The Wienerwald

Before I show you a few beautiful pictures, I just wanted to talk briefly about how funny it is that everything that is Viennese is called "Wiener_____".  Obviously it isn't very strange to a person from Wien to call something like the forest the Wienerwald or the philharmonic the Wiener Philharmoniker.  To a person from the U.S.A. who is twenty-two but has the maturity of a twelve-year-old boy, however, this can get pretty entertaining.  Fortunately it is pronounced "Vvvvvvviener" since it's German, so I don't usually laugh out loud when I have to say it.  I'm posting this mainly for my family, who would also think this is hilarious.

Today Adam, Daniel, Ben, Chris, and I went to the woods on the edge of the city and walked around for about 4 hours.  It was the coolest thing I have done in Vienna hands down.  I love being outside, especially in the fall, and today was so beautiful!  It was so nice to just bum around the woods and hang out for the afternoon.  We saw a lot of wild boars, and decided that we felt some kind of intrinsic animalistic connection to them.  Boars are really funny looking, slightly intimidating, and especially cool because they actually look JUST like Pumba.  Here are a few pictures to make you want to go walking in your local forest.

 

What Made My Birthday So Excellent:

1. I got a ton of "happy birthdays" on facebook, and it is so good to feel like people haven't forgotten you even though you are a thousand miles away.

2. Dieter SANG happy birthday to me today while I was working and also got me a giant birthday brownie from the McDonalds next door to the school.  I think this means he is going to propose soon.

3. I have been played "Happy Birthday" by accordion, violin, and jazz trumpet in the last 24 hours.

4.  It is 4 am, and I just watched Rite of Spring at the Musikverein and sat around with friends for hours before returning home to eat the brownie that Dieter gave me.

Goodbye bad jokes about being legally able to drink; hello early adulthood.

The Post Where I'm Not a Nice Person (Feel Free to Skip)

Do you ever just get irked by some people?  Like for no reason?

Exhibit A: I am working at the library and finally have the last 30 minutes to work on stuff when Doris (name has been changed to protect person's identity and so my ass is covered on the off-chance that someone from IES reads this blog) approaches the desk.

     "Hi Katy I have nothing to check out I'm just saying hi!"
     "Oh, Hi Doris.  How are you?"
     "Oh pretty good I'm just trying to get ready to go on my trip tomorrow and...................................................................................la la la la la................................................................................................................................and my mom keeps asking me about grad school and I'm like oh maybe I'll come back to Vienna or maybe not I don't know it's so far away and..................................................................uh huh!....................and.......................well I have to go wash my clothes and study and get groceries and pack.  Are you going anywhere for break?"
     "Nope.  Just hanging out in Vienna for the weekend."
     "Oh cool well have fun bye!"

Fragen zum text:
1. What did Doris really mean to gain by having this conversation?
2. What am I supposed to say in response? Because I can't say what I am thinking.
3. Can I type on my computer behind the desk and simultaneously look engaged in the conversation?

Antworten:
1. Doris just wanted to tell me about her awesome week and talk a little.  That is totally fine but not really the hello she intended to give.  I think we should be honest about our intentions.
2. I need only smile and listen, thereby avoiding having to be fake but still being there to listen, which was what Doris needed in the first place (see Answer 1).
3. Yes.  Quite convincingly.  This blog was 20% complete before the conversation ended.

My Addiction to the BBC

     Waltraud is going to take the tv out of my room next week to use in another apartment, and it is such a good thing.  I have unlimited access to the BBC while I am in Austria, and it is bad news for my productivity.  Tomorrow I have a theory midterm, but I just can't muster up the resolve to study for it.  I know this is probably knocking some of you off of your chairs*.  I, Katy P. Merriman, am not studying for a test...until tomorrow morning, that is.  To procrastinate today I went to a voice lesson and saw Warten auf Godot (Waiting for Godot. Best play ever!) at the Burgtheater with my friends Abraham and Rachel.  IT WAS SO AMAZING!  It was auf Deutsch, but I understood most of what was going on.  The set design and lighting were so beautiful and just perfectly suited the play.  I was so impressed and probably watched the whole thing with my jaw on the floor.
     Yesterday I went to a heurigen, and it was so beautiful that Kyle literally closed my mouth because I was gaping.  He just reached out and pushed my jaw up with his pointer finger, and I snapped out of the stupor I was in.  A heurigen (probably not spelled correctly here) is like a tavern where you go drink wine in the middle of vineyards and eat food and socialize.  It was super fun.  I also danced my pants off last night at a club.  It's funny how you don't really need to be intoxicated to act like a fool and enjoy yourself with other drunk people.  I had my first red bull last night.  I don't know what possessed me to drink that disgusting stuff, but I did. We learned that I am too hyper to begin with to drink red bull.  I was bouncing off the walls until the wee hours of the morning!  Oops!


* In German you say "es haupt mir ja vom Stuhl!" It knocks me off my chair! Oh German idioms... why do I even really need to know you?

While the internet is working...

Interesting things I did this week:

*Sang Papagena for Waltraud at the konzert
*Taught a class of Austrian 13 and 14-year-olds how to do the Charleston Line
*Had tea and cakes with the FOUNDER of IES (60th anniversary this year) who was mutual friends with important Viennese people like Schönberg... awesome
*Made a foooooooooool of myself in my German presentation this morning about die Steiermark (a place I went a few weeks ago, oder eine Staat dass habe ich vor drei Woche besuchen. That probably isn't correct.)

I have a German midterm tomorrow morning, but my studying was delayed by the intriguing conversation and delicious pastries of the IES man.  He and his wife made me miss my grandparents.  They were so cute.

A Mostly Non-Cynical Post

I'm trying to edit my application essay because I am a crazy perfectionist, and I wanted to save this paragraph that I deleted from it.  What better place to save something personal and heartfelt than on a blog, right?  <awkward silence> It's too flowery for a grad school essay, but I wrote it when I was thinking about why I want to be a professional musician.  Love you, Merrimans.

Every Thanksgiving my whole family comes to my house.  That’s approximately thirteen cousins, five uncles, and five loud aunts.  The Merriman sisters are tall, tough, 3/5ths redheaded, and they love to sing.  They sing the Doxology before dinner, and when we finish eating they crowd into our kitchen and bicker happily over what they should sing first—“Young at Heart”, “Oh Johnny”, or their signature rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”.  I don’t care what they start with because I will sit in the other room and watch them through the doorway until they have finished every song they know late into the night when the other cousins are sleeping off their turkey dinners.   I grew up wanting to sing with them.  I wanted to have flaming red hair and bend my knees on the really sweet notes and throw my head back in celebration of the sheer joy of making music and sounding so good. Thank you, Merriman women, for making me want to sing. 

Spoon Rings and Singer Things

Try saying that five times fast.


Mom, I have been wearing your spoon ring every day.  I love it because it doesn't look jewelry-ey, and things made out of cutlery are cool (your tea kettle wind chimes, for instance).  I don't know if you actually gave it to me or if I just started wearing it, but thank you either way.

Tonight was one of those brilliant moments in a singer's life when you open your mouth to start warming up, and the person in the practice room next door starts belting your rep, only a little better than you sing it.  I am not trying to elicit sympathy or to put myself down because I know I'm pretty damn good and don't need to worry about homegirl next door.  It is just one of the many times when you have to suck it up and ignore the rest of the universe.  You have to trust that your voice is different and be happy with your own progress regardless of how many sopranos know Chanson de Ronsard (although these pieces aren't really songs everybody knows.  What are the chances that this person would be singing them right now, too?  Seriously!)  It's fine, though.  I just listen to how she sings them and try to use the stuff she does that I like.  It's like musical scavenging except she decided to belt next door to me, so I don't feel bad.  And then I belt out something else impressive.  Oh my gosh, maybe this is how sopranos help each other but still feel like supreme goddesses of the universe!  You show the other person how good you sing something, so they can learn but still feel a little bad!  This is almost philosophical, and I'm so glad I'm writing it down.  Singers, tell this to your friends.

Even though I bash sopranos a lot, I only mean these things in good fun.  This is a disclaimer in case someone is taking me seriously, which should be hard to do if you have been reading this blog for the last two months.

P.S. The music kids are FREAKING OUT this week over a concert and midterms.  I remain calm because this semester is a piece of cake compared to what I am usually doing at Butler right now.  Maybe we are programmed to hurry everywhere and sigh a lot as we open our instrument lockers the week before midterms because that's what we usually do, but I don't really think it's necessary here in Vienna.

How do you know if a potential creeper is really a creeper?

On the U-bahn tonight I let a guy use my cell phone.  He was wearing kind of dirty, baggy, black clothes.  He had a desperate look on his face.  He spoke in a mixture of German and English. I won't deny that at first I tried to pretend I was a dumb tourist who only spoke English (everyone does this in Vienna if they get in a bind where being stupid will save them), but after he started speaking English, too, I couldn't really rely on that any more.  At first he walked away, but then he came back to me.  I know I have an innocent face, but I am slightly amazed at how much of a push over I must look like if he was willing to walk to the other end of the train and then come back to me just for a second try.  Obviously I let him use my phone.  I decided that even if he made a call to some foreign land, the most I could lose was the 9 Euro I knew I had on the phone.  I was willing to bargain with 9 Euro in order to help a bro out.  I was also surprised, though, by how hard it was for me to decide what to do.  The little people on my shoulders--I don't consider this a moral question of right versus wrong, so I am not using an angel and a devil as the little people on my shoulder. Actually I'm going to use power rangers.  The blue ranger on my right was saying of course you should let him use your phone!  He needs help, and it isn't a huge sacrifice for you to let him use it for a few minutes.  But then the red ranger, Jason, was like but wait, Katy!  You don't even know who this guy is!  He could run away with your phone or call his mother in Zimbabwe or just not give it back!  Then he could stalk you and follow you to Waltraud's house, and it would be an Austrian nightmare! I listened to the blue ranger because Billy is the nicest one and also the smartest, and I think sometimes you just have to be brave and take the plunge even when you aren't sure what is going to happen.  The moral of the story is:

GIVE DUE CONSIDERATION TO THE RED RANGER, 

BUT ALWAYS GO WITH THE BLUE RANGER IN THE END.

Thank you and goodnight.

Zzzzzzzz....

Today I worked in the library all morning and snuck into the performance hall next door to practice since nobody was there all day.  Then I made some recordings with Dierdre, my coach, in the afternoon.  I met my friend, Siena, at IES and went to the Naschmarkt to get some hummus, bread, and dried fruit. mmmmm.  We got hot chocolate from Anker and took our meal to the opera house.  At 4 pm we lined up outside the stehplatz (standing room) door and ate our food at the very very front of the line for standing tickets.  We met so many Americans today, which was strange because usually old Austrian ladies stand in that line.  Salome was amazing and worth way more than the 4 Euro I paid to see it.  After the opera I went to Siena's house with our friend Jeremy and watched stupid music youtube videos ( I KNOW >>>NERD).  Now I am home and typing in my checkered chair like a zombie.  I'm super tired and slightly stressed about grad school, but I have a voice lesson tomorrow so I'll probably feel like an awesome singer again when I'm done tomorrow afternoon.  This might be one of those tired posts that I read tomorrow and regret submitting to the public.

Google "Linda Watson" Before Reading This Post

I love Vienna.  I just sang Mozart for Linda Watson.  She is funny and down to earth and so kind.  And also one of the best Wagnerian sopranos alive.  Did I say I love Vienna?  Today Linda Watson taught me to be patient and to not talk to ANYONE at an audition.  And to anticipate my breathing and to do it deeply and relaxed so I don't sound like a harpy.  My word, not hers.  Linda Watson would never say someone sounded like a harpy.  At least in a master class.  I don't know her personally.  Can you tell I'm still excited about what I did tonight?  I can't even write long sentences.

I'm learning how to be just the right amount of diva in Vienna, too.  I consider the right amount to be enough that you do anything you have to do to take care of your voice and get better at performing and singing yet nobody actually thinks you're a diva.  A closeted diva is a good diva.

Things I Wrote Down on My Hand in Philosophy

Beauty and the Beast

Blog-

French Ballet

was Discovered

These are all of the important things I wanted to write about tonight, but I knew I would forget them.  Now to explain.  My philosophy professor looks like Santa Clause, but I know it isn't really him because this guy is from Budapest, and everybody knows that Santa lives at the North Pole.  His name is Geza, and he has three daughters that he talks about a lot.  They lived in California for four years when they were growing up, and in the middle of class today he used Beauty and the Beast as a reference when discussing Descartes and what we know is true.  I honestly don't know how we arrived at talking clocks and candlesticks, but that is beside the point.  He quoted the entire opening of the movie for us and then said it was by far the best Disney movie ever made.  It was awesome, and I have no idea what we were actually talking about.

My second ballet class today was much different from my first.  A girl in the locker room who I was clumsily talking to in German thought I was FRENCH (word number one!), but I set her straight and said I came aus den USA.  Then I ran into my teacher, and it was just the two of us standing in the hallway, so I thought Crap, there is no way we aren't going to start talking.  She's going to DISCOVER that I don't speak very good German and think I'm a total weirdo after I try to talk to her and explain.  Then she started talking to me.  I stumbled through these two conversations, but tonight I realized that they never switched to English like people usually do, so that means my German was good enough to carry on those conversations.  YEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!  P.S.  There were way more people in class today, and they were all really pretty, but I turn better than most of them so it's ok.

Viennese Viruses

I don't know if there is something in the supposedly impeccable mountain water that we drink in Vienna, but I feel like I am getting sick here every other week.  I'm eating my fruit and veg (my friend Oliver says 'fruit and veg' with his British accent, and it tickles me to death), I'm trying to sleep enough, I am having a positive outlook on life and my ability to remain healthy, yet I still get colds all the time.  They warned us that we weren't exposed to the Austrian illnesses since they are different strains of viruses or whatever, but I just assumed that I would not be affected.  I idealistically presume that if I decide not to be sick then I won't.  I managed to make that work all week and made it through my rehearsals on Friday, but then I had to cancel my voice lesson yesterday (WHICH I HATE DOING) because I couldn't sing.  Well I could sing to an e or f and then it disappeared.  I don't think that would do if we were going to work on my audition arias...  That's enough about my diva cold and its effect on my life.

Everything is going really well in Wien.  The weather is beautiful, and workshop is in full swing.  I might get to sing in a master class with Linda Watson this wednesday (a Wagnerian soprano who studied in Vienna and knows our director)  if Ian (Papageno) and I can impress Michelle when we run through our scene before the master class.  It would be soooooooo awesome.  I hope we are prepared enough for Michelle, and she says Oh Katy and Ian, you MUST sing for Linda today!  You are amazing!.  I'll wake up now.

I bought some excellent apples at Billa yesterday, and they are rocking my Viennese world.  Waltraud has been gone all weekend, so I've been not wearing clothes and eating apples and watching a lot of BBC television.  My voice teacher ordered me not to do anything this weekend, and I obey.  Her Indian medicine man gave her some recipes that I am supposed to be trying, too.  I did the one with ginger, cayenne pepper, vinegar, and honey, but that is kind of a heinous concoction, so I'm mostly sipping on my ginger tea and thinking happy thoughts.  There is this sort of trashy show on the BBC called The Eastenders that I am kind of intrigued by.   It's like a soap opera at home, except they all have British accents so they automatically seem a little classier to me.


*I wanted to give a shout out to Uncle Roger and Aunt Nancy :-)  I don't have your email addresses, but Grandma and Grandpa said you were reading this and that made me so happy!  This is the only way I know how to say hello to you.  I hope you are doing well, and maybe I'll see you around Christmas when I get back?  Love you!
**Obviously I miss all of you who read my blog.  Even a little more than everyone else.  You are members of an elite group called "People Katy Likes a Little More than Everyone Else Because They Read Her Blog".  So ditto to * for all of you.

This email was sent to all of IES tonight:

Hi,

after a very spirited speech by Katy Merriman, on behalf of the student body, i hereby change the overnight check out times for reserved items. Starting today you can check out reserved items overnight from Friday (after 2:30pm) till Monday 11:00am.


Mfg Dieter 
(My boss who is in charge of the library/my future husband)





I have never had a prouder moment.  This just encourages me to keep fighting for the rights of library patrons not only in Vienna, but throughout the world.  We deserve to check out materials for more than one night only regardless of their size, popularity, age, or permanent reserve status.

Untitled. Although "Untitled" is a title, so maybe I should say "Titled"

Last night a young, Austrian boy asked if he could take my picture while I was eating pizza at an Imbiss* stand.  It was for a school project.  I said ja, of course.  What budding performer would say no to having her picture taken?  And more importantly, when am I ever going to see that kid again anyway?  I think he thought he was going to get a regular photo of a random girl eating pizza, but I didn't have it in me to just stand there with pizza in my mouth.
So I did something like this instead:

That kid had no idea what he was doing when he asked me if he could take my picture.  What a weird thing to ask a person eating pizza.

I'm working in the library right now, as you can see.  My German homework is waiting for me on the desk next to my computer, but sometimes I get distracted by the computer that sits on the desk next to my German homework.  And also by the ridiculous book titles that surround me: "The Shock of the New", "The Austrian Mind", "Paths to the Absolute"- these are lofty art books.  Oh! Dieter has a job for me.  Peace out.

Raising the Bar-and Kicking it

Today was my first venture into the Viennese world of university sports.  I registered for Intermediate Ballet and Jazz classes, and today was Ballet Monday.  Sometimes I get myself into situations where I think This won't be too hard.  I can just fake my way through it and pretend I know what I'm doing. This technique often works for me, but sometimes there is a moment of utter panic the second you have to jump into the situation.  I felt this figurative punch in the gut as I opened the door to the dance studio that took me twenty minutes to find once I entered the building.  One thing you get really good at when you live in a foreign country is watching what everyone else does and then following along so you blend in.  I shuffled into the little locker room where I saw people in leotards and threw all of my stuff in a locker that I took a good three minutes trying to actually lock before giving up.  Just as I got to the door, the instructor closed it to start class, and there was one second where I thought I could just turn around and not try to do this and avoid a lot of embarrassment.  I shook it off and entered what I expected to be a big studio with lots of intermediate dancers and instead stumbled upon a mish-mash of ten people scattered at the bars in the middle of the small studio on the top floor of the building.  My first thought was Well, blending in and not being noticed is out of the question, so I made it my new goal to simply not be bad enough that I stuck out and was directly asked a question.  It turns out I am pretty damn good at intermediate ballet, and even when the instructor talked to me I kind of understood what she was saying most of the time.  I kind of sank into the class and just started understanding what she was saying and didn't have to translate everything into English.  It was awesome.  I only did a few ungraceful things, including my finest moment when I kicked the bar instead of delicately resting my leg upon it, but I think it was a successful adventure all in all.  I just wonder how long I can go without them knowing I speak a whole lot of English and not much Deutsch.  Whatever.  It's mostly in French anyway, right?

I wanted to finish off the day with an embarrassing picture to capture my excitement for and love of ballet (and to make my blog look more interesting).  Look away, ladies and gentlemen.  It's a keeper.  And yes, I am still wearing my ballet clothes right now, and class ended 4 hours ago.

Tosca Magic

I SAW TOSCA TONIGHT AT THE STAATSOPER, AND IT WAS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was amazing.  I couldn't believe I was standing there watching that magic happen in front of me.  The singers were unbelievable, and the orchestra was outstanding.  I just wanted to weep at how wonderful it was to be there watching, and I wish I could have jumped onto the stage and sung with them.   Go Vienna.  This was so wonderful.

This morning I woke up with that sore throat thing again where I feel like I'm getting sick, but I am denying it.  I shall remain healthy.  There are so many stupid viruses over here that I haven't been exposed to, and they are all trying to attack me.   I'm going to Styria tomorrow (a place in Austria) to taste wine and walk around with some other IES people. I am sort of packed, and I have to be there at 7:15 am, so that leaves me 6 hours to sleep, finish packing, and get to the bus.  Tight schedule, but I can work with it.

School is good.  Classes are very different from Butler.  I'm learning a lot, but they aren't very hard.  That is probably good for me. I start ballet and jazz this week at the university...wish me luck.  I hope I understand what is going on!  I think I can fake my way through a dance class if I have to :-)  I look forward to it!

I can't believe it is October already.  That is crazy.  I'll be home in 2.5 months!  I can't wait to see everyone, but it will be very hard to leave here.