Update from Vienna, Austria!
Wow... so much has happened since I last posted.
VIENNA IS AWESOME!
*ahem*
It turns out that the hotel has an internet connection! A slow, sporatic internet connection, but an internet connection nonetheless, so I should be online more often than once a week, like I originally thought!
To keep you all updated, I'm going to be writing a little journal entry every day and posting them in bulk on my livejournal every few days for you to read. That way, I won't have to worry about forgetting too many things that happened. Forgive me, I'm going to try to give as many German names as possible for things... but alas, I am not German, and although I have been in Germany and Austria for several days now, I am nowhere closer to understanding the language. I'm trying my best!
I also have links to photo albums - they are roughly in the same order as the journal entries, so you can try to follow along if you want! Eventually, I'm going to go through all of them and give them titles... but I'm too lazy right now.
Photo album 1: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016214&l=eb88e&id=59203348
Photo album 2 (more to be added): http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016219&l=a02d9&id=59203348
Anyhoo, onto the journals!
Hotel Neutor: Salzburg, Austria.
9:15 pm/ 21.15 Friday, Jan 5 2007
I’m going to try to keep this nice and brief - for some reason, my computer is seriously throwing a major temper tantrum, and threatens to spontaneously shut off at whim. Hopefully, I can control its errant ways so that my journal entries are not interrupted.
Anyways, here I am sitting in room 308 of the Hotel Neutor! It’s been a very long day (or days, maybe, I’m still not quite certain about the whole time change deal). I’ve been awake for a very long time, I know that at least. Perhaps I should start at the beginning. The plane trip went very well, though it was incredibly long. A very friendly, funny lady sat behind me. She spoke in a very heavy accent and seemed determined to chat with all of the Symphony students in her vicinity, even calling one a “big strong man” and subsequently hiring a personal baggage handler. When I told her we were on our way to Vienna, she smiled and laughed, telling me that she loves Vienna. I now have a little piece of paper with the name of a performing group she recommends: “The Mozart Band.” If I happen to run across them, I’m supposed to tell them that she says hello. We’ll see how that goes!
It was slightly disappointing, because it was either dark or exceptionally cloudy the entire trip. I was only able to see small bits of land during the last five minutes of our descent, just long enough to discover that almost all German houses look exactly the same: white with red roofs. Then we landed in Munich! Too bad I’m eighty years too late to run the chance of meeting Ed and Al. Anyways, we didn’t go into the city at all (that comes later in the trip), only waiting about an hour and a half for the buses to arrive and take us to Salzburg. The bus ride took about two hours, most of which I spent sleeping or trying not to fall asleep and failing. It didn’t really matter too much at the time, since we weren’t traveling through any major areas. We seemed pretty much out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing much to see. The landscape around Munich reminded me a lot of the Midwest, actually. Everything is tabletop flat and covered with farmland; the only differences are the language on the road signs and the slightly taller and more numerous trees. (Funny story about the road signs… I kept seeing a sign saying “Ausfahrt” pointing at every single exit, and I couldn’t help but wonder what a huge city it must be if exit and exit leads to it! Eventually, I deduced that the word must be denoting not a place, but the exit itself. Took me long enough!)
Soon, we began to see beautiful mountains in the distance. I would soon discover the Salzburg is right at the foot of these mountains, so we got some beautiful views of them! We stopped at Hotel Neutor and checked in. It’s a very nice hotel - the toilet paper on the bathroom is actually on a roll, unlike in the restrooms in Munich. And of course, I’m rooming with the wonderful Diana Springer, so the experience shouldn’t be too bad! She and I spent the majority of the afternoon resting in the hotel room and trying to figure out the time so we could set our clocks. We eventually settled for finding a German News station that had a 24-hour clock in the corner of the screen. We did the math and set our clocks with only a few minor setbacks (I’ve TOLD you math is not my strong point). After that, we wasted time watching The Pink Panther, dubbed in German without subtitles.
This evening, we walked through a tunnel under a huge stone wall (natural, though the fortress above it is manmade) from “New Salzburg” to “Old Salzburg” and went to a fancy restaurant called Stiftskeller for dinner. As a matter of fact, this particular restaurant claims to have been running without much interruption since 803 A.D.! I’m not sure of the validity of that statement, but it sure makes for good bragging. Also, the room in which we ate happened to be the space where Haydn’s brother composed music. Although the restaurant was beautiful, I’m starting to realize that my biggest challenge on this trip will be finding things to eat. Before you scold me, YES I’m trying just about everything that is set in front of me, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to like it enough to clean my plate. There’s nothing wrong with the food, don’t get me wrong… I think I just have different tastebuds. I do, however, feel incredibly bad for not finishing my meals. I hope it’s not considered dreadfully rude.
As much as I would like to continue this entry, I’m falling asleep over my keyboard. Time for bed! On a closing note, I would like to say that I am enjoying my tip very much so far (Old Salzburg is BEAUTIFUL). It’s definitely off to a good start!
Hotel Neutor - Salzburg, Austria
9:14 pm/21.14 Saturday, Jan 6, 2007
I’m terrified that my laptop is going to give out on me. It took me several tries to get it working just now. I’m crossing my fingers and praying that it doesn’t die. I’m already in a not-quite-so-thrilled mood because the group I was with decided to wander aimlessly in the dark after dinner instead of going back to the hotel, even though everything was closed. I was not really happy with this decision, because my feet were killing me, but I had no choice because I didn’t want to walk back to the hotel alone. Ah well. The rest of the day was spectacular.
Cassie, Diana, Kristen, and Rachel started out with the entire orchestra following the Strausses on a brief tour of Old Salzburg. We saw a lot of beautiful places, including the Mirabel Gardens, the Wolf Dietrich Mausoleum where Mozart’s family and wife Constanze are buried, and the Salzburg Dome, a very ornate cathedral. A lot of the architecture and baroque styles of these sites, though absolutely gorgeous, sure do convey the hard facts of the wealth and corruption of the churches at the time they were built! We also went to a museum commemorating the birthplace of Mozart. It was a bit (rather, a lot) tourist-y, but still very interesting to just know that the man was born there.
After that and a brief lunch at a small stand selling frankfurters, we met up with the rest of the orchestra and all hiked up Fetungsburg (“Fortress Mountain”) to explore the Hohensalzburg fortress. May I just add that I wish there were locations and castles like this in Age of Empires! Way up high on the cliff like that and surrounding by huge walls, the place was clearly impenetrable, no matter how big an army might have attacked it. Supposedly, it’s one of the oldest surviving castles/fortresses in Europe. Although much of it was clearly restored or built upon at a later date, I enjoyed finding the really ancient sections of the castles and walls, with the crumbling rocks that are still managing to stand so strongly.
About this time, we were all really getting tired, but we decided to set off on our own to try and find the Nonnburg Abbey, which was filmed in The Sound of Music. Evidently, it is the same abbey at which the true events took place. Interesting, no? It was founded in 700 A.D. and is the oldest remaining convent in all of the German countries. Wow! It took us forever to find it, because it was tucked away on a little hill, with only a narrow staircase leading up between two buildings to the entrance. There was a huge wooden door with the sign saying (in four different languages, English included), “Silence please! This is a place of worship. No guided tours.” Unanimously, we agreed that since we would be respectfully quiet and we were unguided, we had permission to go inside. The door was unlocked, so in we went! I really don’t think we were braking many rules, because although the lights were off inside, there was a little box near the front that, when we inserted a 50 cent coin, activated a light that illuminated the altar. It was absolutely gorgeous. We walked around the chapel in awe, because the atmosphere was so amazing. All of the old stone, dark wood, and elegant paintings and carvings were spectacular, creating such a somber, peaceful mood. Not to mention the fact that we could hear a choir of nuns singing somewhere nearby. It was completely lovely, no exaggerations.
We ate dinner with a small group from the orchestra at a Yugoslavian restaurant. It was pretty tasty, and unlike a lot of the other nearby restaurants, the water was free! Of course, I was one of only two people at our table of ten that did not order an alcoholic drink. It’s not really a big deal, since the drinking age in Austria is only 16 and the servings of wine and beer were very small, but Diana and I could not help teasing Cassie. Her Merlot, a slightly larger serving than the others, gave her a little bit of a buzz, so we jokingly called her a reckless drunk.
This is where I’ll leave you for now. Tomorrow morning, we’re boarding the bus for Vienna. Once I get there, I should be able to find a reasonably priced Internet Café - then you can actually be reading this! That is, of course, if my laptop holds out. I’ll be optimistic.
Hotel Kummer - Vienna, Austria
9:11/21.11 Sunday, Jan 7, 2007
I’m finally in Vienna! Golly, today has been a whirlwind. I’ll try and sum up events as best I can, but so much has happened! We woke up early this morning and drove roughly three hours from Salzburg to Vienna. Let me just say here that I think the Austrian countryside is absolutely gorgeous, with the scattered round hilltops with clusters of trees and little houses. It actually seemed to be very Shire-esque to me. Also, while on the bus ride, we saw an extremely vivid entire rainbow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a rainbow that vivid before and certainly not the entire semi-circle arc of the rainbow, as was the case here.
My first impressions of Vienna were overwhelming. It just hits home how much more history there is in this place than at home. I remember people getting all worked up over a house built in 1850. 1850? Big whoop. There are so many buildings here that are much older. It is also obvious how the city used to be structured, because the streets are incredibly narrow. One of the biggest streets in the older parts of Vienna is the Ringstrasse, which is actually only as big as it is because the space used to be occupied by the old city walls that were torn down to make room for the road.
We toured the inner city by bus, with narration provided by a local lady, whose name I unfortunately do not have. She was incredibly fun, cute, and quirky. One of my favorite quotes of hers goes as follows: “It’s a bit of a tradition in Vienna for architects to commit suicide. A lot of architects have committed suicide over the years, although we are still waiting for some to go…” I wish I could remember more of what she said. Supposedly she will be leading us on more tours later on the trip, for which I am excited.
We saw so many things on the bus tour… I couldn’t even begin to recount them all here. Hopefully, I’ll become more acquainted with these locations later on and will be able to recount more information about them. We saw the Hofburg, the Imperial Palace, which was huge. Apparently, the ball is going to take place in a ballroom in one of the palace wings… hurray! Honestly though, the palace was so ornately built it was ridiculous. There was absolutely no reason for it to be that fancy, but it sure was pretty! We also saw a very bizarre apartment building designed by an architect named Friedensreich Hundertwasser - the building is called the Hundertwasserhaus, in turn. There are almost no straight lines in the building; the floors are lopsided, the stairs crooked, the walls slanted. All of the apartments are painted different colors… from the outside! It was completely insane, but strangely intriguing (the outside wall had a random banana painted on it). There was a little mall called the Hundertwasser village across the street designed with the same style.
The Hotel Kummer is extremely nice, much more so than Hotel Neutor though it was pretty good as well. Diana and I are extremely excited because our room has a balcony that looks over the shopping street. Supposedly the hotel also has free high-speed internet in al the rooms, which would be awesome, but apparently a lot of people besides myself are having trouble finding a plug or wireless signal. I’ll get back to you on this particular quest in the future.
My laptop battery is dying, so I must leave you here so I can charge it up. Tomorrow, we start rehearsals at the Haus der Begegnung, and I’ll finally get to see whether my cello survived the trip. Boy, I sure hope it did!
Hotel Kummer - Vienna, Austria
6:31 pm/18.31 Monday, Jan 8, 2007
My cello survived!
Yes, that’s true! Also, my laptop has been functioning much more predictably in the past couple days. Both of my babies are okay!
All the cellists woke up early this morning to get breakfast before heading over to the Haus der Begegnung to unpack our cellos to be ahead of the huge group. It’s quite obvious that the hotel is not quite prepared for such a big group doing things all at the same time. When the entire orchestra is downstairs at breakfast between 7:30 and 8:00… it is like a mad rush hour, especially near the drink machines. There’s a major cultural difference in the equation, because the Viennese do not drink much liquid with their meals at all. While Americans are used to guzzling copious amounts of water or soda, the Viennese at restaurants only serve tiny drink cups or modest glasses of wine. Several times, I downed my entire water cup in one swig without even realizing it.
Anyways, I digress. The Haus der Begegnung is a fairly nice rehearsal room, despite the fact that it smells like smoke (there aren’t any no smoking zones here, and tons of people are smoking in public places all the time - it bothered me at first, but I’m starting to get over it). Although I must say, the best part of this entire day has arguably been the moment I unpacked my cello to find it intact. Actually, not a single cello was severely damaged in transit, which is awesome.
After we unpacked at the rest of the orchestra arrived, we started our extremely long daily rehearsal schedules. It wouldn’t have been so bad (I enjoy most of the music we are playing), except I am completely out of shape from not playing for a month. I lost all the calluses from my fingertips, so a sudden instance of several hours of practice made my skin nearly blister - nearly, thank goodness. Hopefully I’ll build up some good “string-to-skin” resistance here pretty quickly.
Other than that, I’m not sure what to say. Some of the other symphony people went to the Verdi Opera Gala concert at the Konzerthaus, so the rest of us are just mostly hanging out at the hotel or strolling the streets. I for one am testing out the hotel wireless connection… I think I have it figured out!
TO BE CONTINUED...
VIENNA IS AWESOME!
*ahem*
It turns out that the hotel has an internet connection! A slow, sporatic internet connection, but an internet connection nonetheless, so I should be online more often than once a week, like I originally thought!
To keep you all updated, I'm going to be writing a little journal entry every day and posting them in bulk on my livejournal every few days for you to read. That way, I won't have to worry about forgetting too many things that happened. Forgive me, I'm going to try to give as many German names as possible for things... but alas, I am not German, and although I have been in Germany and Austria for several days now, I am nowhere closer to understanding the language. I'm trying my best!
I also have links to photo albums - they are roughly in the same order as the journal entries, so you can try to follow along if you want! Eventually, I'm going to go through all of them and give them titles... but I'm too lazy right now.
Photo album 1: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016214&l=eb88e&id=59203348
Photo album 2 (more to be added): http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2016219&l=a02d9&id=59203348
Anyhoo, onto the journals!
Hotel Neutor: Salzburg, Austria.
9:15 pm/ 21.15 Friday, Jan 5 2007
I’m going to try to keep this nice and brief - for some reason, my computer is seriously throwing a major temper tantrum, and threatens to spontaneously shut off at whim. Hopefully, I can control its errant ways so that my journal entries are not interrupted.
Anyways, here I am sitting in room 308 of the Hotel Neutor! It’s been a very long day (or days, maybe, I’m still not quite certain about the whole time change deal). I’ve been awake for a very long time, I know that at least. Perhaps I should start at the beginning. The plane trip went very well, though it was incredibly long. A very friendly, funny lady sat behind me. She spoke in a very heavy accent and seemed determined to chat with all of the Symphony students in her vicinity, even calling one a “big strong man” and subsequently hiring a personal baggage handler. When I told her we were on our way to Vienna, she smiled and laughed, telling me that she loves Vienna. I now have a little piece of paper with the name of a performing group she recommends: “The Mozart Band.” If I happen to run across them, I’m supposed to tell them that she says hello. We’ll see how that goes!
It was slightly disappointing, because it was either dark or exceptionally cloudy the entire trip. I was only able to see small bits of land during the last five minutes of our descent, just long enough to discover that almost all German houses look exactly the same: white with red roofs. Then we landed in Munich! Too bad I’m eighty years too late to run the chance of meeting Ed and Al. Anyways, we didn’t go into the city at all (that comes later in the trip), only waiting about an hour and a half for the buses to arrive and take us to Salzburg. The bus ride took about two hours, most of which I spent sleeping or trying not to fall asleep and failing. It didn’t really matter too much at the time, since we weren’t traveling through any major areas. We seemed pretty much out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing much to see. The landscape around Munich reminded me a lot of the Midwest, actually. Everything is tabletop flat and covered with farmland; the only differences are the language on the road signs and the slightly taller and more numerous trees. (Funny story about the road signs… I kept seeing a sign saying “Ausfahrt” pointing at every single exit, and I couldn’t help but wonder what a huge city it must be if exit and exit leads to it! Eventually, I deduced that the word must be denoting not a place, but the exit itself. Took me long enough!)
Soon, we began to see beautiful mountains in the distance. I would soon discover the Salzburg is right at the foot of these mountains, so we got some beautiful views of them! We stopped at Hotel Neutor and checked in. It’s a very nice hotel - the toilet paper on the bathroom is actually on a roll, unlike in the restrooms in Munich. And of course, I’m rooming with the wonderful Diana Springer, so the experience shouldn’t be too bad! She and I spent the majority of the afternoon resting in the hotel room and trying to figure out the time so we could set our clocks. We eventually settled for finding a German News station that had a 24-hour clock in the corner of the screen. We did the math and set our clocks with only a few minor setbacks (I’ve TOLD you math is not my strong point). After that, we wasted time watching The Pink Panther, dubbed in German without subtitles.
This evening, we walked through a tunnel under a huge stone wall (natural, though the fortress above it is manmade) from “New Salzburg” to “Old Salzburg” and went to a fancy restaurant called Stiftskeller for dinner. As a matter of fact, this particular restaurant claims to have been running without much interruption since 803 A.D.! I’m not sure of the validity of that statement, but it sure makes for good bragging. Also, the room in which we ate happened to be the space where Haydn’s brother composed music. Although the restaurant was beautiful, I’m starting to realize that my biggest challenge on this trip will be finding things to eat. Before you scold me, YES I’m trying just about everything that is set in front of me, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to like it enough to clean my plate. There’s nothing wrong with the food, don’t get me wrong… I think I just have different tastebuds. I do, however, feel incredibly bad for not finishing my meals. I hope it’s not considered dreadfully rude.
As much as I would like to continue this entry, I’m falling asleep over my keyboard. Time for bed! On a closing note, I would like to say that I am enjoying my tip very much so far (Old Salzburg is BEAUTIFUL). It’s definitely off to a good start!
Hotel Neutor - Salzburg, Austria
9:14 pm/21.14 Saturday, Jan 6, 2007
I’m terrified that my laptop is going to give out on me. It took me several tries to get it working just now. I’m crossing my fingers and praying that it doesn’t die. I’m already in a not-quite-so-thrilled mood because the group I was with decided to wander aimlessly in the dark after dinner instead of going back to the hotel, even though everything was closed. I was not really happy with this decision, because my feet were killing me, but I had no choice because I didn’t want to walk back to the hotel alone. Ah well. The rest of the day was spectacular.
Cassie, Diana, Kristen, and Rachel started out with the entire orchestra following the Strausses on a brief tour of Old Salzburg. We saw a lot of beautiful places, including the Mirabel Gardens, the Wolf Dietrich Mausoleum where Mozart’s family and wife Constanze are buried, and the Salzburg Dome, a very ornate cathedral. A lot of the architecture and baroque styles of these sites, though absolutely gorgeous, sure do convey the hard facts of the wealth and corruption of the churches at the time they were built! We also went to a museum commemorating the birthplace of Mozart. It was a bit (rather, a lot) tourist-y, but still very interesting to just know that the man was born there.
After that and a brief lunch at a small stand selling frankfurters, we met up with the rest of the orchestra and all hiked up Fetungsburg (“Fortress Mountain”) to explore the Hohensalzburg fortress. May I just add that I wish there were locations and castles like this in Age of Empires! Way up high on the cliff like that and surrounding by huge walls, the place was clearly impenetrable, no matter how big an army might have attacked it. Supposedly, it’s one of the oldest surviving castles/fortresses in Europe. Although much of it was clearly restored or built upon at a later date, I enjoyed finding the really ancient sections of the castles and walls, with the crumbling rocks that are still managing to stand so strongly.
About this time, we were all really getting tired, but we decided to set off on our own to try and find the Nonnburg Abbey, which was filmed in The Sound of Music. Evidently, it is the same abbey at which the true events took place. Interesting, no? It was founded in 700 A.D. and is the oldest remaining convent in all of the German countries. Wow! It took us forever to find it, because it was tucked away on a little hill, with only a narrow staircase leading up between two buildings to the entrance. There was a huge wooden door with the sign saying (in four different languages, English included), “Silence please! This is a place of worship. No guided tours.” Unanimously, we agreed that since we would be respectfully quiet and we were unguided, we had permission to go inside. The door was unlocked, so in we went! I really don’t think we were braking many rules, because although the lights were off inside, there was a little box near the front that, when we inserted a 50 cent coin, activated a light that illuminated the altar. It was absolutely gorgeous. We walked around the chapel in awe, because the atmosphere was so amazing. All of the old stone, dark wood, and elegant paintings and carvings were spectacular, creating such a somber, peaceful mood. Not to mention the fact that we could hear a choir of nuns singing somewhere nearby. It was completely lovely, no exaggerations.
We ate dinner with a small group from the orchestra at a Yugoslavian restaurant. It was pretty tasty, and unlike a lot of the other nearby restaurants, the water was free! Of course, I was one of only two people at our table of ten that did not order an alcoholic drink. It’s not really a big deal, since the drinking age in Austria is only 16 and the servings of wine and beer were very small, but Diana and I could not help teasing Cassie. Her Merlot, a slightly larger serving than the others, gave her a little bit of a buzz, so we jokingly called her a reckless drunk.
This is where I’ll leave you for now. Tomorrow morning, we’re boarding the bus for Vienna. Once I get there, I should be able to find a reasonably priced Internet Café - then you can actually be reading this! That is, of course, if my laptop holds out. I’ll be optimistic.
Hotel Kummer - Vienna, Austria
9:11/21.11 Sunday, Jan 7, 2007
I’m finally in Vienna! Golly, today has been a whirlwind. I’ll try and sum up events as best I can, but so much has happened! We woke up early this morning and drove roughly three hours from Salzburg to Vienna. Let me just say here that I think the Austrian countryside is absolutely gorgeous, with the scattered round hilltops with clusters of trees and little houses. It actually seemed to be very Shire-esque to me. Also, while on the bus ride, we saw an extremely vivid entire rainbow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a rainbow that vivid before and certainly not the entire semi-circle arc of the rainbow, as was the case here.
My first impressions of Vienna were overwhelming. It just hits home how much more history there is in this place than at home. I remember people getting all worked up over a house built in 1850. 1850? Big whoop. There are so many buildings here that are much older. It is also obvious how the city used to be structured, because the streets are incredibly narrow. One of the biggest streets in the older parts of Vienna is the Ringstrasse, which is actually only as big as it is because the space used to be occupied by the old city walls that were torn down to make room for the road.
We toured the inner city by bus, with narration provided by a local lady, whose name I unfortunately do not have. She was incredibly fun, cute, and quirky. One of my favorite quotes of hers goes as follows: “It’s a bit of a tradition in Vienna for architects to commit suicide. A lot of architects have committed suicide over the years, although we are still waiting for some to go…” I wish I could remember more of what she said. Supposedly she will be leading us on more tours later on the trip, for which I am excited.
We saw so many things on the bus tour… I couldn’t even begin to recount them all here. Hopefully, I’ll become more acquainted with these locations later on and will be able to recount more information about them. We saw the Hofburg, the Imperial Palace, which was huge. Apparently, the ball is going to take place in a ballroom in one of the palace wings… hurray! Honestly though, the palace was so ornately built it was ridiculous. There was absolutely no reason for it to be that fancy, but it sure was pretty! We also saw a very bizarre apartment building designed by an architect named Friedensreich Hundertwasser - the building is called the Hundertwasserhaus, in turn. There are almost no straight lines in the building; the floors are lopsided, the stairs crooked, the walls slanted. All of the apartments are painted different colors… from the outside! It was completely insane, but strangely intriguing (the outside wall had a random banana painted on it). There was a little mall called the Hundertwasser village across the street designed with the same style.
The Hotel Kummer is extremely nice, much more so than Hotel Neutor though it was pretty good as well. Diana and I are extremely excited because our room has a balcony that looks over the shopping street. Supposedly the hotel also has free high-speed internet in al the rooms, which would be awesome, but apparently a lot of people besides myself are having trouble finding a plug or wireless signal. I’ll get back to you on this particular quest in the future.
My laptop battery is dying, so I must leave you here so I can charge it up. Tomorrow, we start rehearsals at the Haus der Begegnung, and I’ll finally get to see whether my cello survived the trip. Boy, I sure hope it did!
Hotel Kummer - Vienna, Austria
6:31 pm/18.31 Monday, Jan 8, 2007
My cello survived!
Yes, that’s true! Also, my laptop has been functioning much more predictably in the past couple days. Both of my babies are okay!
All the cellists woke up early this morning to get breakfast before heading over to the Haus der Begegnung to unpack our cellos to be ahead of the huge group. It’s quite obvious that the hotel is not quite prepared for such a big group doing things all at the same time. When the entire orchestra is downstairs at breakfast between 7:30 and 8:00… it is like a mad rush hour, especially near the drink machines. There’s a major cultural difference in the equation, because the Viennese do not drink much liquid with their meals at all. While Americans are used to guzzling copious amounts of water or soda, the Viennese at restaurants only serve tiny drink cups or modest glasses of wine. Several times, I downed my entire water cup in one swig without even realizing it.
Anyways, I digress. The Haus der Begegnung is a fairly nice rehearsal room, despite the fact that it smells like smoke (there aren’t any no smoking zones here, and tons of people are smoking in public places all the time - it bothered me at first, but I’m starting to get over it). Although I must say, the best part of this entire day has arguably been the moment I unpacked my cello to find it intact. Actually, not a single cello was severely damaged in transit, which is awesome.
After we unpacked at the rest of the orchestra arrived, we started our extremely long daily rehearsal schedules. It wouldn’t have been so bad (I enjoy most of the music we are playing), except I am completely out of shape from not playing for a month. I lost all the calluses from my fingertips, so a sudden instance of several hours of practice made my skin nearly blister - nearly, thank goodness. Hopefully I’ll build up some good “string-to-skin” resistance here pretty quickly.
Other than that, I’m not sure what to say. Some of the other symphony people went to the Verdi Opera Gala concert at the Konzerthaus, so the rest of us are just mostly hanging out at the hotel or strolling the streets. I for one am testing out the hotel wireless connection… I think I have it figured out!
TO BE CONTINUED...