Maria am Gestade



Holocaust memorial in Judenplatz. It really was quite chilling to see it in person.



This is an inscription on the base of the memorial. You can see the ridges in this picture, which are books with their spines turned inward. These books represent the lives of the more than 65,000 Austrian Jews who were killed. The fact that their spines are turned to the inside of the memorial represent the idea that their lives are closed, and only the dead can read them.


After we finished the tour, we ate at the Schottenring Cafe and had Wienerschnitzel, which was tasty. Then Becky, Joseph, and I went to Stiffelio at the Staatsoper. I have never heard such beautiful singin in my life. It was rich, and powerful, but delicate and untouchable at the same time. Here is a picture of me with the fabulous soprano, Hui He. She blew my mind, she was so great!



Well, that just about wraps it up for the past two days! Tschuess!

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