Day of Second Bests

Since I couldn't actually be with my family tonight, I got the second best thing.

Skype Session with the family! But Daddy's face was blocked a bit...

So, I took another photo of him... dancing!

I slept all of this morning and then spent the afternoon at the Naturhistorisches Museum with about 8 other stranded IES kids. Then Abe, Jess, Steph, and I went out to Wok and More! A chinese restaurant with a buffet, in which you create your own Hauptspeisen, or entrees, from a selection of meats, veggies, noodles and sauces. Basically Mongolian Barbeque, but buffet style and way better. I've got about 3 hours before I take off to the airport. Wish me luck!

Flight Updates!

I went to the airport this morning - left at 3 am after half an hour of sleep - where after a mess of fun, we were all told that unless you were flying directly to Amsterdam to be in Amsterdam, then you could not fly on the flight and they would not check you in.

Luckily, since I had left at 3 in the morning to get there, I was the first person in line and the second to the reticketing window. At the time, many of the major hubs were canceling flights left and right and the standbys for almost everything were totally full. So, I am confirmed on a direct flight from Vienna to Toronto tomorrow, at 10:30, arriving at 2:00. The I leave Toronto for Detroit at 16:15 and land at 17:35 on a small jet plane (with propellers!!!).

Alas, I will not be home today, but I should get out tomorrow, since Vienna is still flying and tomorrow the snow should be stopped. I am lucky, after I was done I totally randomly ran into Abe in the airport - what are the chances?! - and he had spent 17 hours in the airport yesterday trying to get home. Today he again had no luck and is on a flight tomorrow. Yikes. Positive: his Austrian friend drove me home! Negative: I had to lug my present-filled suitcase up 5 flights of stairs. Yikes.

Home Sweet Home

Home is funny word. I am very comfortable using the word "home" for where ever I am at the moment. The Amazonian jungle lodge, the shady hostel near the Rome train station, the tiny bunk bed in Maple, the dorm room in Ann Arbor: where ever I lay my head. The saying, "home is where the heart is" doesn't necessarily describe what I consider home. Because, you see, my heart is always at 28727. Fortunately, the amazing, wonderful, incredible people who made 28727 feel like home, taught me how to create the same warm, loving, caring environment where ever I go. My surrogate homes feel almost the same as that dear old suburbian house, with only one thing missing:

Lucky for me, I leave in about an hour to (hopefully - let's see if I can beat the snow) get on a plane and head home. A three week vacation at the best place on earth - I deserve it.

Frugurt. Yogurt Style.

Got a Christmas present from my favorite Asian grocery store today!

It was like one of trips to the Asia Mart, when I only buy things that I don't recognize. But now in small quantities with a gold ribbon! The exciting contents are as follows:

- "Frugurt. Yogurt Style." Mandarin Single Serving Yogurt.

- Mysterious Silver wrapper with surprise inside. Surprise: Seasame seed granola bar thing. Yes, it is as weird as it sounds.

- 21 peanuts

- A "lemon flavour" hard candy in a green wrapper

- A hard candy in a red wrapper, with only chinese writing explaining what it is. I think it is Lychee!!! YUM!!! So much better than lemon.

- One "Glückskekse" or Gelukskoejes or Fortune Cookie!

Best gift eva!!!

Hippie Crap

Today was our last official meeting of the Musicology Internship and Dr. Solvik gave us a ton of things to have ready for today. Unfortunately, 1 hour and 30 minutes is not enough time to go through everything, so all of that work which I did, including completing a thematic analysis of the first 500 measure of Mahler's 1st symphony, was for naught. I mean, not completely, I did learn and all that blah di dee blah hippie crap, but still.

Writing that made me realize, I have been away from the RC too long. I am becoming a real student who cares about things like grades and recognition and silly stuff like that. What happened to my inner hippie, who loves the blah di dee blah hippie crap?!

Probe im Festsaal

I spent a good 6 hours today at rehearsal. The first three we rehearsed Saint-Saëns Christmas Oratorio and then next three were for Beethoven's 9th. So long. And there is not nearly enough space in the Großer Festsaal at the Uni for the combined choir for Beethoven 9, so even with people off the risers and standing at various places in the general area we were still squished. It was also the first time with the full orchestra, which takes up half the room - its actually a pretty small "large room"...

Although it was far too long, I enjoyed myself and got to do homework while listening live to the first three movement's of Beethovens 9th. Can't beat that.

IES Student Recital

I was up and moving today, mostly because I had to be, since today was my friends' recital, for which I was concert managing. Christina set up a recital featuring her, Jessica, Claire, Abby, Jane, and Charlotte and wanted to use a photo for the facebook event with me in it, and thus I became the concert manager. My duties, move chairs, stands, set-up the piano, turn on and off lights, introduce the concert and make the program.

The lovely performers!

Everything almost went off without a hitch, until mid-way through, Charlotte was no where to be found and was on next. So I went back out there, rechanged the set up and sent Christina out early, since she was the only one around. Wasn't too bad, Charlotte ran upstairs to warm up and didn't go early enough, so it was a bit awkward but not really a big problem.

Post recital, I went home and napped for a bit to try and shake this thing off! Hopefully I'm fully recovered shortly!

European Germs

I spent all of yesterday in bed with a weird European sickness. I am not really sure what it was, I woke up in the middle of the night feeling feverish and then my head was just completely congested, but it didn't feel like a normal cold. Either way, I slept for well over half the day and watched far too much television and today I am feeling much better! Not quite 100 percent, I've spent a lot of today in bed too, but definitely better than yesterday.

I think tonight I am going to brave the snow and cold and go see a bunch of my friends perform in an IES Recital, which consists entirely of works composed by two IES students. I think all of my roommates are in one piece or another and it should be good. It will also be nice to finally leave my bed!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

First Snowfall. Wandering around the city in a blizzard. Baking cookies. Christkindlmarkt. Hot Chocolate. Love Actually. I think you know that means folks: the Christmas season is upon us!

I woke up this morning to a snow covered Vienna and it kept right on snowing all day long. It was a perfect snowfall really, light but constant, coating everything in a clean white. Unfortunately, when I was packing in the heat of August, I did not think about my amazingly incredible snow boots, which I need for such weather. I've been sliding around the city all day in my adorable and completely impractical grey suede boots. No warmth, no waterproofing, and no grip.

I was surviving in them for the most part, until I went to work. I took the baby in his stroller to pick up Stella from school, about a 15 minute walk away. Normally, the walk is fairly pleasant, wandering through unused streets under tall trees, but normally the sidewalks are clear. Alas, Vienna does not really use salt on sidewalks, nor do most people clear them. Leaving me, my grip-lacking shoes, and the stroller to traverse the 4-6 inches of snow covering our path. Going slowly, I managed to get there fine, albeit a bit chilled.

Stella's school is on a bit of hill and as I waited for the bell to ring, I saw a taxi cab slide slowly down it, unable to stop even with it's brakes. That did not bode well for me making it back up the hill. I made it about the first 20 feet before a lovely older Austrian woman offered to help me, which I tried to politely refuse, but she would not hear it. She scolded me a bit for my poor choice of shoes, but since the kids don't know I can speak German, I just kind of pretended not to understand and apologized for "not" knowing German. Together, we made it up the hill and I thanked her profusely before we headed home.

When we arrived, Inge asked me if I knew how to bake roll-out cookies. Like that is even a question. Who knew that I could have put all my years of rolling dough at Cookie Bake on my resume? I quickly googled the Wilton no-chill roll-out recipe and we got started. It was so nice to cook in a kitchen with proper utensils and supplies!!! Inge is a furniture designer and she was having a client party for her company, Airture (airture.at), so Gerd made a cookie cutter in the shape of one of their signature couch. It was awesome. In no time we had whipped up a batch and cut out our couches. Just as I was about to put them in Arthur started crying, so I was holding a crying infant while baking cookies. I am too young for this. The whole infant thing is totally throwing me off - they are so much work! Although I have yet to have to change his diaper, so in my book, we are good.

Anywho, after work, I met up with Jess, Abe, Rochelle, Hannah, and Georg at the Rathaus, which ended up closing up right as I got there. Schade! Although my favorite pastry stand was still open, so I got a warm delicious nutty twirly thing before we departed. When we got home, I whipped up a batch of my famous hot chocolate and Jess and I sat around watching Love Actually: the quintessential snowy day movie.

All in all, this was pretty much the best December First since the creation of the International Day We Could Be Models.