Hello All,
I’m back and doing well. I suppose this week wasn’t quite as eventful as the last, but still wonderful nonetheless. We continued with our German classes and I got myself into a good routine. My German class isn’t until 12:30, but I’ve been going in to the IES Center around 9 with Brian and Danielle for their early morning class to get work done. It has turned out to be very productive because I work really well in the morning and there is no distraction. Then when I get home after class I can just chill and hang out with my roommates before talking to Aaron and then go to bed.
My roommates and I are all coming to accept the fact that there is a ghost in our apartment. Tyler had an encounter with her in a dream and informed us that her name is Lynda, she is blonde and 22. I suggested that he ask her out in the next dream and see if she will stop making so many noises at night.
On Tuesday, a bunch of us got together to watch the inauguration at the IES Center, which was pretty incredible. They streamed it through a projector so it was nice and big. I remember thinking to myself “When I think back on this moment years from now, I will remember sitting in a castle, eating a Kabob and drinking a Fanta” That morning it was also exciting to get off of the train and see that the headline of the news paper read “Die Welt Hofft auf Obama”--- “The World Hopes for Obama.” Pretty exciting, eh?
On Wednesday, we found out our ensemble assignments for the Performance Workshop. I was assigned the role of Susanna in the opening duet “Cinque… dieci…” from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. I’m excited to sing with Nate, who I’ve been paired with and I am already familiar with the opera and role from other arias that I’ve sung. I’ve also been assigned a piece from Lester Trimble’s setting of The Canterbury Tales. This should be challenging both rhythmically and phonetically since it is in middle English, but I’m sure it will be fun. For this set, there are 3 other vocalists, an oboe, flute and piano.
It was a pretty eventful weekend. On Saturday, my roommates and I went to the Fleemarket. This happens every Saturday and is basically a giant garage sale. It is located at the end of the Naschmarkt, an open-air market where you can find all kinds of fresh fruit, vegetables, cheese and meat for really good prices. I got a pretty green scarf.
That night, Angie, Christa and I made a valiant attempt at making cookies without vanilla extract, or measuring mechanisms… they turned out pretty well actually. We then accidentally fell asleep at 9:30 at night and proceeded to sleep for the next 12 hours! It was fabulous.
But the most exciting parts of the weekend, going to my first Viennese operas! On Friday, we went to see (for you UNHers reading) The Magic Flute at the Volksoper. This is an opera house where every opera that shows is in German, we paid 1.50 Euro for standing room tickets and then were able to take the empty seats after the overture. The show was very well done. And there were lots of little kids in the audience who laughed at all the German jokes, which was adorable (because the opera was written for children).
Then, on Sunday, we went to go see Massenet’s Manon at the Statsoper, which was amazing! The staging was brilliant, the musicians were flawless, the opera house was gorgeous and I was drooling over the French, just because I love the language so much. It was fantastic and I’m looking forward to going again.
I think that is all for now. This is our last week of intensive German, then I’ll go with other IES students on a tour of Berlin. The next week we will start our regular classes. I’ve contacted my recommended voice teacher and will hopefully meet with her before the end of the week, and on Thursday, we are going to a ball! I’ll be sure to post more pictures soon. Thanks as always for reading. I’m sending my love your way.
Until next time,
Caitlin
Hello Everyone,
I’m so sorry for not writing sooner. Needless to say, it has been a pretty crazy week. Crazy, but wonderful.
I have to say that I think I held myself together pretty well when saying good-bye to my family and Aaron at the airport. We got to the airport early and got to sit and talk over coffee for a while before I left which was really fun. I started to cry as I walked towards security, but the TSA guy at the gate, joked with me that I wasn’t allowed to so I promptly sucked it up.
I had a nice surprise after going through security, a friend of mine from high school, Daryl, was working there! It was such a gift to see a familiar smiling face after feeling like I would never see another one again. After getting past security, the confidence kicked in and I realized, “Okay, I can do this.” I didn’t really have a choice, there was no one there to hold my hand, it was all on me.
Both of my flights went smoothly. On my way to Zurich, I was seated next to a girl about my age who was going to Berlin to visit her boyfriend. She had studied abroad the year before and told me about some of her experiences. Fortunately, I was able to sleep through most of the flight, which was great. I also found a very nice card that my sister had hid in my bag for me, which made me smile inside and out.
During my layover in Zurich, I met Colleen, another IES student who is very nice. I really enjoyed talking to her and she is now in my German class. Then! When I got on the plane, I was seated next to another IES student, Angie. She is another music student, soprano. We related on a lot of levels and ended up talking for almost the entire 2-hour plane ride. She is now one of my best friends here.
After landing, Angie and I met up with a few other students who were arriving around the same time. We were all staying in the same area and took the bus there together, and then met up for dinner later that night. After dinner I went back to my hotel room and spent some time trying to figure out how my phone worked, but it was eventually somewhat successful.
The next day, I walked to the Westbahnhof to meet up with the rest of the people in my program. Then we loaded onto our busses and rode to our orientation in the Alps. That is where I met Danielle and Brian, who would eventually become two of my roommates.
Orientation was fun, we had meetings in the morning, free time/activities in the afternoon and then more meetings/ activities in the evening. I got to see my first castle, it was a little disappointing, but I’m looking forward to seeing more of them. I learned how to waltz, witnessed lumberjack polka-dancing, and found out that after one glass of wine on an empty stomach the room starts spinning… good to know!
At orientation we took care of housing and it all worked out extremely well. I’m living in a four person apt. with Danielle and Brian, who are dating, and Tyler who is from New Market, NH! It is only about a 30 minute commute from school which is pretty great and the stop for the street car that we take is directly outside of our apt. Additionally, there are 4 other apartments in our building of IES students. Our friends Angie, Christa and Lindsay are right upstairs. Our apt. is beautiful, and huge and super 80’s in decorations, it is awesome!
On Monday we started our intensive German class. It was incredibly intimidating the first couple of days because I didn’t remember anything from when I took it freshman year. But I talked to my professor about it and she helped me to feel confident that it would eventually come back. So in addition to my regular homework assignments, I’ve been reviewing my old text book a bit each night. I love my professor and the class is very small, only 12 people so there is a lot of opportunity for speaking and questions.
On Monday, my roommate Brian and I got a rather rude introduction to Vienna’s public transportation system as we spent 2 hours going in all the wrong directions before eventually ending up back at our apt. It was surely an adventure to remember and a bonding experience, if nothing else.
On Wednesday, I had my audition for the Performance Workshop, to which I’ve been accepted! I felt like the audition went well. I sang Mozart’s Vedrai Carino and Bellini’s O Quante Volte. I think I’ve sung both better before because I was more nervous than I anticipated, but I got really positive feedback from all of my peers and felt as though I showcased my capabilities well. We have a meeting this coming Wednesday where we will find out who our private teachers are and what ensembles we’ve been assigned to. My roommate, Brian, is a piano major and we are both hoping we’ll be placed in the same ensemble, but we’ll see.
Yesterday, Saturday, IES hosted a bus tour of the city that was about 3 hours long and we passed by/ stopped at some of the major historical places in the city. I’ve included a couple of pictures.
It took a bit of time, but I feel like I’m settling in well. While I’m still getting used to having so much travel time between home and school, it is really nice to be able to come home to such a great apt at the end of the day. I’ve been having to remind myself to let go of some of my American tendencies, mainly related to feeling the need to be on the go all the time. I love that everything here closes at 7 on the weekdays and closes all together on Sundays, it kind of forces me to slow down during those times.
There have certainly been times that I’ve missed the comfort of familiarity, but I know that that will come here with time. There were also rough moments to the past week and a half, but I really do love it here and I can’t wait to see where the next four months take me.
I’m sorry that this post was so long, I’ll try to update more regularly so that they are not all quite this lengthy. As always, feel free to email me or send snail mail because that is always exciting. Also, I have skype capabilities; this is a free phone-like service via internet that I use to talk to Aaron and my parents. It is very easy to set up, let me know if you have any questions about it. Thank you so much for reading. You are all in my thoughts daily which is a beautiful gift of home that I always keep with me.
Love,
Caitlin
P.S. I'm very sorry that there are no pictures with this post. I tried to upload them in the internet cafe across the street from my apt. but it would not work. I will try again tomorrow from the IES Center and hopefully I'll have better luck.
