Anna Netrebko Stalking Part Two

Since Anna Netrebko didn't stop for signatures and my plan was to get her to sign my mother's birthday card (yes, I would be the best daughter ever, sorry Ali and Mike), my roommates and I headed to the Opera Cafe to watch Anna Bolena again, but without the waiting in line and standing and with torte!

My Fliegende Höllander torte!

Although Netrebko snuck out another door, we did get Elizabeth Kulman's signature

As well as the beautiful Ildebrando D'Arcangelo!

Baden and Butterfly

Rachel and I took a trip to Baden today, aptly named "Bath" after the natural hot springs and thermal waters of the city. The likes of Beethoven used to travel there from Vienna for the natural healing powers of the water. We figure we are as cool as Beethoven.

On the short train ride there

The path to the city center from the train station in the cute little city.

Beautiful blooming trees!

Center of town

Baden Bahn!

Adorable!

Beethoven even had an apartment here, where he wrote the 9th!

Traditional Austrian lunch of Fiaker Goulasch outside the bathhouse

Gelato!

After the warm waters in Baden, we headed back to the city to catch Puccini's Madama Butterfly and afterward met Madama Butterfly herself, Fiorenza Cedolins, who gave us her card in case we ever wanted a lesson.

Lesson of the day: we really are as cool as Beethoven.

Another Day in the Life

This is what Vienna looked like today. Just thought you should know.

Anna Netrebko Stalking

Anna Netrebko is in Vienna. My mission: get her signature as a birthday gift for my mother. And also see her perform. Tonight was the opening night for the Wiener Staatsoper's first ever production of Donezetti's Anna Bolena since it was first played here back when the opera was composed. This is also the opera, in which she is opening the Metropolitan Opera's season come fall. This is a big deal to say the least. The Staatsoper pulled together an all star cast, with the Elina Garanca and Ildebrando D'Arcangelo playing opposite her.

We arrived several hours earlier than we normally do (3 hours) and were still well out the door and around the building waiting. We sat and sat for hours to get our standing room tickets.

Jess and Rachel waiting to get tickets

Once we got in I took some shots of the Staatsoper, seeing as I rarely bring my camera

Grand entry way

Home away from home

Curtain call after the fabulous performance. Netrebko is in the very center, D'Arcangelo is on her right and Garanca is on his right.

Waiting to get her signature!

But she made no stops, Erwin and her headed off to a glamorous party, I am sure.

Except she made one stop for an adorable old man who brought her flowers.

Chocolate Chip Elephants

It's my roommate Rachel's 21st birthday! To celebrate we got dressed up and went to Bangkok, the nice Thai restaurant by our place, and then came home for a special cake made by yours truly.

At Bangkok for Rachel's birthday dinner!

Pad Thai! Nom nom nom!

Happy Birthday!

When I asked Rachel what she wanted as a cake, she said funfetti or chocolate chip cookie cake, I know she loves elephants and music and her favorite color is blue. Hence the Rachel specific Elephant shaped cake, with a funfetti head and cookie cake ears, trunk, and tusks, topped with blue frosting musical notes and fermata eyes!

The tusk needed some help to keep from breaking

Love this cake!

BO SKOVHUS!

Abe is in town visiting his former home with some of his friends from Berlin and Hanna's friend John is also in town for the weekend and everyone is staying with us at Dürergasse, meaning we are essentially running a hostel! We started our guests stay with a trip to the Wiener Staatsoper to see none other than Arabella, with the full intentions of meeting the cast after the show. You know what that means ladies and gents, officially meeting Bo Skovhus, the man who doesn't yet know we are getting married.

I realized I didn't really have any photos of my home away from home, so here is a shot of the Wiener Staatsoper from the front row of the Standing Room seats

The curtain call for Arabella! Time to run to the stage door!

Bo was about to leave, but I would hear none of it and asked politely for a photo and played the we are young singers card, he graciously signed our programs and...

With BO SKOVHUS!!!

We also stuck around and chatted with Camilla Nylund, who played Arabella, talking about singing and her advice for young singers: find a good teacher and don't start singing things too big for your voice before you are ready!

After our exciting evening we went to Zanoni and Zanoni to celebrate Kelly's birthday!

With the whole Dürergasse Hostel group!

At Zanoni and Zanoni, Jonathan, who is studying in Prague, told me about these Apple Bombs he had a bakery near his place, which were essentially baked apples wrapped in pie crust. Needless to say, I went home and started in on them right away. Best idea ever.

Therme Wien

Mayo and her mom invited me to join them for a trip to Therme Wien, a thermal bath out in Oberlaa, tonight. It was actually one of the coolest things I've ever done. Newly renovated, Therme Wien has like 7 or 8 different types of pools and another 7 or 8 different types of saunas, all designed for relaxing and having fun.

One pool was both indoors and out, so you could swim in the outside pool or the inside one without leaving the water. Meaning Mayo and I could chill outside under the Viennese stars while standing in front of one of the powerful massage jets in the pool. There was also a salt water pool outside for floating, which played calming music under the water! Indoors there were a set of kids pools, and two giant waterslides, on one you used a tube and the other you didn't. Both waterslides were entirely enclosed and dark except for smalls twinkling lights on the ceiling, except for the one which you didn't use a tube, in which there was a section of clear tubing, which went outside the building so you could see Vienna! SO COOL. There were also more relaxing pools indoors, including one dimly lit pool with a waterfall and tiled seating areas built underneath the water, so you could either sit on a bench or lie out on an underwater lounge chair of sorts. And there were just as many saunas as there were pools, of varying temperature and steam level, each with different scents and seating arrangements. The traditional wooden steam room was the hottest and dryest, with cooler brightly tiled steam rooms filled with thick steamy air at various lower temperatures.

When we left three hours later I was probably the most relaxed I have been in a long long time. Just what I needed!

Petite Eggplant Lasagnas

Okay travel blog, it's identity crisis time, because today I made petite eggplant lasagnas for dinner and thus for the day you are becoming a food blog! The inspiration for my petite lasagnas came from the real food blog Can You Stay for Dinner, where they served petite lasagnas made in muffin tins with wanton wrappers. Being that I live in Europe, I have no muffin tins, so I did a little research and confirmed on a Garden Web forum that you can use coffee mugs for baking in. I also didn't have any wanton wrappers on hand, so I used leftover lasagna noodles from my last full sized lasagna. Since I also had a great deal of eggplant that needed using I decided to take my father's lasagna recipe and eggplantitize it!

I very slightly adapted a recipe for an eggplant sauce, which I found on EggplantRecipes.net and went ahead and cooked that first while I cooked the lasagna noodles.

Eggplant Sauce
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1-1/2 eggplants, peeled and cubed
5 medium tomatoes, boiled and skinned (I don't deseed, but you can), then chopped
1 tsp tomato paste
1/4 cup dry red wine
1 tsp basil (I used dry, but the recipe calls for 2 tbsp fresh)
1 tsp orageno (I used dry, but the recipe calls for 2 tbsp fresh)
1/2 tsp parsley
S&P to taste

1. Heat olive oil in large saucepan over medium heat
2. Add onion and garlic. Saute until onion is tender
3. Stir in eggplant and tomatoes and let simmer for 2-3 minutes
4. Add the red wine, basil, orageno, parsley, and season with salt and pepper to taste. Stir in the tomato paste.
5. Reduce the heat to low. Cover and simmer for about half an hour. I then crushed the sauce with a wooden spoon to make a smoother consistency for the lasagna.

For the Petite Lasagna themselves, I used an altered version of my father's normal lasagna recipe.

Petite Eggplant Lasagna
Makes 3-4 petite lasagnas (depending on the size of your mugs)

Ingredients:
1 to 1-1/2 cups of ricotta

1 tsp nutmeg

S&P to taste
4 lasagna noodles, cooked (mine were short, only about 6 inches long, so I got two circles that fit my mugs out of each)
1 ball of mozzarella cheese, sliced in circles to fit the size of the mug and thickness of a lasagna noodle (or if you don't live in Europe, about 1 cup shredded mozzarella)

Grated parmesean cheese to top
Eggplant Sauce (see above)
1/2 eggplant, sliced in circles to fit the size of the mug and thickness of a lasagna noodle

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Mix the nutmeg into the ricotta and add salt and pepper to taste.
3. Cut lasagna noodles to fit the size of your mug. I also made one where I layer the lasagna noodle like in the
4. Layer eggplant sauce, lasagna noodle, ricotta mixture, eggplant sauce, mozzarella, and slice of eggplant two times or until you fill your mug.
5. Sprikle the top with shredded parmesean.
6. Bake at 350 for about an hour or cover and them them in the freezer to chill until you need them!

Mahlzeit!!!

Lied Midterm

Today was my second and only real midterm of the semester. I am taking a 400-level musicology course on 'The Lied' taught by the same world renowned musicologist, who I had my internship with last semester. As good as I felt about knowing the information, the problem is that half of the test was a skills test, based on harmonic analysis, which I know, but not well. My guess is that somewhere on the test there was an Italian 6th chord, which I never found, so I know I messed up at least once, but we will just have to wait and see! Either way, now I am free for a few days of lazying about Vienna and playing host to my friend Abe and his friends from Berlin.

Arabella

I went to see Strauss' Arabella tonight at the Staatsoper and fell in love with barihunk (baritone + hunk = obsession) Bo Skovhus! He played the adorable character of Madryka and played him very well, I am always surprised when great singers can also act really well! Point is, I love him, just as all of the Viennese do, since he saw his rise to fame on their stages (he started at the Volksoper). I'll send you an invite to our wedding.

Venice: Is this Real Life?!

Here are a few highlight photos from my weekend trip to Venice with my lovely roommates, Jess, Rachel, and Hanna!

We started out on an overnight train to Venice from Wien! We had an entire compartment to ourselves!

We arrived and wandered through the town to the apartment we were renting!

Our apartment!

Before heading out in our apartment

San Marco!

Cool Clock at San Marco!

1, 2, 3 JUMP!

Group Shot!

Dinner! Cuttlefish ink pasta!

Typical Venice!

The Grand Canal!

Wandering Venice!

My favorite parts of Venice all look like this!

GELATO!

At night

A Venetian church I haven't been to!

A farewell Spritz before heading to the train station!