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!

Ariadne auf Naxos

I saw Ariadne auf Naxos at the Wiener Staatsoper tonight! Another great Strauss! My voice teacher last semester used to play the role of Zerbinetta at the Staatsoper and has a picture of herself in that role in her foyer. When Zerbinetta walked on stage tonight, she was wearing the same costume! I know that the Staatsoper has productions that run for a long time, but this just made it all very tangible.

Zauberflöte at Volksoper

After seeing Die Zauberflöte at the Volksoper, I came home to get ready to go out for a Faschings Party! Fasching is basically the German word for Carneval, so people get dressed up in fun Halloween-esque costumes and party all night! Unfortunately, I was far too exhausted from Zauberflöte and my busy day at work and school, so I decided to stay home with the roomies and we decided to have our own Faschings party. I was already in my costume, so everyone else got dressed up and joined the fun!

Jess, naturally, became a black cat!

Everyone else pretty much put on masks and we took an awkward family photo!

Making my Oscar costume an Emmy costume!

Theater Faces!

Masquerade! Paper Faces on Display!

Once upon a time, there was a lovely young Mädl studying abroad in the magical city of Vienna. It was always her dream to go to a masked ball, like a princess. One day, during the Fasching (or Carnival) season, her fairy godmother appeared and handed her a ticket to the Rudolph Rudolfina Masquerade Ball.

So this lovely young Mädl and her roommates primped and prepped for a night of mysterious masked waltzing!

Soon the lovely young Mädl was ready to head off...

... but not before a few funny photos with her roomies!

And a few nice ones too.

The lovely young Mädl danced the night away, hidden behind her Venetian mask, which was only removed at the stroke of Midnight for the midnight dances, in which she line danced with several hundred of her closest friends to end the magical evening!

Opera Glasses!

I went to the Flohmarkt (Flea Market) at my U-Bahn stop today and found a pair of antique opera glasses, that function and were a decent price! Perfect for my night at the Volksoper for Carmen!

The Volksoper literally translates to theater of the people, rather than the Staatsoper or theater of the state. The Volksoper features German operas (without subtitles) and musicals, operettas, and operas translated and performed in German; although for Carmen, they performed it in the original French with German supertitles

At the Volksoper with my Opera Glasses!

When I got home, I decided to use the last of my blueberries to make mini-blueberry cobblers! Using my one euro little baking dishes, rather than muffin pans which you normally would. They turned out great and were delicious!

Mini-Blueberry Cobbler

Schlußprüfung

Finally finished! I took my Schlußprüfung or Final Exam for my class at UniWien today! It was an oral exam, which luckily my professor let me take in English, and yet I was still incredibly nervous. I had no clue what the format would be like, what the questions would be on, and how detailed it would be. In the end it was 20 minutes of essentially essays and short answers, which you had no time to think about and ponder. It was just here is your question - now shoot! Just as intense as I imagined it. But in the end I passed, survived and now I can relax and enjoy the rest of my semester! *breathe a sigh of relief*

Wiener Eis Traum

Tonight we went skating at the Wiener Eis Traum! For the Wiener Eis Traum (or Vienna Ice Dream) the entire area in from the Rathaus (or city hall) is converted into a giant skating rink! There is one large rink covering the whole area in front and then it juts off and some of the paths in the gardens are converted into like swimming pool lane size rinks that wander around the large sycamore trees!

A marketing graphic for the Wiener Eis Traum, not exactly this year's layout but you get the idea!

You could tell who the real Viennese were, because they had their own skates, the rest of us rented some pretty uncomfortable hockey style skates, that did nothing for your feet. Being the poor skater that I am, I stuck mostly to the path, where there were fewer people, better scenery and lots of railings. After my feet could handle the skates no more, I stuck around and ate at some of the surrounding stands, which sold some of my favorite Christmas Market style foods (homemade potato chips, chocolate covered waffles, punsch, etc). Eventually, it got too cold to handle it any more and we headed home for a warm cup of tea.