Good Gracious, It's December

Tonight I went to a rehearsal for the opening scene of The Magic Flute.  Now don't worry, folks.  I know I promised to avoid this opera for at least the rest of the semester after Papagena, but I don't feel like I am breaking my promise totally because my role in the scene is MONSTER.  This started out as one of those Hey!  Wouldn't it be funny if Katy was the monster? things and then evolved into a beautiful staging involving me chasing Tamino around the concert room in slow motion while making very exaggerated monster gestures.  It is my great pleasure to look like an idiot.  I'm pretty sure this is going to launch my career in Vienna.  Or at least be really funny.

After they kill me in the scene, I jump up and play piano for the rehearsals.  Tonight I was thinking about all of the homework I have to do as I played a lot of G major scales and dominant tonic dominant tonic chords for the Ladies. Just as we began the Allegretto I suddenly realized something:  I would gladly stay up all night doing homework if it meant that I could sit in that practice room and accompany a Mozart rehearsal.  It is so much fun and worth losing sleep in my opinion.

I can't believe tomorrow is December.  More snow is in the forecast :-)

Ditching Händel for Punch

Beeren Punch + Lily Orcutt + Knitting + Viennese Rain = A lovely Thanksgiving recovery Friday.

The lovely Lily and I were going to go see Alcina tonight, but there was a little Austrian man* who locked the stehplatz door just as we arrived because the line was so looooooooooong. We weren't too excited about standing through all those da capo arias tonight anyway, so we decided to hit up the Christmas markets instead.  It was really fun, but then we got cold and decided to make potatoes and knit.  Waltraud told me I looked tired as I was leaving the house at 9 am this morning, and I said Yes I am, Waltraud. I didn't really say her name, though.  I've never said it out loud to her.  Two Thanksgiving dinners in a row have taken their toll on me, and now I just want to sleep all day tomorrow and listen to it rain. Mmmmmmmmmm.  I think Lily, Oliver, and I are going to go to another market at Schonbrunn.

*There is another little Austrian man who guards the IES building and kicks me out at night when I am practicing.  I have an inexplicable dislike for these tiny men.  There is something about their feigned kindness and tendency to lock me out of places I want to be that I can't tolerate.  I don't know why Vienna likes employing little white-haired grandfathers to maintain order in public bulidings, but it doesn't suit me.

I Promise I'm Not Crazy. I'm Just A Senior.

     That final rush of graduate school panic is pouring over me today.  The number one lesson I have had to learn (by necessity, not because I wanted to) is how to delegate and let things go.  To relinquish control.  To allow my wonderful mother to put together my graduate school packet for me without even getting to see it or kiss it goodbye or spray something good-smelling on it.  To not know everything that is going on with Lyric Theatre and Butler.  To not be close enough to call Kyle every day and ask him about his college applications.  Or to call Laura and make sure she isn't too stressed about all of the fabulous things she is doing this semester.  Or to call Joe and ... talk about the rap video he made in his science class last week... hahahaha.  I can't call Dad in the morning and tell him about a test I just took and have him reassure me that I should start writing a screenplay and be in a musical soon.  Skype and email and facebook are great, but they aren't the same as a good visit home.  This post is getting droopy and sad, and I don't mean for it to.  Every once in a while I just remember that I am a senior, and I think AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but then it goes away.  It's actually all very exciting.
     I have one more letter to check on, and then I think I'll be done with applications.  I get to see Alcina this Friday with Lily (YAY), and we have Thanksgiving dinner tonight and tomorrow.  That's right. Two Thanksgiving dinners to make up for not being home for Thanksgiving.  At least that is the rationale my friends and I are using to justify two dinners in a row.  Guess how lucky I am?  Most of my dearest friends here are from I.U.  How excellent.  I'm going to get to visit with them all the time when I get back. I walk by this every day:

The Forbidden Forest

Ok.  It was the Wiener Wald, not the Forbidden Forest.  But is was dark and foggy and treacherous and AMAZING.  We hiked 14 miles tonight with about ten people from IES and Tobi (an IES staff guy) and his dad, who was our guide.  It was so cool.  We walked through the woods and on country roads and through vineyards.  I know we were in another town at one point, but I don't know exactly where... We stopped at 8pm for about thirty minutes and had soup and cocoa, but the rest of the time we were hiking.  It is one of the best things I've done since I've been here, and I think Diana (Waltraud's daughter) and I are going to go again!

I forgot to tell the story of my missing tofu yesterday.  I went to my refrigerator one evening when I was particularly tired and had had a beer or two with friends, and I decided to make something with the tofu I had bought a few days ago.  It comes in a black plastic carton and is sealed in water with a clear plastic seal on top.  I looked at the carton and thought... Wait a second.  Where is the tofu? All I could see through the water was the black bottom of the container.  Surely my tofu was somewhere in there.  How could it just be full of water?  That is preposterous!   I put it back in the refrigerator and thought Ok I will come back in the morning, and maybe the tofu will be there.  Maybe I am just imagining this is happening.  I returned to the scene and couldn't believe that there was actually no tofu in my tofu box.  Nada.  Just tofu water to fool me into thinking it was heavy and full of tofu.  Now I have to go back to the grocery store and try to explain in broken German that there is no tofu in my tofu box...  Ahhh Vienna.

Perpetual Anticipation

Does anyone get this musical theatre reference?  Ten cool points if you do.

Today my anticipation of going home is stronger than Christmas Eve, the day before you leave for college, and summer vacation combined.  Each day feels a little different, but sometimes I talk to my family and just can't wait to get home and see everybody.  Then I walk down Kärtnerstraße and see all of the action that's happening and know that I will be very sad to be missing out on what's going on in Vienna when I leave.  What a strange experience. I fancy myself in complete control of what happens to me, so naturally I assumed that I already knew what I would learn about myself during this semester...  I must admit that even I did not expect to find out that I might actually be a person who likes to end up at home.  (My parents are beaming right now as they read this.)  I mean I always love going home, but I thought I would live in Europe for a semester and never come back.  I figured I would finish school and move back here because I would love it so much, but I actually feel the opposite.  I might end up here again some day, but I want to be in the U.S. for a while.  Like maybe live there for always and adventure in distant places.  I never declare that I will always do one specific thing because I tend to change my mind the next day anyway, but seriously, who would have thought that I would feel exactly the opposite of what I assumed?  How funny.

I worked out the cottage cheese thing with Diana this morning.  She likes pickles and cottage cheese as much as I do, so she told me that I got the weird kind of cottage cheese and that there were dill pickles in Vienna. (I thought I had bought dill pickles the other day, but they are a strange sweet mushy kind of pickle that I invited Diana to finish eating for me.)  Whew.  What a relief. 

Cottage Cheese Should Not Be Served With Schnittlauch

Sitting in a movie theatre a few nights ago made me think of America.  Then I thought, "What do I miss about America?" Do you know what I said in response to myself?

Cottage Cheese

So today at the store, I bought some.  I was so excited to dip one of Waltraud's tiny silver spoons into a delicious plastic carton of curdled whatever-it-is, but when I swallowed my first spoonful I was terribly disappointed.  First of all, there is something called Schnittlauch in this Cottage Cheese.  I don't know what that means, but "schnitt" is cut and there are tiny pieces of green things in this batch.  Also it has this weird filmy after taste thing going on that makes me uncomfortable.  I love Vienna, but today I am saddened by its version of one of my favorite foods.

Hahaha. I just took a gross picture, and I am definitely going to post it. Right now:

It's rainy today, and I love rain.

Can I finish HP and The Deathly Hallows before 9 am tomorrow morning?

This is going to be quick because I have to get back to Harry Potter.  I am re-reading the last book in a spur-of-the-moment decision before I go see the movie tomorrow night.  I have a few hundred pages to go, but I am confident that I will finish before 8:30 tomorrow.  I forgot about that beautiful daze you go into when you read a Harry Potter book and live only in the wizarding world until you finish and the magical fantasy bubble is popped.  That hasn't happened yet, though, so I'm still living the dream.

Today I slept through German, and yesterday I skipped Philosophy to go see the last performance of Madame Butterfly at the Staatsoper.  I haven't missed any class all semester, but I still feel like a renegade for missing two within 24 hours.  The extra sleep and beautiful singing were both worth it.

This is what I look like now:

And this is what I will look like in four hours when I finish:

The Spirit of Christmas

The Christmas Markets opened on Saturday, which means Vienna is officially celebrating the birth of Christ.  I tried to go walk around on Saturday evening before I went to a Bruckner concert at the Musikverein, but I couldn't really do much walking because it was so packed full of people.  Vienna pulls out all the stops for Christmas, and this place was nuts.  There are tons of wooden stands lining the paths in front of the Rathaus.  They are each full of various Christmas magic.  Some have baked magic, others have ornament magic, and the most popular ones have mugs of alcoholic magic.  The trees are also draped in all sorts of light displays.  The best one has blue icicles that lights shoot down, so the tree looks like icicles are dripping off of it.  My favorite display was the two young girls who climbed on top of the roof of a stand and started screaming political protests through a megaphone.  A policeman pushed me out of the way as he ran to stop the very non-threatening but admittedly noisy protesters, but it took them a while to tame those girls.  Two officers climbed up the other side of the roof, and they were dragging the girls away but they kept escaping and running to the edge of the roof.  It was hilarious and probably the first action those officers had ever seen in Vienna.  It was the most passionate and disruptive thing I've seen thus far in the city, and it was just two girls yelling on a roof.  Don't worry Mom and Dad.  Both Christmas and Vienna are safe now that those two troublemakers have been hauled away.  I wanted to start yelling with them but only because I miss yelling in the streets.  People don't do that here.  I'm sure those girls just wanted to help spread the Christmas love.

Supper Time

This is my kitchen counter.  Well, it's actually Waltraud's kitchen counter, but she lets me use it.  I had a colorful dinner today.  Note painted fingernails.  I did that this morning at Lily's house.  Every once in a while I get girly and think it's a good idea to paint my fingernails, but then 24 hours later I hate it and spend the next week chipping it off.

Today was a hard day.  Something really terrible happened to one of my closest friends here a few weeks ago, and today my friend came back to Vienna to finish the semester after being home for a few weeks.  It is hard to know what to say to someone who is sad beyond imagination.  You want to make them better, but really you just have to be there to be whatever they need at any moment.  The last few weeks have been a painful reminder that even though you are living in another country and sometimes it feels unreal, things still happen that you never anticipate or can even fathom happening.  I don't mean to be depressing, but I am exhausted and contemplative and so thankful for my beautiful, healthy family.  

I'll end with something amusing.  Ballet today.  Me. Pique turns. Misdirection.  Running into my teacher and classmates.  I was a bit distracted in class, and I could not make it across the room to the opposite corner for some reason.  My teacher is usually nice but pretty serious in class, but today she just started cracking up at me.  I just stopped turning and laughed.  I think I have established myself as the class clown, and I don't even have to speak.  A few well-timed blunders and giggles, and people here think you're hilarious.  

The Angry Austrian

Today I:
-borrowed a pink shirt from someone and sang "Popular" for all of the serious musicians in IES.
-watched Nanny McPhee in German.
-made dinner with Siena for the third time this week.  We just combine whatever food we have into a sort of stir fry type of dish...
-skyped with Mom, Dad, and Joe. 3 out of 5 is pretty good, but I need to pin down the other two.
-socialized (!)
-just finished eating leftover pasta at 1:37 am.

On the way home tonight, an Austrian man heard Siena and I speaking English.  He staggered toward us and started yelling at us to only speak German in Europe if we knew how to speak it.  I just kept nodding my head and saying "ja" every once in a while.  Though his skull t-shirt made me take him very seriously, for some reason I just could not stifle my laughter.  And when I laugh, Siena inevitably laughs, so there we were:  Two innocent American girls giggling at the drunk, angry Austrian man.  Just another day on the U-bahn.

My Recent Obsessions

I have become enthralled with the end of Austrian phone conversations.  When I sit in the U-bahn I always pay close attention to people on their cell phones because they have twelve different ways of saying goodbye, and they use all of them in one conversation.  I always expect to hear "Ciao" or "Tschüss" or "Bis später" or something but instead it sounds more like "ok-auf-viedersehen-tschüss-tata-ciao".  I don't consider my intense focus on other peoples' conversations to be eavesdropping because I only understand 20% of what they are saying.  I never hear anything juicy, and I'm just waiting for the end anyway.

Obsession number two is eating fruits and vegetables in the rawest (I don't know if that is a real word) form possible.  Like taking a big bite out of a tomato or crunching into an un-peeled carrot.  It just makes me feel so earthy and rugged.

Tomorrow I'm singing "Popular" from Wicked on a solo concert.  I'm hoping it ends in mad applause and not awkward silence like it did in the dress rehearsal today.  There was only one lady in the room, and she is in charge of the instrumentalists.  I don't think she knew what to do with American musical theatre.  Oops...

It is David Merriman's birthday today. Tell everyone you know!

Hi, Dad.  I hope you like it when people make a big deal out of your birthday because I am littering the internet with birthday wishes for you.  Everyone who reads this blog today should call him and say Happy Birthday, David/Dad/Katy's Dad! depending on how you know him.

I only have 45 days left in Vienna.  My how the time flies when you live in an alternate reality for 4 months.  I can't imagine being back at Butler and seeing my family and friends (you guys), but I am so excited for it.  It will be really terrible to leave here, but I am also ready to see everyone.  There are too many people I love at home to be gone for a really really really long time.  4 months isn't really very much at all, and I am still pining away for my loved ones.  Today we learned the word for nevertheless, which is "trotzdem".  Vier Monaten sind ein kurtze Zeit, trotzdem vermisse ich meine Familie.  That might not be right, but I am sleepy so it will do.  I'm off to sleep in the carpeted loft which lies at the top of a very steep and increasingly unsteady ladder.  I think I need a screwdriver.  (The tool, not the drink, you college kids...)

Dead Day

First of all I would like to give a big thanks to the Catholic Church for having All Saints Day.  I think it is pretty cool, and not just because it made my weekend a little longer.  Today I went to the Zentralfriedhof (the GIANT cemetery in Vienna) with Daniel and Austin, and we walked around and watched the thousands of people who came to visit the graves of family and friends.  People brought candles and flowers and decorated all of the graves.  We didn't have any relatives in the cemetery to visit, so we went to our next closest relations and visited Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Mozart (a memorial.  We don't exactly know where Mozart is in Vienna...oops), and Wolf.  They are doing well and have lots of visitors.  I really wanted to find Schoenberg, but the place is absolutely huge.  You have to know where you're going before you get there if you want to find someone in particular unless it is one of the aforementioned famous guys.

I also went to see the Verdi Requiem at the Musikverein just to keep up with the death theme today.  It was really lovely, if you can describe a Requiem as "lovely".  The Orchestre National de France was really good (I saw them do Rite of Spring on Friday), and I loved the soloists for the most part.  The soprano was wonderful, and aside from a few strained tenor moments, all four were outstanding together.  It put me in a Requiem mood, and now I have the Faure Requiem in my head...