Midterms

My roommate's father passed the night before our Mahler final. The rest of the week was spent not studying for our midterms. I took them, I passed them. And I went to Hallstatt.

The Apartment

The real reason I stopped updating, oh so long ago was because my roommates father passed away suddenly. It hit our apartment pretty hard and it took a while to get back together. No details necessary, but maybe this explains a little bit.

Why study when you can eat Pie?!

Tomorrow we all have our german midterms, so a german study party was a necessary thing in my mind. And since Thursday night dinner was cancelled this week, food was the next obvious addition to our night. Thus came our German Midterm Pie Party! Which shortly after the night began, simply became Pie Party!

First course? Ice Cream Pie, courtesy of Abby and Claire, which was essentially layered ice cream and other yummy chocolate, nutty goodness frozen in a pie shape.

Second Course? Addictive soft cake-y Chocolate Brownies made by Peggy

Third Course? A Sara Lee peach pie, which Claire and Lily slaved over for hours and hours and did not by any means pick up from the store on the way home.

Fourth Course? Jane's intensely dark and dense chocolate pie, which was almost a fudge pie really.

Fifth and final course? My homemade buttermilk custard pie with a blueberry sauce! Which was easily one of the best things I have ever made. I made the blueberry sauce similarly to how I made my cranberry sauce, with less sugar since blueberries aren't so sharp. I got the pie recipe from Dishing Up Delights one of my favorite food blogs.

The pie crust turned out perfectly, except for the fact that it was super thick because I made too much, thinking I was going to make a top, which I for sure was not. The recipe came from my mother, whose helpful hints were essential in the creation of this masterpiece!

Enjoying drooling.

Salome

For the past couple months, I have been reading up on my Strauss, the Richard version, for my program notes on his opera, Salome. Today was the actual production at the Wiener Staatsoper! Jane and I got all gussied up for our box seats - that is right actual seats! - and went to the opera at the same time as regular people, not three hours ahead like we do for standing room! Our seats were not as partial view as I had expected, since we got them for only ten euros, and if we stood up, then the small bit that we couldn't see sitting was visible. But just being in the box was a huge part of the fun, having our own private room for coats, and the velvet everywhere, that isn't worn down and old like the velvet in standing room!

I have to write a newspaper-esque critic as the second part of my assignment, and won't bore you with the details, but here is a short run down on the production. The set and costumes were Jugendstil with a very Klimtian feeling, probably to pay tribute to the major artistic movement at the time when Strauss was writing Salome. A bit overwhelming at times, it was effective and made for an absolutely beautiful set.

Salome was played by Christine Naglestad, a stunning soprano with incredible power and control. Her portrayal of Salome was spot on vocally, with a growling low G and chilling pianissimo upper register that contrasted sharply with her dramatic hich C which penetrated Strauss' giant orchestra with ease. Her dance for "Dance of the Seven Veils" left something to be desired, but was not too bad comparably. My only real disappointment was her treatment of Jokanaan's head, which she carried around stage like it was a feather. She really did not sell the fact that it was meant to be a human head.

The rest of the cast was fairly strong, except for Herod, whose vibrato was so large you had no idea what pitch he was actually singing. Overall though, this was one of the best productions that I have seen at the Staatsoper and probably my favorite show, which bodes well for the possibility of me writing about Strauss for my honors thesis next year!

English Speaking Nanny

So I have had "English Speaking Nanny" as my employer on Facebook for while now, but I finally actually started working today!

I met up with Inge - wife, mother, designer, woman who gave birth a week ago and my employer - outside their apartment in the 18th district. She and Arthur (pronounced AH-tur with the adorable german accent) her week old son were ready to show me the way to Leon's Kindergarten, which was just around the corner. I met his teachers and helped his put on his shoes, before we walked home through the park where I attempted to talk to him about the trees and their current bright colors, since I know he knows the colors. I don't really know how much English he knows, I just kind of talk at him mostly. He isn't very comfortable speaking back.

We then slowly made our way to Stella's Volkschule - elementary school - where I met her teachers. On our way home, I pushed the stroller while they chatted with their mother in German, which I could understand but had to pretend like I couldn't understand, because their parents don't want the kids to know that I can speak German, so that they are forced to speak English. A good plan so long as the kids get a little more comfortable.

When we got back to their house, Inge took a well deserved nap and me and kids watched Muzzy! Which I remember watching in my German I class back in high school, but the german version. Good times. We chilled, read a little, ate a snack and before I knew it, it was time to head home!

I think I am really going to enjoy this job, although I think it will be a challenge trying to work with the kids and teach them English. I feel like I need to search for some activities or something, because I don't know if just talking is enough. Maybe that is the overachiever in me talking.

Follow the D Straßen Bahn! Follow! Follow! Follow! Follow!

Made my first visit to a Heurigen today! A Heurigen is a traditional Austrian restaurant that is essentially the equivalent of the German Beer Garden. The word Heurigen is interchangeable with Heuriger, depending on how you use it in German (for those who know German it is an adjektival nomen), and it comes from the word "heute" which means today, because the Heuriger specialty is this years wine.

Alex, our RA knew of a few traditional places, so we took the D line Straßen Bahn out to its end at Nußdorf and found 3 adorable Heurigers, all of which were completely full. So Alex made a reservation at his favorite and we went and got an Aperitif at a nearby restaurant. Charlotte and I got martinis, which came in oversized shot glasses without olives and tasted mostly of vermouth: weirdest martini ever?Yes.

We got a call shortly after and headed back to the Heurigen, where our giant table for 10 was waiting. Christina's friend is in town and she is a former IESer, who is currently in Salzburg with the Fullbright program, so our group was a fun mix of old IESers, current IESers and then of course Alex, the perpetual IESer. We order enough white wine for all of us, as well as two bottles of carbonated water, so that we can make our own Spritzer.

Heurigers are different from restaurants and do not serve food, but there is a buffet style counter, from which you can order breads, cheeses, potato salads, meats, etc. I asked the lady what she recommends for a first timer, and she put together a plate of a slab of meat, sauerkraut and a hunk of knödl or dumpling. Amazing meal and amazing wine! The whole experience was incredibly fun and relaxing and even though I was extremely tired by the end, it was so worth it!

Sunrise at Schönbrunn!

I woke up at 6:00am to a phone call from Zan, who was letting me know he was almost to my place. Why 6am? Because we were heading to Schönbrunn palace, the former summer home of the Habsburg family, to watch the sunrise! Abe and I had planned to do this Friday, but he wimped out, so we did it Saturday instead. I made hot chocolate for the cold morning, which we transported in regular mugs because it's all we have, and we went and hopped on the U-Bahn.

We got to Schönbrunn shortly after and I hoped to God the place was open, which it was, but every closed gate we passed, Abe made some snide pessimistic comment. We got to the main gate which was open and went searching for the entrance to the gardens. We had about 20 minutes to sunrise and could not find a direct route, but eventually got into the gardens and started heading toward the hill, where we planned to watch the sunrise.

Of course, at 12:30 the night before when we made plans to do this, none of us thought to check the weather, so it was cloudy and we all knew we weren't really going to see much. But once we reached the top of the hill, we settled onto some benches and watched as the city of Vienna got slightly brighter and the street lights started going off.

Vorsingen

I auditioned for the Uni Wien Chor today! I went back to campus tonight and found the building where auditions were being held, which was right next to where I bought books earlier; yay getting to know campus! I wandered up to the Festsaal, and found several german-speakers waiting to head in as well. We chatted for a while about what to expect, how they work, etc. before getting called in all together. We each individually sang a few warm-up-esque exercises to determine range, did some sight reading and then he placed it. Not at all difficult, especially compared to the audition I imagined in my head for such a large school in such a musical city. I was auditioning for Symphonic Choir, who has the rep (Beethoven's 9th is on the menu for this semester and Carmina Burana for next) and level that I was looking for, and was the only one in our group to get in, which was weird because there was this British guy who was very talented, but he is only staying a semester.

After the audition I was supposed to meet up with Abe for dinner, but had some time to kill, so I went and got a drink with the British guy and another German guy from auditions. We had such a great conversation about music, since Christian, the Brit, was a music major back in college with a real enthusiasm for it and Martin, the German, had recently fallen in love and is just starting to learn more. Between the two of us, we essentially gave Martin a crash music history course. I completely forgot about Abe until he called and told me he was already at Schottentor, so I quickly paid, exchanged info, made plans to hit up an opera and practically ran to Schottentor.

We took the U2 over to the Rathaus and Abe asked me to pick a number, I replied with 22, of course. Then he told me that we were going to walk and count restaurants and the number I picked corresponded to where we were going to eat, and both of our hungry selves decided that 22 was far too big, so we cut it in half and began walking. Number 11 was a cute Italian place with a non-smoking section (!). I enjoyed a great meal of Umbertto, which I am pretty sure was a creamy white wine sauce served with shrimp over spaghetti.

As we were finishing, Zan called and asked if we wanted to meet up, which we did. So we headed over to Karlsplatz and went to 1516, a pub in the first district, which was playing American football! I was so excited even though it was only a weird highlights show, I still got to watch some football! We were all pretty tired and didn't stay long, especially once we made our plans for the morning... more to come about that!

Uni Wien Studentin!

Heute hatte ich meine erste Klasse an der Uni Wien!!! Translation: Today I had my first class at the University of Vienna!!!

I found campus pretty easily and then finding my building was super simple because there are signs and maps all over campus. I am taking Oper im 18. Jahrhunderts, aka opera in the 18th century, and I was not expecting there to be nearly so many people there for such a course. I show up, and there is this long line of people waiting to get in after the other class gets out, once they clear out, everyone heads in. I am expecting a room large enough to fit everyone, if not fit everyone comfortably. But since you don't have to register for lecture courses, they don't know how many people will show up and in a school with 75,000 people, it could be a million. It was not a million, but more than the room could hold, there were only enough tables for about the first half of students, the rest of us grabbed leftover chairs in the back, brought chairs in from the outside, sat on window sills or stood. Utter chaos.

Once the class got started it wasn't too bad. My professor is very animated and a good lecturer, not reading from the slide, but definitely elaborating off those points, making funny jokes auf Deutsch that I can't understand. In spite of understanding well more than half of what he was saying, I could not always hear, translate in my head, read the slides and take notes successfully, leaving me actually capturing and retaining about half. And the half I did get, was written completely in Denglish! Which I don't mind too much, since I can understand both, but this means typed study guides will be a must.

Why yes, that is a Chandelier

While all of you are hanging around the Ugli doing homework, I just thought you would appreciate knowing where I am working right now.

Me. Baroque Gold Leaf Decor. Carving of Cherubims playing music.

To quote Terry, "That's Raw."

Arts Marketing Adventure

Due to the high demand for adventure in my blog, before catching up on Italy and Styria, which I will eventually transfer over from my travel journals, I promise, I figure I will write about my chapter by chapter reading of "Arts Marketing Insights: The Dynamic Building and Retaining of Arts Audiences" by Joanne Bernstein. As unexciting as that seems, I can turn anything into an adventure.

It all began at the Kettbrückengasse U4 station, where I hopped onto the U-Bahn heading toward the Prater, so I could go read at the site of the former Habsburg hunting grounds, which is now a lovely park. When I reached Schwedenplatz, I got off to go and check the Eissalon to see, what happens to a gelato place in Vienna when the season is over? Abe kept asking what takes its place, and well, nothing does and now I know.

Rather than get back on the U-Bahn and head to the Prater, I decided to walk up the Donau River, along the way running into a British couple who needed directions and were happily surprised when they heard I was American. I kept on my way until I saw one of the old Strassen Bahns headed my way, which I jumped on, not knowing where it was heading cause I was getting a bit chilly and the old Straßen Bahn cars are my favorite with their wooden nostalgic charm!

I read the Foreword then hopped off. To my surprise, I was at the main Uni Wien building! I headed up the front steps to my new campus for the first time and into an absolutely gorgeous building with tall ceilings and impressive staircases. I meandered through the halls, getting lost, until I found an exit, or so I thought. In reality, it was an adorable courtyard, with Viennese hipsters lounging on beach chairs and park benches.

I read the Introduction and then headed out. I did eventually find a real exit out of the building and wandered down the Ring until I hit the Rathaus or City Hall building. An epic gothic style building with a lovely little park out in front. I found a bench underneath a giant Sycamore tree in front of a fountain with a view of the Rathaus, where I sat as the sun set and the streets lights turned on.

I read Chapter One and then jumped on the next old Strassen Bahn that came along. That took me to the Belvedere, which at this point was closed, but I wandered around the palace walls, looking at the stunningly lit palace, until I got chilly again. It was also getting close to 8pm, which meant it was about time for me to head back for Sushi Monday.

I read the beginning of Chapter Two at the stop. Then when the next old Straßen Bahn came, the second car's front seat was open, which is my favorite seat. So rather than finishing Chapter Two, I spent the whole trip to Praterstern staring out the windows at Vienna by night. There were a few stops along the way, where I could've gotten off and hopped on the U-Bahn, but since the Prater was my original goal, I felt it right to take the Straßen Bahn all the way there and complete my spontaneous Straßen Bahn tour of Vienna!

Autumn at the Prater

Went to Sunday dinner at Mayo's today for the first time in quite a while. We enjoyed an incredible homemade meal and chatted auf Deutsch for a while, before heading out to go for a walk in the Prater, which was only a few bus tops from Mayo's place.

Packed with people on this sunny afternoon, the Prater is just gorgeous this time of year. There are some weeks, I do not get outside enough, so the crisp air felt especially amazing after this past week spent mostly in class or at the library. The leaves are beginning to change and there were some crunchy looking leaves strewn about the path, that I just wanted to jump in. The perfection that was this particular Sunday, meant that the masses were out and about, strolling like Mayo and I, picnicking on the open greens, wandering the trails with their puppies, or mayhaps they rented a bike buggy madoodle(a la he Flintstones, but with bikes, not feet). It was the perfect way to spend the afternoon.

American Dinner

Today I hosted another Thursday night dinner, this time with an American theme! Since I was missing the deliciousness that is a good burger, I decided it was time to make burgers for Thursday night dinner.

Before everyone arrived, I opened up the baked bean and was going to just throw them in the oven, until I realized that baked beans in Austria are not quite the same as in America. I tried to fix it and give it some flavor, but really it needed barbeque sauce, which I just didn't have. They ended up kind of sweet, and ok, but what I wanted. But my appetizer turned out wonderfully! I made Mac and Cheese bites, with the leftovers turned into baked mac and cheese for dinner. They were adorable and cute and so good!

This is my much larger recipe for Mac and Cheese Bites adapted a recipe from Food & Wine:

Ingredients

1 pound elbow macaroni

3 tablespoons butter, plus more for brushing

3/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

4 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1-1/2 cups milk

3 packed cups of cheddar cheese

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425ºF. Cook the macaroni in boiling water until al dente, about 5 minutes. Drain and set aside.

2. Place a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet and spread butter on top the parchment paper. Take 1/2 cup of parmesan and sprinkle 12-20 circles onto the baking sheets, spread out enough so that you can create small balls of your desired size. This size recipe yields 2-3 baking sheets.

3. In a large saucepan, melt the butter. Whisk in the flour over moderate heat for 2 minutes. Whisk in the milk and cooking, constantly stirring, until boiling, about 5 minutes. Add the cheddar cheese and whisk until melted. Remove from heat and fold in the macaroni.

4. Spoon rounded balls of macaroni onto the baking sheet, packing them gently. Sprinkle the remaining Parmigiano on top.

5. Bake the Mac and Cheese Bites for about 10 minutes or until golden and sizzling. Let cool, transfer to a platter and serve.

Abe and Jane took care of the inside-out-burgers, which were filled with swiss cheese. Abby made the mushrooms and I started the caramelized onions, which she then finished. Then I baked an apple pie, which didn't quite turn out as expected, cause the pan was giant and I am not quite sure if I actually bought shortening or not, but it was still pretty yummy. Claire took care of the french fries and picked up some ketchup for us. As for the rest of the meal, everyone contributed to the making of the salad and lots of chopping for the other projects was also involved.

As always, we enjoyed the meal and each other's company, but I think I am going to take a week off next week, maybe do a smaller one, but nothing this large again for a while.

Styria!

I got an email today offering me a spot on the IES trip to Styria, due to some girl getting sick! Whee! I of course snatched the spot and am headed to Graz tomorrow! We are heading first to an open-air museum, somewhere between here and Graz, then we get to the city and wander and tour and have lunch at some place and I have ordered Wiener Schnitzel. Afterwards we have more touring fun and then dinner at our hostel. Post hostel we have the night to ourselves and I think we are going to hit up Lange Nacht der Museen, in which over 650 museums around Austria have extended hours and there are bus shuttles running you back and forth within your city and it is awesome and cultural. Then Sunday we are heading into Austrian wine country and going to a wine festival, before heading back to Vienna.

Of course, this means that I am packing now, at 2am for a trip that leaves at 7:30am tomorrow. Whee...