Update soon

I don't have time to write a full blog update right now. I leave tomorrow morning for Munich to meet my mom! Woohoo! I'm sooo excited! I will update my blog when I get back...I get back Thursday and mom leaves Saturday so probably after she leaves. I apologize that there will be such a big gap!

Verdi, UN and the Magic Flute!

Well life has been very busy. I went to see Alejandro's concert at the church (see previous blogs) on Saturday night. It was a very cool concert. However, we couldn't see anything so it created this very strange bubble effect, where you could hear the soloists singing quite amazingly but since you couldn't see them, it sounded like they were singing from all directions. That was a bit of a strange experience but the concert was very cool! Afterwards, we (Nayeem, Hyojeong, Martin and I) went over to Alejandro's for a bit (aka til 2 AM) and chatted. Another person from his orchestra and his girlfriend joined us (they were from Germany and Hungary respectively). We took a taxi home since it was late and the Ubahn wasn't running anymore and the buses only came ever 30 minutes or something.

Sunday I went over to Nayeem's for lunch, which was lots of fun. Nayeem and Jeremy's friends came over and we ate (a great meal) and then we played CRANIUM!! A little taste of home. I love cranium. It was pretty fun I must say.

Monday I went to Hyojeong and Martin's and we played WII which was fun. I love WII. Specifically fishing and that shooting game on WII play. but the shooting game makes me tense with all the alien kidnappings.

Yesterday, Nayeem, Hyojeong, Martin and I took a tour of the UN. It was pretty cool. Very big and the tour just took us to little parts of it. It was rather amusing when we were going through the security check. We had to show our ID in order to go through and the guy joked that our group was basically the UN (Since we were from America, Korea, England and Austria). They showed us to the different buildings, explained how the UN worked, showed us the space display, then we got to go to a viewing room where a meeting was being held! Apparently the meeting was in English. However the only word I actually heard was "Airborne" which was a bit disconcerting. It was being broadcasted into the viewing room, but it was kind of broken English. One thing I found interesting...there are 6 languages of the UN-English, French, Chinese, Russian, Arabic and German (I think it's German at least) and sometimes when going between certain languages, they must translate as many as 4 times before gets to the right language. For example, Arabic to Chinese doesn't translate easily, so the translators will translate it Arabic-French-English then finally Chinese. Not always but sometimes...which I think creates great possibility for error, but she said its very efficient the way they do it. Also, they have to eliminate things that might be offensive to someone else. So say a person speaking in French tells a joke, but the people from China find it offensive, then the person translating would say "Laugh along with everyone but it cannot be translated." All pretty interesting I must say.

Tonight, I went to the Opera. I saw the Magic Flute. I got there 2 hours before but it was still really full already! However, the Opera was very good. I think that Faust was just not my style. Not funny and rather slow moving. The girl standing in front of me in line was from Portland and her boyfriend was from Auburn. That was a bit coincidental. But we ended up standing next to each other during the Opera. She was also a history major. I never realized the part from the Magic Flute (the part that everyone knows) is very dramatic. Talking about death and despair etc. Overall though, the Opera was pretty amazing. There were 3 boys (probably around 10-12) who were pretty amazing singers. And of course, everyone else was too!

Anyway, pictures to be added later. It's a bit late and I don't have time to put them up but I wanted to put up an update before people get too violent in their requests. (Ok just kidding...) but still.

Vienna Philharmonic, Dinner and Monsoons

Well I had quite the night this evening. It was very nice. I went to see the Vienna Philharmonic (6 Euro standing room) because the professor from Georgia told me about it. The concert was amazing I must say. Pretty sure I never need to see another orchestra play again.

Ok that's not true but it was amazing! Afterwards, I went to dinner with some of the people from Georgia. We went to a place called 1516 (or 19 I'm not sure haha) which was fun. We just chatted and hung out for a while. But I had a great time, we're all adding each other on facebook as they're leaving for Prague tomorrow.

Then came the monsoon. Well, the monsoon started right before the concert got out. But it is downpouring and still hasn't stopped downpouring almost 4 hours later. It was enough that the overhang things at the place we went to kept filling with water and every 10-15 minutes or so gallons of water would come pouring off the overhang, occasionally onto the restaurant goers or the workers. they then decided to fold up the overhang which lead to about a swimming pools worth of water to come off of the tarpy overhang thingy, directly onto one of the poor waiters. hahaha. he handled it well and continued that. but still. however, I don't really mind that it has been raining because it has been really humid these last few days. Maybe the monsoon will release some of the humidity and I won't feel like I'm drowning...

ok I love the Opera

So I went to the opera tonight and loved it. It was a comedy this time, much more fast paced and quite hilarious. It was called " DIE SCHWAIGSAME FRAU" which means "The Silent Wife" Basically it was about this guy with a huge fortune that was destined to be for his nephew. But when said nephew shows up announcing he wants to become an opera singer, the man takes it away from said nephew. Now, before I continue, I must point out that the English Translation was quite literal, and even translated the names of people. As a result, the barber (one of the main characters) was named "Mr Trimbeard" in the English translation, which I think is quite hilarious. So nephew and Mr. Trimbeard, the uncle's barber, scheme this plan for said man to fake marry nephew's wife/girlfriend. Uncle hates music and noise (hence the cutting off when nephew wanted to be an opera singer). So they went about it by him fake marrying someone he thought was timid and quiet and would be a "Silent Wife." Her fake name was Timidia. And then, once they were "married" (by the actors from man's opera house) she would scream at him because he was bothering her quiet time and she wasn't going to be a timid wife. Then she throws a tantrum, "Breaks" all his stuff and goes about redecorating and screaming about. Then, they get divorced and the scheme worked. Except they were never married in the first place. But the Uncle, once discovering his "wife" was actually his nephews wife, he was so relieved that he wasn't married to the crazy, insane woman that he says he will love music and one of the last lines of the opera, said by him in song is, "Oh how beautiful the music is and how wonderful it is when it stops."

Also, I met a group of students and a professor from Georgia and chatted with them before the play and during intermission etc which was fun. Always good to meet new people!

Oh and, while reading both the German and English subtitles to the Opera, I learned that "Lord" in German is "Herrgott" which directly translated is "Mr God"

And the last thing...At the end of the Opera, they definitely come and go off stay far too many times for the bows. As in, it lasts twenty minutes or longer. Which I think defeats the purpose. Just sayin...

Prepositions

I am attempting to learn prepositions in German. They are hard. But I also think they are throwing off all my English prepositions. I am learning German and my English is deteriorating. Oops!

Update on the goings on of Lauren HIllard

Well since my last post I went to the Opera House and actually saw an Opera (rather than a ballet). I have discovered that Opera's are not my thing. Now, the music was great and I will say that their voices were great too. But after 3 hours I was a little bit bored. That might have had to do with the fact that I was on my feet the entire time (3 euro versus 100-200 Euro) but you'd think that an opera about a guy who sold his soul to the devil would be more interesting!! (I saw "Faust" in case you were wondering). I am going to go to 2-3 more Opera's just to make sure I wasn't having an off night (I'll see the Magic Flute and maybe Aida or this other one). However, they did have this cool little screen that translated all the French being sung into English, which was helpful and I'm sure added some interest since I actually knew what was going on then.

I think I just prefer the ballet because they're moving, and piano. I kind of love the piano, especially when it's played so amazingly (by guy from previous blog) etc.

Other than my boring Opera (hey at least I went to the Opera for the first time in Vienna!) I have just been wandering. I went on some walks, went to a couple more churches and wandered wandered wandered. Today I found a church that is quite literally directly behind my apartment but I had somehow, after walking by about 100 times in the last 3 months, managed to not notice. It's rather large so I am shocked at myself. I think I need to walk down some more side streets in Vienna to find some other amazing buildings.

This is the church that I managed not to notice:

Also, on Monday I went to a rehearsal of Alejandro's (a man in my german class) at a church in Vienna. They were rehearsing for a concert that's this weekend which I will be going. I think the concert will be pretty awesome. They will be playing Verdi's requiem. For some reason though, I can only think of is Harry Potter when I hear the song and I know it's not in one of those movies...and it's bugging me. haha.

The concert will be here:

(rehearsal)

It should be pretty great!

Random picture I took and liked

The Ballet and Leopold.

I went to the Ballet last evening at the Opera House. It was lovely.

All right imagine me saying that in a snooty voice. hehe.

Yes, yesterday I joined the group of girls from North Carolina and went to the ballet. We got standing room tickets for just THREE EURO. I think I must go to the ballet/opera more often! I mean we couldn't see the very right of the stage (which is where a LOT seemed to be happening) but that's ok. It was three euro instead of like 100. We saw Anna Karenina. It was very nice. I would never have thought I would have been a ballet person but it was very good! I did get distracted by the overenthusiastic flute player occasionally. But there were some very cool moves I must say. There was this one where there were 2 circles of people holding hands and then Anna was being basically swung about with them in the circle (them holding her holding her hands but then the one circle would let go of her hands and the next circle would immediately catch them and she'd continue spinning with the next circle. Hard to describe but very cool. Also, those male ballet dancers have massive arm muscles. Random thought that I had to share. Only one "incident" that was kind of funny...I mean not for the dancer but for me the uncultured viewer who enjoys when mistakes happen ;-). So there was this dance scene between anna and this other guy (yes guy I am not sure who. haha) and the guy is supposed to run to the back of the stage as these guards(?) come forward. However, there is a black screen they lowered up and down throughout the ballet. Well the people in control of the curtain didn't raise it in time as he was running to the back of the stage and he crashed into it and you could he him say "OHHHH" fall down, then get up and keep going. Obviously not what they would want to happen in the Vienna Opera House but that's ok. haha.

Here are some pictures from the Opera:

Today I went to the Leopold Museum. It's one of the many Modern Art Museums...I am not the biggest modern art fan but I have to admit that some of them are very cool. Some of the portraits had eyes that were sooooo realistic it was a bit creepy. haha. But it was nice. It was raining when I left so I headed home afterwards rather than continuing to wander. I was going to go to the store and get some groceries but it's a holiday again so the grocery store was closed...they have a lot of holidays in Austria!

Here are some pictures of the churches I visited the other day:

It's Hot

Well today I visited a couple more churches (Mariahilfer Kirche and one other that I will post the name of when I download pictures.) When I left my apartment, my google weather thing said it was 65 degrees. Yeah right. Definitely not true. I walked for about an hour and a half before I got very overheated. On my way back I was thinking, "This is ridiculous it can't be that hot. What's wrong with me?" But then, a chunk of asphalt melted onto the bottom of my shoe. That's when I realized that it was really hot. I checked the weather again when I got back to my apartment. It was 87 degrees. Google totally lied to me. How dare they!

Wiener Konzerthaus

Wiener=Viennese just in case people were curious

So this morning didn't start out quite so wonderfully due to someone taking a shower at 6 in the morning on a Saturday. I'm not sure who it was. The Shower is directly behind my head so it of course woke me up. Then someone else took a shower at 7 in the morning. Needless to say I was a little bit annoyed.

However, all was redeemed.
I went to the most incredible concert today ever.
It was at the Wiener Konzerthaus, which was very nice. It was near the Stadtpark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=du9aGwl6am8 The guy playing piano here was the conductor but he also played the piano for 30 minutes of the concert, while also conducting. He'd play this amazing, complex piece then immediately raise his hands and conduct. it was incredible. He's 75 years old (today was his birthday and the concert opened with a wonderful rendition of "Happy Birthday to you) and yet I have never seen anyone play piano like that in my life! Oh and all the complexity was memorized completely. Also, from what I could tell from my 3rd row seats (hehe), he was very humble. Seemed genuinely surprised when people were clapping, near tears and seemed to want to show off everyone else! It was really amazing. and he clearly loved music. So it was wonderful to watch.

Apart from the amazing Mozart playing, they also played 30 minutes of Joseph Haydn and 15 minutes of Richard Danielpour. Danielpour was very cool I must say. I hadn't heard any of his compositions before.

Just outside the concert house is a fake beach. I think it is kind of hilarious....

Afterwards, we walked along the Donau Canal, listened to a bit of a Jazz concert that was happening there, then went and ate Turkish food! it was very good food I must say.

The weather looked very ominous but it never actually rained which was nice!

It was incredibly windy though. My hair looked a bit ridiculous through most of the day and night. But that's ok because I saw an incredible concert tonight.

TGI Fridays

Today I went to dinner with Hyojeong, Martin and her friend Stefano to TGI Fridays. yes TGI Fridays in Vienna. Had a Cheeseburger and fries that was quite delicious I must say. first one in months! also we went to a street fair/concert thingy afterwards and listened to a Beatles cover band who were very good! Although they did sing Imagine which I think is just by John Lennon? I am not an expert but who knows.

IMAGINE ALL THE PEOPLE

I was very good at singing along to the "YouOUUUUUUUU you may say I'm a dreamerrr" part hehe

Wandering wandering...

sooo life has been rather uneventful recently. just the usual going to class, hanging out, going to lunch with friends. ;-) wandering Vienna aimlessly. Today I went into a three churches that were very nice. Augustiner Kirche

Michaeler Kirche

and Peters Kirche.

They were all quite beautiful! Also ones that I have walked by about a million times and never went in. Time to explore Vienna and it's churches more (I've been in about 10 but they're all amazing!) Although Augustiner Kirche had a painting of a full skeleton in it which was a bit weird in a room full of paintings of skulls...

and Peters Kirche had two actual skeletons dressed up in decorative clothing. Which was a bit gross I must say. Maybe they were old bishops that worked in the church? I am not sure. it was weird. hah.

In other news, my power went out last night which would have been ok if we had not run out of matches that VERY DAY. So I had to read by cell phone light until my eyes hurt and I went to bed at a ridiculously early hour. Which resulted in me getting up at 3:30 in the morning almost fully awake...then going back to bed and being tired in the morning.

Also: this is votivkirche from last week. one of my favorite pictures.

And this is obviously the most practical suits of armor I have ever seen: Found in the Ephesos/Ancient Musical Instruments/Armor Museum

also this is a video of the choir I heard when I went to Votivkirche.
Please Ignore Poor Video quality: I am a photographer not a video-grapher.
and the organ that deafened me.