Last Day of Gelato

Today is Vienna's last day of Gelato. A sad and depressing day, yes, but this also means that anytime I see a gelato place that is still open today - especially if it has a "Letzter Tag" sign - then I am totally allowed to buy a cone. I have reached a count of three today: cookies, pistazie, and pralinetta.

The Viennese tradition of gelato is actually Italian, but the Viennese have fully embraced this amazing art form. Stand gelato is very good if you are passing by, but if you are seeking gelato, my two favorites are Eissalon an Schwedenplatz and Zanoni and Zanoni. Zanoni has very traditional gelato, more ice like, and Eissalon has extremely creamy gelato, more like ice cream.

Zanoni is open all year, but Eissalon is closing today! So Jessica and Jane are going to pick up a liter on the way home for our Mexican Thursday dinner tonight. My only consolation for the disappearing of the gelato is that means tomorrow is the first day of heat! No more wear coats in class!

Update: Us eating our gelato later in the week!

Practicality

Yes I realize this blog makes it seem as if my life revolves around food. In a way it does, but here is a little bit about some other fun things happening in my life that are not food related.

I can't remember if I have mentioned this before, but I was accepted into the musicology internship here under Dr. Morten Solvik and for the first time I am getting a real look into legitimate musicology. So far, I am working on transcribing and translating a handwritten letter from Arthur Seidl, written in the late 1800s, meaning it is written in Frakture, a cursive-esque handwriting that looks nothing like modern handwriting. Fortunately, my handwriting is weirdly similar in a lot of ways. I am not sure what that says about my handwriting, but my roommate claims it means I am a genius. I wholeheartedly agree. But really, the letter is very difficult to read, his Es, Ns, and Ms, all look the same and sometimes he gets lazy and will write the same letter 5 different ways. But by now I've gotten pretty good at reading it, that said I am only half way through the first page.

Another project is a transcription of a setting of "Wanderers Nachtlied" by Hans Rott, which my colleagues and I finished a basic copy of and got into Finale. Then today in class, Dr. Solvik ripped our edition apart! We made several silly mistakes and a few Finale ones, but major props to Daniel, who put it all in for us, and we cannot figure out where the postlude is. Rott simply wrote down what looks like "hehe" and "Aß" and left a measure blank. Where is the missing postlude? I have no clue and have to find it before next week.

Third project: choose a concert, write programs notes for the concert, attend the concert, and then write a newspaper critic. I chose the Wiener Staatsoper production of Richard Strauss' "Salome," since I am thinking about doing the operas of Strauss for my honors thesis and I plan to begin my research while I am here. I began my research and have probably about 8 million books out from the library, each contributing about 2 pages worth of info, except one very large book taking apart all of Strauss' operas. I bought my tickets for the performance already and got two box seat, partial views for 10 euro!

We also have a bit of intern-esque work, just things that need to get done, but it isn't too bad and I am learning a lot from the experience!

Sushi with Mahler

Time again for our second Sushi Monday, but Abe and I (mostly I) got mixed up with timing and Jessica and I went by ourselves. Jessica had some great vegetarian sushi, some of which had steamed egg! I miss steamed egg, but I can't justify getting steamers right now, schade. I had an elaborate fish-shaped combo platter that was really really great. Also, their avocado maki was amazing, like seriously great.

Post sushi monday, we went to Mahler 2 performed by the Jeunesse Orchestra under Möck at the Konzerthaus, for which we got 7 Euro tickets from our Mahler class. Party! First time I've heard Mahler 2 live and wow. Why did I not see this when UMS presented the SFO under MTT last year? I don't remember why I couldn't go that night, but I am so convinced that whatever I had wasn't worth it. The Jeunesse wasn't all that good, they are a younger orchestra and the soloists weren't amazing, although I liked the mezzo. Still an impressive work, and earlier in the day during our Nietzsche discussion, Dr. Solvik gave us a crash course in the philosophical implications of Mahler 2, as Mahler may have seen it. It provided a whole new way to listen to the symphony, which was interesting since the next time I listened to it after this discussion was live.

Italian Dinner

Tonight I had about 10 friends overs for Italian dinner! In honor of our trip to Italy, and also just because I wanted to try the ravioli that are sold in the Naschmarkt and at about 2 Euro a pop, these handmade giant ravioli were the best investment I've ever made. I bought some spinach-ricotta cheese filled ravioli and made a butter sage sauce to go overtop, the idea I got from a restaurant we went to last week. I also whipped up a quick pesto, using my mortar and pestle, when I realized more people were coming than I thought. Anna also prepared this really yummy tuna sauce, for which I need to get the recipe.

I made some easy sage wrapped pears for an appetizer, which is really simple, but tasty and they look fancy!

Ingredients

1 ripe medium sized pears

8 large leaves of fresh sage

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 200ºC. Core and slice the pear into 8ths. Wrap on leaf around each individual slice. Butter a baking sheet and place the wraps onto the sheet.

2. Bake until the leaves are crisp and the pears are golden brown. About 10 minutes. Remove and transfer to a platter. Let cool and serve.

Post-meal, we hung out for a while, drinking the better than bad wine that Abe brought and enjoying just being able to see each other, which surprisingly doesn't happen very often. At the end of the meal, we decided that this needs to become a weekly thing! Can't wait for Mexican Dinner next week!

Sushi Monday!

Abe and I have started a new tradition: Sushi Mondays! The sushi place by my house, Natsu Sushi, advertises a special of 50% off all sushi: all the time. It was late by the time we ate, cause Abe had class, but the place was packed when we got there and we shared a long table with some Austrians. I enjoyed a lovely platter of salmon and tuna with a few maki and some really good jasmine tea and it came in an adorable little tea pot! It was really good, hence the formation of a tradition. We hung out and chatted for a while and after we payed the ridiculously cheap amount, they brought out our (free!) bowl of a few lychee in their juice and a shot of some sort of sweet, possibly lychee, drink. It was a great night and I can't wait til next week!

Italy Day 1: Harry Potter Compartment

Claire, Jane and I left Westbahnhof today at 8:30 and have been on this train in our Harry Potter compartment for nearly 6 hours. We slept through the first half and woke up around Salzburg, when we headed into the Austrian Alps. It has been an absolutely beautiful journey: blur green rivers, ephemeral falls, snow capped peaks, and Schlösser! There was one which sat high on a hill overlooking the small town in the valley below, which was so gorgeous and perfectly stereotypical. The older Austrian couple we were sharing our Harry Potter compartment with pointed this out to us. They were very nice and the lady laughed histerically along with us when Claire pulled the entire Hofer store our of her backpack:

A pack of oranges, half a loaf of sliced whole wheat bread, raisens, almonds, a bag of Haribo gummies, a jar of peanut butter and a knife to spread it. It was incredibly impressive.

We stopped at Villach and wandered a bit in the (small) city tucked away in the Alps, stopping off at a cafe by a church to get some Austrian Spritzer before we transfered onto a MegaBus style double decker to drive the rest of the way to Venice. At first we thought we were taking the 16:56 train, but luckily we realized it was the 16:56 bus. Big difference.

When we crossed into Italy, the sun began to set. The Alps sat behind us like a fortress wall and before us golden fields of corn and dark forested hills. Sometimes we saw homes, but usually the only sign of life is a church spire peaking up into the skyline. With about two hours left of our bus ride, an Arizonian woman struck up a conversation with us. At first a simple "Yay Europe" discussion between a few Americans, it quickly turned into her telling us her life story. In a nutshell: a writer of Dracula centered historical fiction, she has two kids (ages 18 and 20), claims to be 34 and claimed to live in Ecuador for a year at age 17, recently divorced now running around Europe being insane.

We got to Venice just fine and Spent a little time oohing and aahing over Venice by night, before finding the bus to our hostel, which was not on the island but the second stop just across the bridge, not even to Mestre, so we weren't far, about a 5 minute bus ride.

Our hostel (Hotel Primavera) wasn't that bad, a few things in disrepair i.e no toilet seat, but the beds are comfy and we have the room to ourselves with our own sink and it is clean. We are staying at what is technically a hotel, meaning we get a free continental breakfast!, but we are staying in the shady rooms out back in the second section of the hotel, which is the hostel section. Not too shady, but since it is in a separate building, it is a bit weird.

Note: Italy Blog Posts take from my travel Journal!

Italy!

I am off to Italy in the morning! Venice first to visit with my cousin Amy then Florence for a hot second and down to the warm weather in Rome to visit my friend Meredith! We finish up in Cinque Terre wandering the coast and then to Pisa, from which we will fly to Bratislava and hop on a bus back to Vienna! I cannot wait! I have always wanted to go to Italy and I can't believe it is actually happening. Vienna has gotten so comfortable that sometimes I forget I am in Europe and I am living this life. Then I go and hang out in the ballroom where Beethoven premiered his 3rd the Eroica Symphony, like I did yesterday, and I remember, oh wait, this is amazing and this isn't Michigan and this is my life.

Working on Updates!

I am working on updates for the past week, sorry for being behind! Lots of exciting news to come, but it might not be until after my trip to Italy! I'll work on getting everything up asap!

Leopold Museum

We went to the Leopold Museum today with my german class and my german professor, Monika Johnson, who I love. The Leopold Museum is another of Vienna's famous art museums, named after the professor who donated his enourmous collection to the museum and giving it one of the world's largest collections, if not the largest, of Egon Schiele, the turn of the last century artist who was an early expressionist but mostly still associated with the Jugendstil style. We had a guided tour - auf Deutsch natürlich - and we ended up seeing a lot of the museum's most famous works, including Egon Schiele's Porträt von Wally, but also other artists works, including several works by Gustav Klimt. We learned about several of the cultural differences in artist expression and interpretation between the US and Austria, such as different implications in color meanings. I hung around with several of my friends for a bit and saw lots more awesome furniture, my favorite, before heading home to bake Torte and Kuchen for tomorrows German Referat (presentation), which is also my oral final exam.

WIENER STAATSOPER!

I WENT TO MY FIRST PERFORMANCE AT THE WIENER STAATSOPER!!!

Go ahead and be jealous now. It's okay.

This second day into the season, they were doing Puccini's La Boheme, one of my favorites, and playing Rodolpho was none other than Stephan Costello, who I love. The performance blew my mind. A traditional design, nothing exciting there really, but what was truly incredible was the pit: the Vienna Philharmonic. Good singers can be attracted by any well-reputed opera house, but only the Wiener Stadtoper has the Wiener Philharmonik. I have watched a million you tube clips, seen several recorded productions and been to a few live performances of La Boheme, but nothing has ever come close to the incredible musicality of the orchestra that was displayed last night. The first violinist had solos that made you want to cry and there were moments I forgot there was a stage. Although that might have had to do with my €3 partial view standing room tickets, but we can just forget that. I am sure that I will see many more performances that will be just as incredible and will probably learn to be more picky, but for this first production I figured more than anything else, I should record this initial wonder and amazement.

Free Museum Sundays

Before locking myself up in my apartment to work on my German Referat, I spent a day on the town with my friends soaking up Free Museum Sunday! On the first Sunday of every month, there are a bunch of museums that open up for free and we figure we will use this time to hit up all the museums we don't want to pay for but should probably see. Today we went to the Wien Museum for their exhibit on "Wien in Film."

You walk into the dark exhibition hall and see screens hanging from the ceiling attached with what looks like nothing. These floating screens are paired with floating plaques explaining the movie clip or series thereof. On the black carpet floor, bold white letters pronouce the type of clips in the area, for example "Love in Wien" or "Wien and the War." Depending on the size of the screen and what it is showing, they are equipped with overhead speakers that contain the sound to the area right in front of the screen or with a series of headphone sets with which to listen. Impecably designed, the exhibit was incredibly interesting and a great way to view Vienna.

Post Wien Museum we attempted to find the Roman Museum, but ended up just getting Käsewurst at a stand on Kärtnerstrasse and just people watching for a bit, since the heavily used Kärtnerstasse always has some imteresting characters. Sometimes the present is much more fun than the past.

Shopping, Wining, Dining, and Eising!

Went shopping on Mariahilferstrasse today! But not for myself, rather as the personal image consultant for my friend Abe, a Mexican from Texas, is in dire need of a warm coat. The 5th avenue of Vienna, Mariahilferstrasse has everything you could possibly need. Of course finding what you need at an afforadble price, takes the skill of a seasoned shopper, like me. We wandered for quite some time and eventually found an H&M coat he liked and I approved, but not in his size, so we went and got sushi.

After sushi I left for Mayo's place, where we were having dinner and on the way picked up a few sweets and treats. When I arrived I was warmly greeted by Mayo's brother, Kay, and her mother, Edita, who was already in the kitchen preparing the chicken. I helped Mayo make a Gugelhupf cake and when we were finished, we had some time to chat in both English and German. Dinner was fantabulous! It was so nice to have a real meal with real family and sit down and enjoy it together.

When we were finished, Mayo and I headed out to Stephansplatz to meet with a few of her friends from school. They introduced me to Zanoni and Zanoni, an Italian gelato place right off of Stephansplatz that has the best Eis creations! They are a bit expensive but not too bad if you split them and they are totally worth it! Vienna is known for it's Eis but really it all just Italian. We chatted - auf Deutsch - for hours and I learned a lot about the Austrian school system and about the matriculation process for Uni, which is good because I have to figure out how to register.

And after a while, we decided to head to happy hour at First American Bar, not the famous Alfred Loos one, but another American bar. We sat upstairs in this classy little place, in a cozy little booth and ordered half off - because how else can a student afford to go out - American named drinks. Yay understanding what is going on and not having to translate everything! By this point, my brain was pretty drained from trying to keep up with Dani's speedy German and I was beginning to feel tired, and I am sure the dim lighting and cosmo didn't help. We were here for about another hour, until the waiter rudely told us if we weren't going to order anything else, we had to peace. Which ended up working out well for my exhauseted self, although the girls were very upset by how rude he was, since in Vienna typically once you order something you can sit for as long as you like and not have to worry about it and it wasn't like the place was packed, there were several spaces open around us. We couldn't figure it out, but oh well, they lost a few clients.

24 Stunden Wien

This Friday marked the first weekend where the Viennese U-Bahn (aka subway) was open for 24 hours from Friday to Sunday. To celebrate this momentous occasion, 35 bars and clubs all over the city were free to everyone with a ticket, which I just happened to have.

Our RAs hosted a Schnitzel dinner in our apartment before the night began and our apt was crowded with the other IESers from the building (there are about 15 of us in total). The schitzel was really good, since Alex - one of our Resident Austrians (RAs) - is a chef. My friends and I left a bit earlier than planned because it was just too hot and crazy in the apartment.

We got to the U-Bahn station near the Prater, Vienna's amusement park with the famous ferris wheel, and waited for the rest of our friends to show up. We knew we wanted to go to the Prater Dome, the largest club in at least Austria and I believe also Europe, because when else are we going to go? Problem was, we didn't really know where the Prater Dome is. So once my friends showed up, I decided we should just start following the girl in the highest heels with the shortest skirt. What a surprise, it took us right to the line.

We headed in and after wandering about for a while checking out all the various rooms, Jane and I headed to the main dance floor and partied it up with the kiddos, who enjoy mostly just standing and bopping up and down. We had a great time and especially enjoyed the following song and the guy who danced hilariously to it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0O1BtEx2dA0&feature=player_embedded

I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

Skype!

It is 2am here, so I'm going to make this short, but I just wanted to say that Skype is the greatest thing that man ever invented. Not the internet that you use to Skype with of course, just Skype. I just finished a call with Mike, Ali, Bree AND Blaize. It was amazing. Also, fun fact: the past tense of "to skype" in german is geskypt. I love the german language.